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 interdisciplinary research in the areas of property, land use, historic preservation, and energy focuses on how law and policy can foster more equitable, sustainable, well-designed, and connected places."
"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."
"I delve into the assumed homogeneity of "Chinese capitalism" to understand how Chinese state companies, state-affiliated agencies, and private investors interact with institutions/individuals in host countries to create new urban living conditions."
"My career as an academic is driven by a yearning to inspire others to appreciate the richness, depth, and complexity of the everyday urban world, to develop a lifelong curiosity about landscape, place, and the built environment."
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
Ratan N. Tata Posthumously Honored with Inaugural Distinguished Alumni Award
Milstein Hall's auditorium was at capacity for the April ceremony, during which speakers shared personal reflections on Tata's wide-ranging impact and legacy.
Robinson-Appel Award Recipients Create Community-Engaged Solutions to Social Challenges
Keishaun Wade (B.S. URS '25) received a Robinson-Appel Humanitarian Award to honor his significant involvement in community engagement. The $2,500 award goes toward innovative, community-engaged learning projects dedicated to tackling social challenges.
Cities With the Most Affordable Rent
WalletHub: Professor of City and Regional Planning and Real Estate Sara Bronin shares steps that local policymakers can take to increase the affordability of rental housing.
Monday, April 21, 2025CRP 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, 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.
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.
Cornell in Rome: Spring 2025 Student Exhibition
View an exhibition of work presented during the Cornell in Rome Open House and reception.
AAP Commencement Weekend
AAP will hold its commencement ceremony beginning at 11 a.m. on Sunday, May 25, 2025, in Bailey Hall.
Student Focus
