The Master of City Planning core curriculum encompasses the basic skills and knowledge required of all planners regardless of their specialization, and is a hallmark of our cutting-edge and practical approach to educating city planners. Students who complete the core will understand the legal and historical basis of city planning, they will know how to use a wide variety of population and economic data to understand local communities, and they will understand the form and arrangement of cities and metropolitan areas around the world. Most important, they will understand which planning approaches work best in which contexts and circumstances.Land use and environmental planning are at the core of city planning. With the U.S. forecast to add more than 80 million new residents over the next forty years (and the world forecast to add 3 billion), land use and environmental planners will have to figure out new ways to accommodate population and economic growth while strengthening existing cities and towns, preserving precious and irreplaceable farm and resource lands, promoting new urban forms such as transit-oriented and mixed-use development, taking advantage of new water, land, telecom, and transportation infrastructure systems, promoting clean air and water, and robust ecologies, and reducing the carbon footprint of cities and suburbs alike. Students who complete the Land Use and Environmental Planning concentration work for local and municipal governments, for land use and environmental planning consultants, for and regional growth management agencies, and for smart growth, land conservation, and sustainable development policy and advocacy organizations.