Becoming an Urban Planner

Becoming an URBAN PLANNER Are you considering a career in urban planning? Becoming an Urban Planner is the best place to start. Through in-depth interviews with more than eighty urban planners across the United States and Canada, this book gives you a valuable insider’s look at your future profession as it is lived and practiced.

Becoming an Urban Planner introduces you to the urban planning profession—its history, what you must know to prepare for a career in planning, and the different types of planning jobs. Beyond the basics, though, it shows you the realities of what it’s really like to be a planner today. You’ll learn about:

The skills you’ll need and how to hone them in school and on the job
Potential career paths and what people in these positions do
Using internships, job shadowing, and other opportunities to break into the field
Deciding among planning specialties and moving between public and private sectors
How to search for and get your first position
Emerging areas in planning, including sustainability and climate change

Each topic is explored through in-depth interviews with both generalists and others who have devoted their careers to a particular aspect of planning. These professionals share their insights and describe how they have arrived at where they are and how beginners like you can learn from their experiences.

With the information from this book to guide and inspire you, you will be able to chart your own path to success as an urban planner.

Author Biography

MICHAEL BAYER, AICP, is a planner with Environmental Resources Management in Annapolis, Maryland. Before becoming an urban planner, he was a newspaper reporter whose articles have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Journal Gazette, the Post-Bulletin, as well as Planning magazine.

NANCY FRANK, PhD, AICP, is an associate professor and the chair of the department of urban planning at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning. Frank has been instrumental in the development of the School for Urban Planning and Architecture (SUPAR), a charter Milwaukee public high school that opened in fall 2007.

JASON VALERIUS, AICP, is a planner and urban designer for MSA Professional Services, in Madison, Wisconsin. Valerius served for four years as assistant editor of the Wisconsin Chapter of the American Planning Association quarterly newsletter (WAPANews).