Our top-ranked Master of Urban and Regional Planning (M.U.R.P.) degree prepares you to lead the way toward better urban and regional futures. You will become a future-focused practitioner who plans for and engages with communities for the greater good, a core value at our top-ranked, research-intensive public university. You will learn to apply your theoretical and practical knowledge and skills to any number of career paths, from private business to social impact non-profit organizations to public sector agencies at all levels. Our robust core curriculum and deeply committed faculty focus your learning on solutions that consider current and future planning and city-making scenarios for society, climate, and technology. You will engage in co-creative planning that involves building places, institutions, and policies with people and for people, while pursuing sustainable solutions that take into account the environmental impact on the planet. You will gain a theoretical and practical foundation and advanced skills that prepare you to make real-world impact from day one as part of a diverse and thriving network of deeply engaged faculty, students, staff, and alumni around the world. The Master of Urban and Regional Planning program offers students a robust core curriculum and the opportunity to explore a broad range of topics. The focus areas listed provide guidance about elective courses a student could take to gain depth in specific areas. Metropolitan regions across the world are facing growing housing unaffordability, rising income inequality, and widening wealth gaps that are tearing our cities and neighborhoods apart. How can planners and policymakers respond to those challenges What actions can they take to address them This focus area provides students with the conceptual and analytical framework to examine the underlying causes of those challenges and, more importantly, the knowledge and skills they will need to tackle those problems. Courses in this focus area include the study of different policy instruments and what makes them work or not work, the creation and financing of housing and real estate development that offers opportunities to households of all income levels, the structuring of public and private partnerships that will ensure equitable distribution of costs and benefits from urban development and redevelopment. Graduates of this focus area will be able to work with for-profit and nonprofit affordable housing developers, community development corporations and intermediaries, and different levels of government agencies focusing on housing and community development.