History

The Department was established in 1993 under the name Urban and Regional Planning. From the outset, the Department built a reputation for path-breaking research. UC Irvine faculty members have been among the top contributors to leading planning journals, and our research contributions extend well beyond planning. Faculty members of the Department of Planning, Policy, and Design serve on the editorial boards of eighteen scholarly journals and publish regularly with presses that include Oxford University Press, MIT Press, and the University of California Press.

In 2002 the Department changed its name to Planning, Policy, and Design. Our new name reflects the fact that our faculty members and students combine perspectives from urban planning, public policy, and studies of the built environment. Graduate instruction in those three fields — planning, policy, and design — is too often fragmented across different academic programs, creating false distinctions and missed opportunities. Most urban planning problems require an understanding of public policy and the way policies interact with the design of the built environment. Similarly, most policy problems require an understanding of issues related to planning and design. As our department name suggests, we are committed to weaving together the fields of urban planning, public policy, and environmental design to produce graduates who are prepared to solve the complex problems of the 21st century.

The Department of Planning, Policy, and Design is also committed to bridging the links between theory and practice and between research and action. Our faculty members regularly advise committees of the National Research Council; national, state, and federal officials; and leaders from the private and non-profit sectors. Research in the department is motivated by a desire to solve realworld problems, whether that is assessing security risks at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, studying access to health care among Southern California residents, or
shining a spotlight on the location of environmentally noxious facilities.
In addition to our commitment to excellence in research and practice, we offer graduate students the opportunity to study in small classes with exceptional access to faculty members. Teaching is highly valued in the department, and several of our faculty members have won competitive awards for quality teaching and student mentoring.

The UCI Department of Planning, Policy, and Design is one of the fastest growing programs of its kind in the United States. From a beginning of only four full-time faculty members in 1992, we now have seventeen faculty members. Applications to our graduate programs have also grown rapidly in recent years, yet we have preserved a small, collegial learning environment. In that respect, we reflect UC Irvine — one of the nation’s newest and already one of the country’s best public universities.