Educating Planners at MIT: Eight Decades of Changing Cities

Abstract

As the oldest continuously operating city planning department in the United States, MIT’s program—established in 1933—provides a revealing window into the changing education of planners. It is the story of a department that began with a focus on physical planning and design but dramatically expanded into a multidisciplinary focus on the social and political challenges facing urban areas in the United States and around the globe following a significant re-orientation in the late 1960s. From the books and projects of the Joint Center for Urban Studies to innovative studies of city form, the program expanded to take up a broad set of economic development and environmental policy initiatives. The program has also long focused on the training of future educators, nurturing a large number of influential leaders in the planning academy. The chapter concludes with reflection on the department’s normative vision for professional education, engaged scholarship, and public action.