Departments

Urban and Regional Planning

The Department is in the School of Environmental Sciences of the Faculty of Applied and Natural Sciences. The Department addresses the professional concerns of Urban and Regional Planning, linking knowledge and action in ways that improve public and private development decisions which affect people, places and the environment with a departmental focus on medium sized centres and rural development. These we do without neglecting to teach the core elements of urban and regional planning.

The restructured courses at the Department focus on a theoretical understanding of urban, regional and rural planning, practical and technical links with both urban and metropolitan areas, the immediate countryside and small town environments as the laboratories for study and studio exercises. The Department also maintains links with active professional planners in both public and private sectors through the regional chapter of the South African Planning Institute (SAPI).