Learn to understand complex urban processes and develop scalable sustainable strategies to make cities inclusive, competitive, compact, and resilient.
How to transform cities into healthier, more sustainable, inclusive, and attractive places where people and nature can thrive? What can be changed in transport, infrastructures, climate change adaptation, and disaster preparedness to improve local residents’ quality of life, promote innovation, and reduce environmental impacts? In the specialisation in Urban Planning and Management, you will learn to apply GIS-based and statistical methods to develop new sustainable strategies for problems such as urban sprawl, inefficient use of land that causes housing shortage, increasing overcrowding, the strain on energy and water resources, inefficient transport systems, and lack of access to economic opportunities.
What is Urban Planning and Management?
The magnitude and dynamics of urbanisation all over the world place an enormous burden on city authorities, planners, and other stakeholders responsible for the planning and management of urban regions. You can play a vital role in developing effective interventions contributing to sustainable urban development. For example, how can you ensure all urban residents have access to clean water supplies and good drainage systems? How can you accurately map the boundaries of slums? What about developing a planning support tool for bicycle-friendly urban areas? How can you support cities to better prepare and respond to natural hazards? In the Specialisation in Urban Planning and Management, you will investigate these and similar cases and develop relevant sustainable solutions by applying geo-information science and technologies.
In our Design and Interactive Space for Co-Creating (The DISC), you will gain hands-on experience and develop strategies and interventions for real urban problems. Do you want to investigate what urban areas are vulnerable to natural hazards and how the vulnerability affects different socio-economic groups? Or what about analysing accessibility to urban green spaces, community services, or schools? You might also map pollution risk in a neighbourhood in India. There is a great variety of challenges you will learn to solve!
What will you learn?
As a graduate of the Master's in Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation with a specialisation in Urban Planning and Management, you have acquired specific scientific knowledge, skills, and values that will help you in your future career.
Knowledge
After completing this Master’s specialisation, you:
- have a solid knowledge of key urban planning and management theories and practices as a basis for understanding urban problems and processes;
- have a solid knowledge of geo-information science-based approaches to address urban planning and management problems;
- can critically assess the use of geo-information methods applied to urban planning and management.
Skills
After successfully finishing this Master’s specialisation, you:
- can carry out spatial analysis to understand and address urban processes and problems;
- can contribute - through group work and research - to the development of geo-information based interventions for urban planning and management;
- can effectively communicate results with various stakeholders.
Values
After completing this Master’s specialisation, you:
- use geospatial data and science in an ethical way;
- understand the transdisciplinary collaboration required to address the sustainable development goals related to urban planning and management;
- are intrinsically motivated to help make cities sustainable, inclusive, competitive, compact, and resilient.
Other masters and specialisations
Is this specialisation not exactly what you are looking for? Maybe one of the other specialisations suits you better. You can also find out more about related Master’s at the University of Twente: