Intellectual Focus______________________________________________Overview

The intellectual focus of the Ph.D. program is unique in bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives from the social and natural sciences, humanities, and design and planning disciplines, and applying them to the formation and evaluation of urban and environmental plans and policies.

* It seeks to explore interactions among built urban form; urban markets for real estate, labor, public services and infrastructure; urban social and political institutions and processes; and urban ecological patterns and processes. Study of these interactions draws on the disciplines of economics, geography, history, sociology, political science, and ecology, among others.

* It seeks to explore ways of applying the interdisciplinary understanding of these interactions to informing the development and evaluation of plans and policies related to land use, housing, transportation and other infrastructure, and the environment. These applications draw on the fields of urban planning, urban design, landscape architecture, forest resources, policy analysis, and civil engineering.

* It seeks to employ research methods and approaches that promote advancement of theory and the empirical testing of theory, in order to make contributions to the advancement of scholarship and practice in the areas of urban and environmental planning and policy. Research methods range from qualitative to quantitative techniques, including such tools as GIS and simulation modeling.

Program Director: Marina Alberti (malberti@u.washington.edu)
Program Coordinator: Jean Rogers (jeanp@u.washington.edu)