Urban planners work to shape a city’s future, often blending practicality and creativity to design functional and vibrant spaces. These developmental stewards typically tackle pressing urban challenges, with the goal of making communities more lively and sustainable.
Read on to learn more about urban planners, including their job duties, as well as steps needed to become an urban planner in your local municipality.
What is an Urban Planner?
Urban planners design and implement plans for the development of urban areas, with a focus on creating sustainable, efficient, and people-friendly cities. Urban planners consider factors like infrastructure, housing, and environmental impact and collaborate with municipal officials to ensure the effective functioning and well-being of communities.
Urban planners aim to boost quality of life in urban areas. They ensure transportation, land, infrastructure, environment, and community development come together seamlessly to benefit the community.
Roles and Responsibilities
An urban planner performs several key roles and responsibilities, including:
Land Use Planning
Urban planners create and enforce zoning regulations, ensuring proper land use. They regulate development of commercial, residential, industrial, and recreational areas.
They also develop long-term master plans for various city areas and evaluate potential sites for development. The site evaluation task involves analyzing a site’s infrastructure, topography, current land use, and other factors to ensure robust development.
Transportation Planning
Urban planners design city transportation systems such as buses, subways, trains, and light rail.
These professionals also manage traffic. They analyze traffic flow patterns and design intersections, roadways, and traffic control systems.
Environmental Sustainability
Urban planners design green spaces, parks, and recreational areas to boost environmental sustainability. They also develop waste management strategies including waste reduction, recycling, and disposal, to improve an urban area’s environmental impact.
Economic Development
Urban planners also plan and develop business districts to stimulate economic activities. They often coordinate incentive programs such as grants to attract business owners and investors, thereby creating sources of income and jobs.
Community Development
Urban planners engage with organizations, businesses, and residents to incorporate local community needs into their work. They also plan affordable housing, housing rehabilitation, and mixed-use developments to enhance inclusivity and diversity.
Pay and Notoriety
According to 2023 ZipRecruiter data, urban planners earn an average of $6,519 per month in the U.S.
How to Become an Urban Planner
Working as an urban planner requires relevant skills and experience. You can acquire the expertise through formal education, networking, and internships.
1. Obtain a Bachelor’s Degree
Prospective urban planners often pursue degrees in urban studies, architecture, geography, or environmental science.
2. Seek an Internship
An internship equips you with hands-on skills and real-world insights to help you learn the ins and outs of urban planning. Consider internships in planning firms, local government agencies, or urban development NGOs.
3. Network
Networking helps you gain advice, mentorship, and potential employment leads. Networking ideas include participating in industry workshops, seminars, conferences, and other related events.
4. Obtain a Master’s Degree (Optional)
Want to gain a competitive advantage in the world of urban planning? A master’s degree in urban planning (or related fields) puts you a step ahead of the pack. You may also gain specialized skills and land an advanced role.
5. Build a Portfolio and Resume
Finally, create a rich portfolio showcasing the projects you led during school, internships, or when working.
Craft a resume that highlights relevant skills, work-related experiences, education, and certifications. Remember to update your resume as you gather more experience along the road.
Getting Started with eScribe
The right government meeting software simplifies urban planners’ duties and responsibilities, improving their effectiveness while reducing their administrative workloads. eScribe’s all-in-one platform helps planners and other officers streamline meetings by automating submissions and approvals, managing citizen requests to speak, and more. And the best part, eScribe’s pricing works for city government budgets of all sizes.
Our platform overview highlights the top features eScribe brings to your urban planners and other city officers:
- Meeting Manager: Bid farewell to printing and chasing papers. Collaborate, create, tweak, and share meeting materials from a one-stop digital platform.
- Meeting Minutes: Take minutes right within the software. Assign tasks, monitor attendance, and write without hassles.
- Reporting and Workflows: The seamless approval and submission workflows help you ensure you’ve included everyone, honoring the different ways stakeholders such as city manager vs. the mayor work. Missed deadlines will no longer be an issue.
- Collaboration Tools: Take the chaos out of your collaboration. Stakeholders can even search, download, and review the content of a virtual meeting securely from anywhere. Tracking others’ meeting activities is also a breeze.
In fact, eScribe revolutionized how the City of Greensboro’s Clerk Office handles its meetings. The Greensboro team now enjoys top-notch reliability, usability, and customer service from the eScribe platform.
Dive into the City of Greensboro case study to see how eScribe can work for your city, too.