The interdisciplinary Urban Studies programme is designed to allow students to explore the complexities and challenges of the rapidly evolving urban world, global urbanisation processes and various strands of urbanism. The programme encourages students to reflect on the socio-integrated policy-making, planning, design and management. In addition to the active learning of urban development theories, the rigorous application of skills and techniques to urban analysis and a contextual understanding of the world’s best sustainable urban practices, students may choose to declare one of the following areas of concentration: urban planning and design, the urban environment, urban policy and governance, or smart sustainable cities.

The Urban Studies programme is jointly organised by the Department of Geography and Resource Management and the School of Architecture, with strong input from urban-studies-related courses offered by various departments in the Faculty of Social Science and the Faculty of Arts. The curriculum is designed to be inter-disciplinary, theoretically and scientifically solid and professionally attractive for achieving the following objectives:

• To help students understand major challenges of global urbanisation processes such as resources depletion, environmental degradation, climate change, population migration, social polarisation and poverty issues;
• To teach students to appreciate the existing environments of urban space and places to understand the contested processes of social interaction;
• To equip students with a solid knowledge foundation in frontier urban research and development;
• To provide students with exceptional insights in urban history, cultural roots, and metropolitan perspectives in Hong Kong and Mainland China;
• To equip the students with the understanding of the relationships between the socio-economic context and physical fabric of urban conditions and develop basic skills in urban and environmental planning and design, together with urban policy making and governance;
• To train students as future leaders in the urban world with cutting–edge knowledge on related issues; and
• To prepare students for work in a wide range of fields as diverse as urban design and planning, environmental protection and management, property development, public policy and social enterprise domains.

The Urban Studies programme contains four basic components:

• Faculty Package
• Basic Knowledge
  • Foundation courses: Introduction to Urban Studies; Introduction to Spatial Planning; Urban Sustainability; Urban Economic Studies; Urban Design and Place Making; Studies of Cities in Comparative Perspective; Essentials of the Land Development Process; and Urban Planning Theory and Practice  
  • Methodology and Statistics courses
  • Field Studies
• Specialisation
  • Concentration courses (choose one concentration)
    • Urban Planning and Design
    • Urban Environment
    • Urban Policy and Governance
    • Smart Sustainable Cities
  • Capstone course: a thesis or project related to one of the above areas of concentration
• Elective Courses

Remarks:
For details of the undergraduate curriculum, please click here.

HK$ 42,100