Urban Ecological Planning (Master's Programme)

Urban Ecological Planning (UEP) is a practice-based program that enables students to develop skills and knowledge to address complex urban issues in rapidly changing social, cultural, political, and environmental contexts. The program stresses an integrated approach to strategic spatial change, with a specific focus on participatory, inclusive, and developmental planning practice.

The program addresses urban realities in developed countries and the Global South. Developed countries face challenges such as aging and declining population, health hazards and exclusion of ethnic minorities. Low- and middle- income regions struggle with rapid population growth, socio-spatial inequalities, deficient infrastructure, environmental degradation, and weak institutional capacity. There is thus an urgent need to change outdated laws and regulations and the technocratic approaches that are still prevalent in many countries. We believe that planning should be focused on people and urban challenges are effectively addressed by working with the communities.

The main research themes in UEP include:

• Various aspects of informality in urban areas,
• Access to land, housing, and basic services for the urban poor,
• Planning in situations of crisis, such as natural hazards and post-conflict reconstruction,
• Participatory processes in planning for excluded and marginalized communities,
• Institutional alternatives for planning in resource scarcity.