Bachelors in Cities, Regions, Planning (BES) Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change | YORK UNIVERSITY

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We live in an urban world. Cities and city-regions around the globe face pressing social and environmental challenges linked to the climate crisis, emerging infectious disease, global displacement and migration, and deepening inequalities and racial divides. But cities are also the places where solutions to these problems can be found. In Cities, Regions, Planning, you learn to apply inclusive and sustainable planning interventions, consulting skills, governance, and political procedures, and activist tools to manage urban growth (and decline), provide infrastructure, integrate newcomers, and mitigate environmental impacts.

The Cities, Regions, Planning program examines how cities and regions may be planned in more just and sustainable ways through three thematic concentrations:

• Urban Worlds - engages with different ways of being in cities around the planet to consider how urban residents live, work and play in a rapidly changing global geography of interconnected urban places.
• Urban Planning and Politics - deals with the institutions, actors, struggles, and processes that help create and govern communities, cities, regions, and urban networks.
• Urban Political Ecology - focuses on the role of nature and environment in the process of urbanization, urban form, and urban life.

Taught by internationally recognized urban scholars and planning practitioners, students acquire the foundational knowledge, critical thinking, and technical skills to create tangible change in urban, suburban, and regional environments. Students engage with communities in Toronto, across Canada, and abroad gaining hands-on experiences of processes of urban transformations, community-based initiatives, and design and policy challenges.

Students will explore these critical urban issues:

• Processes of urbanization and city life
• The regional composition of the global economy
• Planning theory and practice
• Urban and regional planning
• Urban infrastructures and mobility
• Urban health and pandemic preparedness
• Suburbanization, growth control, and conservation
• Urban analytics and geomatics
• Urban wildlife and habitats
• Urban risk and resilience
• Public participation in planning and governance
• Urban inequalities, gentrification, and segregation
• Urban ecologies
• Communities and urban life

This program is supported by the CITY Institute at York University, a leading interdisciplinary center that facilitates critical and collaborative research and provides new knowledge and innovative approaches to understanding and addressing the complexity of the urban arena.

Future Events



Coffee/Tea Chat with a EUC Student



Book a 1:1 virtual chat with our current students to have all of your doubts and questions answered.



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Fast Fashion Workshop



Have you ever considered where you purchase your clothes from? What factors do you consider when you go shopping? Attend the "What is Fast Fashion" workshop to learn more about relevant companies and the issues around them.



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Walking in a Cars World Workshop



Living in a bigger city can be rather difficult to navigate as a single individual. As pedestrians always have the right of way, streets and more, so intersections are not based with us in mind. Join us to unpack the intersections within the city and discuss possible solutions.



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Hands-on Learning and Field Study

• Urban and Regional Infrastructures. In this course, students will complete a two-week intensive study of Toronto or another Canadian city on location in the field.
• On location: Urban placemaking and the spatial politics of difference. In this course, students learn through immersive on-site field trips and activities, walking tours, guest talks, and discussions in public spaces and community venues across the city, providing students with a first-hand experience of the struggles, controversies, and possibilities of place-making practices.
• Urban Consulting Practice. In this 4th year course, students will have hands-on experience with partners in public and private urban planning practice and civil society organizations. The course will develop skill training in negotiation, consulting, and community participation.
• Work Placement with private or public organizations, agency or ENGOs.
• Semester Abroad at the Las Nubes EcoCampus in Costa Rica

First-year core courses

• The Land We’re On: Treaties, art, and environment
• The World Today: Introduction to World Geography
• Weather and Climate
• The Dynamic Earth
• Cities, Regions, and Planning in a Globalizing World

Sample upper-year courses

• Global Urban Geography
• Urban Planning and Politics
• Urban Political Ecology
• Urbanization in Developing Countries
• Designing Sustainable cities
• Urban Consulting Practice

With increased urbanization around the world, the need to address issues within cities including those of equity, sustainability, policy, and environment are at the forefront of many governments, businesses, and organizations. Along with the development of practical, hands-on experiences, you will hone in-demand skills in critical thinking, communication, project management and coordination. Our graduates are working in both the public and private sector in a variety of fields including government, business, land use planning, policy, non-profit, and transportation.

Some sample careers include:

• Urban, Land Use or Transportation Planner
• Policy Advisor and Consultant
• LEED Technical Coordinator
• Transit Supervisor or Manager
• Permits and Approvals Coordinator
• Environmental Manager
• Planning and Space Assessor

To help you succeed, our Experiential Education Coordinator provides a variety of career support services to our students including resume help, interview prep, and career planning workshops, and maintains an exclusive job board just for our students.