- As of the 2022/2023 the MCRP program updated its curriculum. This page represents its new format. If you are enrolled in MCRP's 2021/22 year, see the 2021-22 version of your curriculum.
- Watch for course eligibility carefully.
- Non-SCARP students who wish to take eligible SCARP courses may contact info.scarp@ubc.ca to enquire.
- For course dates and times, or more information, please visit the UBC Course Schedule.
- Are you an undergrad student looking to take a graduate course?
Courses
PLAN 540 : Planning Praxis
Learn about professional planning practice and appropriate professional conduct directly from practice internship experience. Develop understanding of the processes of social change and action in relation to real world administrative and institutional settings.
- Level
- Master's
- Eligibility
- Enrolled in MCRP
PLAN 541 : Planning Studio
Collaborate with classmates and community, municipal, and private sector organizations in a mini-consultancy capacity to complete a real-world planning project for a real-world clients or project partners.
- Level
- Master's
- Eligibility
- Enrolled in MCRP
PLAN 542 : City Planning as a Craft
This course will explore the approach, roles, styles, and essential skills of planners in the normal situations of practical urban planning. Typical planning formats will be surveyed: area planning; policy planning; development management. Regulatory tools, development economics, practical urban design, and applied sustainability will be emphasized.
- Level
- Master's
- Eligibility
- UBC Graduate Student
PLAN 543 : ICP Practicum
The ICP Practicum consists of (1) the Studio, which provides students an opportunity to experience service directly with an Indigenous community/agency, and (2) the Capstone, which allows students to articulate and demonstrate their competency developed in Indigenous community planning.
- Level
- Master's
- Eligibility
- UBC Graduate Student
PLAN 548E : Current Issues in Planning: LED Theory, Issues and Applications
Local Economic Development (LED) is centered on local resources, capacity and leadership to build sustainable communities, towns and cities. The course will introduce students to the principles, approaches and tools to LED through lessons and case studies drawn from Canadian and developing countries context. Include prerequisites.
- Level
- Master's
- Eligibility
- UBC Graduate Student
PLAN 548G : Current Issues in Planning: Critical Spatial Thinking for Urban Planning
This course prepares urban planning students to be critical spatial thinkers. Students develop skills in geographic information systems as a tool for solving planning problems while critically engaging with the contextual dynamics that impact spatial data and analysis.
- Level
- Master's
- Eligibility
- UBC Graduate Student
PLAN 548L : Current Issues in Planning: Urban Transport Systems
This course provides an overview of multi-modal urban transportation systems, including key characteristics, interactions, and analytical techniques. There are no prerequisites for the course, but some quantitative analysis is required and students should be comfortable working with spreadsheet software.
- Level
- Master's
- Eligibility
- UBC Graduate Student
PLAN 548M : Current Issues in Planning: Urban Planning and Policy in the Global South
This course examines urban planning and policy in the Global South. We analyze the place of urbanization, and urban settlements more broadly, in the diverse and rapidly changing countries in the Global South. We address urbanization, relevant for students hoping to pursue professional planning work or engage in research on urbanization and development. We will examine urban policy decisions and draw on case studies and examples from around the world to examine how these policies play out. We introduce the historical context for urban growth in the Global South; examine colonial policies towards urban settlements and urbanization and the ways in which post-independence governments have built upon and departed from these approaches to planning; address policy and paradigms regarding the challenges facing contemporary urban settlements in the Global South; and examine overlaps between experiences in the Global South and North.
- Level
- Master's
- Eligibility
- UBC Graduate Student
PLAN 548O : Current Issues in Planning: City Hall Work
This course looks at local governments from a teams approach. You will learn the practicalities of day to day Planning Department operations (e.g. OCP amendments, municipal permits, public notices). You will also learn how Planning interacts with Corporate Services (e.g. bylaw adoptions, Council agendas), with Engineering (e.g. subdivisions, servicing, letters of credit), with the Land Department (e.g. title searches, rights of way, property transfers), with Finance (e.g. reserve funds, financial assistance), with Legal (e.g. lawyer undertakings, land title registrations), with Risk Management (e.g. insurance, indemnities), with Parks (e.g. dedication), with Building (e.g. permits, stop work orders) and with other City departments. The goal of this course is prepare you to work as a professional planner. There are no required readings. There are two assignments, which are designed to be both informative and useful for your careers.
- Level
- Master's
- Eligibility
- UBC Graduate Student
PLAN 548Q : Current Issues in Planning: Futures Planning
In the process of planning with change and planning for change, planners indelibly play an active role in shaping the future. It is this relationship to the future that makes planning fundamentally transformative—where plans and policies can wield long-term effects on people and places (for better or worse). Yet, the notion of “futures” as a crucial dimension of planning is often understudied. This course will engage with the imaginative and visionary potential of planning.
- Level
- Master's
- Eligibility
- UBC Graduate Student
PLAN 548R : Current Issues in Planning: Urban Analytics
As more aspects of daily life become digitally mediated, planners can study urban processes in new ways. Urban analytics is an umbrella term for using new data forms in combination with computational approaches to better understand cities. While increasing data availability allows us to ask new questions –or shed new light on enduring ones– planners need to understand and weigh the risks and opportunities of this data revolution. This course teaches the fundamentals and application of python coding for urban data science. Students work on mini-research projects to apply their knowledge, and develop literacy in urban analytics publications and the field’s quickly evolving debates.
- Level
- Master's
- Eligibility
- Enrolled in MaP/MScP
PLAN 548S : Current Issues in Planning: Smart Ethical Cities
This course explains the latest advancements and the broader ethical and societal implications of new data and technology for urban planning; reviews macro level drivers of urban change; critically analyzes metrics and indicators for measuring the performance of cities in the context of technology efficiency, economic growth, social equity and quality of life; and introduces concepts from AI and data science for planning and policy, as well as citizen engagement and ethical risk assessment.
- Level
- Master's
- Eligibility
- UBC Graduate Student
PLAN 549C : Master's Thesis
Research and preparation of a thesis on a topic in public policy or professional practice.
- Level
- Master's
- Eligibility
- Enrolled in MaP/MScP
PLAN 550A/PLAN 550B : Directed Studies
In special cases and with the approval of the MCRP Program Chair, a student may study an advanced topic under the direction of a faculty member.
- Level
- Master's
- Eligibility
- UBC Graduate Student
PLAN 558 : The Role of Theory in Planning Research
The instructor will offer an overview of benchmarks in the evolution of planning theory, and its relationship with political movements and transitions in governance and policy values and models, as well as principal urban theory drawn from the fields of sociology, geography, anthropology, political science, and cultural studies.
- Level
- Master's
- Eligibility
- Enrolled in MaP/MScP