http://alberti.mit.edu/dusp/dusp.html (World Wide Web Directory, ~04/1995)
City and regional planners are involved in a variety of activities aimed at shaping the pattern of human settlements. They work to provide housing, public services, employment opportunities, and other crucial support systems which comprise a decent living environment, but also a desire to harness the social, economic, political, and technological forces that give meaning to everyday life. Whether the planner works at the neighborhood, metropolitan, state, or national level, and whether he or she works in the public or private sector in the United States or in other countries, the tasks are essentially the same: to help define goals and objectives, to develop programs and policies responsive to individual and group needs, and to work with communities in allocating their resources most efficiently and equitably.
Planners are often described as "generalists with a specialty." Specialties have been thought of in functional terms (such as housing, transportation, land use, etc.), or in terms of the geographical levels at which decision-making takes place (neighborhood planning, town planning, regional planning, planning for international development, etc.). Subspecialties within the planning field relate to the different roles that planners play: manager, designer, regulator, advocate, evaluator, mediator, futurist, etc.
The Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT seeks to educate practitioners and scholars who--as activists, administrators, advisors, or analysts--will be able to affect the processes of urban and regional development, community and economic development, environmental planning and design, and public policy analysis and implementation. The Department is especially committed to educating planners who can effectively advocate the interests of under-represented constituencies.
