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City & Regional Planning

Optional Courses

Students on the MSc in City & Regional Planning are required to take the following 40 credits of planning courses:

  • Contemporary Planning Systems examines the spatial planning system, focusing on its evolution, structure and processes. It critically explores the institutional and legal framework within which planning takes place and critically engages contemporary planning practices, debates, theories, controversies, issues and concerns. While emphasising British planning systems, the course brings in a lot of international examples.
  • Designing Places provides students with an appreciation of the importance and process of design in creating high quality places and enhancing the public realm and to evaluate the effectiveness of alternative design approaches in achieving this.
  • Spatial Planning Strategies seeks to enable and encourage students to generate visionary and imaginative responses to spatial planning challenges, which are realistic and derive from substantial investigation and analysis of relevant data and other evidence.

In addition, students are required to select 20 credits of specialist courses taken from the following list:

Design Policy and Appreciation. Students on this specialism must take Urban Design Policy & Practice. This 10 credit course provides an in-depth appreciation and knowledge of contemporary debates in urban design policy, in design control/regulation, and the role and salience of design within contemporary development control/management. They are also required to take an approved design course offered in Urban Design by the Department of Architecture, University of Strathclyde. Students are expected to develop a design related topic for their dissertation.

Planning for Housing Markets.  Students on this specialism take Sustainable Housing Development which is a 20 credits course that evaluates what is meant by sustainable housing development and explores the process by which it is most likely to be delivered. The course therefore seeks to integrate consideration of a range of housing design, development and management issues, with an equal emphasis given to private and social housing.  Students are expected to develop a housing related topic for their dissertation.