Core faculty: Professors Brian Stone, Perry Yang, and YiYi He
The Environment, Climate, and Design Specialization (ECD) integrates knowledge and tools from the fields of environmental management, climate science, and urban design. A core focus of the specialization is to better understand how the design of the built environment impacts environmental quality and human health. Rapid changes in global-to-local scale climates intensify a range of longstanding challenges in the realm of environmental planning, such as the enhancement of air and water quality. In addition, once episodic health threats in the form of extreme heat and flooding events are occurring with greater frequency. The ECD Specialization places particular emphasis on climate change and its impacts on environmental quality and urban design practice as core knowledge areas for planning students. ECD coursework is structured to emphasize the scientific and regulatory foundations of environmental planning, analytical tools to measure environmental and health interactions, and a set of strategies to guide the physical design of the built environment.
Students pursuing the ECD specialization are prepared for employment in a number of areas. Traditionally, these include private firms, as consultants to a range of land development activities, and government, as policy analysts, regulators, and resilience/sustainability program directors or managers. Urban planners with ECD expertise are also commonly employed in non-governmental organizations with a diverse range of missions focusing on climate change adaptation/mitigation, natural resource protection, public health, energy conservation, urban design, and environmental justice.
To prepare students for employment in these areas of planning, the ECD Specialization requires the following two courses:
CP 6213 Urban Environmental Planning and Design
CP 6552 Urban Ecological Design/Design of Smart Urban Systems
In addition, students must take one additional course drawn from a list of courses focused on climate change and one additional course drawn from a list of courses focused on urban design (minimum of 12 credit hours total).
Climate Change Courses (Choose 1)
CP 6190 Intro to Climate Change Planning (elective; do our best to offer annually)
CP 6217 Climate Change and the City (annual)
CP 6545 Climate Change Analytics (elective; do our best to offer annually)
Urban Design Courses (Choose 1)
CP 6834 Urban Design Policy and Implementation (annual)
ARCH 6151 Theories of Urban Design
COA 6151 History of Urban Form
Additional courses of possible interest to ECD students include:
CP 6105 Land Conservation (elective; do our best to offer annually)
CP 6223 Policy Tools for Environmental Management (unlikely to be offered soon)
CP 6233 Sustainable Urban Development (annual)
CP 6541 Environmental Analysis using GIS (elective; do our best to offer annually)
CP 6531 Introduction to Remote Sensing (annual)
CP 6760 Negotiation, Facilitation & Conflict Management (was annual, looking for instructor)
CP 6850 Public Health and the Built Environment (annual)
CP 6005 Drawing for Planners (unlikely to be offered soon)
CP 6006 Visualization for Planners (annual)
CP 8873 Urban Systems Design Workshop (cross-listed with School of Aerospace Eng.)
COA 6120 Retrofitting Suburbia
ARCH 6151 Theories of Urban Design
ARCH 6153 History and Theory of the Modern City
ARCH 6228 Analytic Investment in Urban Design
CEE 8813 Complete Streets Design
PUBP 6740 Social Justice and Design
EAS 6135 Introduction to Complex Environmental Systems
Students interested in environmental justice issues may want to contact the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark-Atlanta University for more information.
Students in this specialization are well situated to obtain the Certificate of Sustainable Energy and Environmental Management (CSEEM) offered by the School of Public Policy.
