Urban Planning

 design and regulation of the uses of space that focus on the physical form, economic functions, and social impacts of the urban environment and on the location of different activities within it. Because urban planning draws upon engineering, architectural, and social and political concerns, it is variously a technical profession, an endeavor involving political will and public participation, and an academic discipline. Urban planning concerns itself with both the development of open land (“Greenfields sites”) and the revitalization of existing parts of the city, thereby involving goal setting, data collection and analysis, forecasting, design, strategic thinking, and public consultation. Increasingly, the technology of geographic information systems (GIS) has been used to map the existing urban system and to project the consequences of changes.