Handbook

Planning Practice: Policies and Processes unpacks the complexities of the policy-making process to help you understand how and why decisions get made in the diverse world of planning. You will explore how wide-ranging strategies are converted into actions, how diverse interests intersect in pragmatic ways, and the advantages of state and local vehicles for policy innovations. Building on this, you will also reflect upon and develop your understanding of the multiple roles planners play in urban development processes: at the strategic level; through development assessments; and within the decision-making processes of the development industry.

Central to the practice year experience, this course will guide you through your first role in the planning sector, provoke you to draw upon your own experiences to think more critically about the planning sector’s complexity and competing objectives, and inform your development as a planning professional. You will bring real world examples of the opportunities and challenges of your professional placement into the classroom, and learn from the diversity of other students’ experiences, to integrate insights across theory and practice.