Urban Studies furthers understanding of the forces that shape cities and how to redirect those forces. Urbanisation has shaped and continues to shape the processes of social and environmental change.

Co-taught with UBC's Department of Geography, the major in Urban Studies combines foundational and applied knowledge with progressively advanced community-engaged learning. 

The first of its kind in British Columbia, this program provides students with the training and technical skills necessary for future careers in urban-oriented professions. 

Graduates will be awarded a Bachelor of Arts. 

Why Urban Studies matters

You are part of the first generation to live in an urban world. While there are many individual cities that can be traced back hundreds or thousands of years, it was only a few years ago that the world crossed the fifty-percent threshold: for the first time ever, the majority of people in the world live in an urban area. 

Over the next century, all of the world’s net population growth will take place in urban regions, and nearly every aspect of economic, social, political, technological, and environmental change is urbanizing.  

The challenges and opportunities of the world are now urban problems and possibilities, and debates about urban futures have only been heightened during the latest global health pandemic.  

Cities are at the forefront of global responses to climate change; urban policy is seen as a key catalyst for transitioning to a sustainable and just society; and the data and technologies available to understand and shape urbanization are leaping forward – now, more than ever, we need people who are deeply trained to be city-makers. 

Students in Urban Studies explore questions such as: 

• How do different cities reflect different societies and histories? How do urban processes change societies through innovation, rural-to-urban migration, and social and political movements? 
• How have the cities produced through histories of industrial capitalism and colonialism shaped our relations to one another and to nature? How can today’s cities help create more sustainable and equitable futures? 
• How do cities concentrate the greatest achievements of human creativity — art, literature, technology, architecture, engineering — into legacies that shape the lives of future generations? 
• How are separate cities integrated into regional, national, and transnational networks through flows of people, commodities, money, and ideas? 

Why should I choose Urban Studies?

Apply specialized skills such as technical data analysis, dialogue and engagement practices, political- and policy-oriented communication, and/or development finance strategies, to broad challenges focused on:

• Renaturing cities
• Globalizing cities
• Indigenous urban life
• Technology and cities
• Community engagement in cities

With these tools, graduates will have a professional identity premised on a strong ability to critically integrate urban interventions with broader efforts to address complex societal challenges.

The Urban Studies program gives you understanding and networking connections to several other disciplines, and provides pathways to graduate planning programs and other opportunities.

Students taking the Major in Urban Studies will also have a wide range of potential career paths after graduation, including: 

• Urban and regional planning 
• Local and federal government 
• Environmental design 
• Social and community service 
• City administration 
• Urban agriculture 

• Social policy research 
• Green building 
• Housing innovation 
• Decarbonisation in cities 
• Public engagement consulting 
• Real estate and development 

Why Urban Studies at UBC

“Simply aggregating what we know doesn’t get us to, ‘How do we get to new innovations?’ ‘How do we systematise today’s biggest challenges and learn what transformation can truly look like?’”

James Connolly, Co-Chair, UBC Urban Studies program

 

The Major in Urban Studies was built in consultation with industry professionals, made up of everything city halls, government ministries, transport authorities, and more need from professionals in the coming years. With a degree forged after industry needs, you’re on track to become a competitive professional with a unique breadth of tangible skills and excellence in your chosen area.

Because you don’t want to leave UBC with only a completely general knowledge base: 

you want to be able to tell an employer, ‘This is what I’m deeply proficient in’, 

and have that expertise be the answer to their biggest problems.

You'll prepare to shape the vision for future cities through roles as thought leaders, analysts, and advocates. While you have the chance to gear your degree to your own lens and goals, by the time you graduate, you'll have done the following:

Inquire about urban life:

Critically interpret what shapes human settlement, historically and into the future. Learn from the global community of cities and cultures, about planning models, community engagement, and alternative ways of organizing urban life.

Learn urban practice:

Design effective strategies for positive change in cities. Understand how infrastructure and spatial patterns affect one another. Acquire professional-level skills in making policy arguments, gathering and interpreting research findings, and advocacy.

Participate in urban research:

Crtically analyse and then apply state-of-the-art theories, policies, and practices about cities and how they change. Expose new possibilities for the future of urbanisation. Develop analyses and strategies for critical interpretation.

Collaborate with urban communities:

Undertake participatory research. Engage with competing views on how cities evolve. Navigate the ethical implications of collaboration. Understand how place, space, and scale impact urbanisation to create uneven outcomes for communities.

 Curriculum

Please review all information on requirements before you proceed here. 

Admission to the program is by application. Students will normally apply at the end of Year 1 for Year 2 entry.

Your application will include...

• A copy of your overall transcript
• Grades from Gateway Courses (if you have taken them)*, including:
  -GEOG 250
  -PLAN 211
• A statement (500 words maximum) indicating motivations for applying