The Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University provides a dynamic, rigorous, and supportive context for addressing the most urgent planning questions of our time.
Our faculty and students plan for a sustainable future, confront inequality, transform the built environment, engage communities, and re-imagine planning by reflecting on theories, practices, contradictions, and politics. At CRP, the next generation of planners and urbanists hone critical disciplinary planning and urban studies skills through a wide selection of courses offered by the department, the college, and Cornell, a world-class Ivy League university.
Highlights
Register Now for Urban Studies Summer Programs
At The Department of City and Regional Planning (CRP), we believe urbanists can and should take up some of our world's most complex and urgent challenges — from decarbonization and climate adaptation to accessibility and housing to fair governance and policymaking — and come together to create thriving, healthy places for people of all generations and identities. Spend your summer at Cornell and immerse yourself in the critical questions that shape cities today.
CRP Department Highlights 2024
Browse a selection of CRP images from the fall 2024 semester in AAP's Flickr gallery.
Our Priorities
Place-Based Collaborative Research
We work closely with communities, planners, and scholars across places and disciplines to exchange ideas and develop data-driven theories and practices that shape public discourse and engage critical social issues.
Justice, Equity, Sustainability
We study the built environment, governance, policymaking, and everyday life to address justice, equity, and sustainability in planning for infrastructure, affordable housing, and climate adaptation.
Connecting Multiple Scales
We embrace theories and practices that draw connections across neighborhood, city, regional, and global scales to shape cities and regions now and for the future.
Global Practice, Local Impact
We work in cities and communities across the Global North and South to bring together different ways of teaching, learning, and practicing that create new possibilities in planning.
"My commitment to planning equity and justice is rooted in my own ties to the land and the trauma I witnessed when I-80 punched through the eminent domain portions of my grandfather's and uncle's farms in Liberty Valley."
"I revel in a deeper understanding of the real estate industry because it is a constant source of insights into how our economic and political systems fail to create secure and affordable housing for all members of society."
"My main commitment as a scholar has been primarily about studying inequities that arise from market externalities. While my training is in economics, my research interests have always related to issues of importance to cities and planners."
"In my research on creative place-keeping and circular cities, I ask: How can city planning and preservation engage with material care for the built environment while advancing more equitable communities and just places?"
Degree Programs
Urban and Regional Studies (B.S. URS)
Four-year, undergraduate Bachelor of Science in Urban and Regional Studies
Two-year, professional, accredited Master of Regional Planning
Two-year Master of Science in Regional Science
Historic Preservation Planning (M.A. HPP)
Two-year Master of Arts in Historic Preservation Planning
City and Regional Planning (Ph.D. CRP)
Doctoral degree in City and Regional Planning
Doctoral degree in Regional Science
Landscape Architecture (M.R.P. / M.L.A.)
Dual master's degree in Regional Planning and Landscape Architecture
Real Estate (M.R.P. / M.P.S. RE)
Dual master's degree in Regional Planning and Real Estate
New Podcast Explores "Wicked" Urban Problems and Actions Across Scales
The Good City connects people with a passion for urban issues, both within and outside academia, through engaging conversations and shared knowledge.
Admitted Class of 2029 Channels Passions into Knowledge
Through volunteer work, research, and advocacy, the 5,824 students admitted to the Class of 2029 reflect Cornell's commitment to changing lives through public engagement, the Cornell Chronicle reports.
CRP Faculty on Zwei auf Eins
Radio Eins: Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning Stephan Schmidt discusses his research into the cooling effect of urban green spaces on the radio show Zwei auf Eins on Radio Eins, Radio Berlin Brandenburg [Audio is in German and starts at 26:30].
Monday, March 10, 2025Cornell Students Help Design Park Renovations in the Southern Tier
WBNG: Cornell Design Connect students are working on the initial plans for the renovation of Boland Park in Johnson City and Cook Park in the Town of Greene.
Tuesday, February 11, 2025Jumping Off the "Conveyor Belt of Doom": How We Could Build New Buildings with Old Ones
21st Century Construction: CRP Associate Professor Jennifer Minner and Susan Christopherson Center for Community Planning Project Director Gretchen Worth (M.A. HPP '20), coauthors of "Constructing a Circular Economy in New York State: Deconstruction and Building Material Reuse," discuss the white paper's findings.
Wednesday, November 20, 2024Hochul Set to Resurrect Congestion Pricing at $9
The City: Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning Nicholas J. Klein adds his perspective to this article on the revival of congestion pricing in New York City.
Friday, November 15, 2024
Demographic Ageing: an Opportunity to Rethink Economy, Society, and Regions
CRP Professor Mildred Warner and Xue Zhang (Ph.D. RS '19) are among the authors of this paper, suggesting that an "active aging" agenda requires rethinking the economy, urban form, and societal responses.
How Can We Support NYC's Housing Coops in Adapting to Climate Change?
Coauthored by Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning Linda Shi and Environmental Defense Fund Senior Analyst Anushi Garg (M.R.P. '20), this post focuses on New York City, the housing affordability crisis, and the impacts of climate change.
A Portrait of New York City by Air in 1924
In this article written by CRP Professor Thomas J. Campanella, we read about the days before Google Maps, when an intrepid inventor with three camera-equipped biplanes captured groundbreaking views of Gotham in its Jazz Age glory.
Nataya Friedan: Climate Change and the Labor of Forgetting in Houston
Hear a lecture that follows civil servants, activists, politicians, and business people as they grapple with climate change evidence in an oil industry town.
Daniel Agbiboa: Does Africa Need Elite Cities? Eko Atlantic, Climate Urbanism, and the Surrounds of Lagos
Join a lecture that examines Eko Atlantic City in Lagos, Nigeria, as a manifestation of worlding-cities, critiquing how such megaprojects amplify socio-spatial inequalities and ecological precarity.
Andrés Blanco: Urban Infrastructure in the Amazon Basin, Challenges and Opportunities
Attend a lecture that describes the ongoing effort to understand the challenges and opportunities associated with accelerated urbanization processes and their impacts on Amazonia's critical ecosystems and sustainability.
Marisa Turesky: Locating Lesbian Lives — Holistic Housing in a Compassionate City
Listen to a lecture that demonstrates the gendered and queer pathways toward health justice and community development over time by applying a queer-feminist lens to the frameworks for aging-in-place
Student Focus
