University of California
ANR Land Use Workgroup
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UC Davis
UC Davis Extension Land Use and Natural Resources
UC Davis Extension offers a variety of courses and programs that focus on two of our most precious resources - the environment and the people who live and work in it. Our Land Use and Natural Resources program is the largest of its kind in the western United States, meeting the continuing education needs of planners, attorneys, resource managers, government officials, developers and others involved in the planning process and the management of environmental resources. The diversity of subject areas in Land Use and Natural Resources reflects the synergy between environmental and land use issues. This collection of programs offers popular courses and certificate programs that have been offered for many years, as well as programs in new and emerging subjects, such as ecosystem management.
Water Professional's Guide to Land Use Planning in California - slide set from Jeff Loux, UC Davis Extension
UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies
The Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis (ITS-Davis) is a multi-faceted, internationally recognized program with more than 60 affiliated faculty and researchers, 100 graduate students, and a $6 million annual budget. Its primary program components are research, education and outreach.
The Institute is the only Organized Research Unit in the UC system that hosts a matching graduate education program, recognizing the value of interdisciplinary research and education. The Transportation Technology and Policy (TTP) graduate curriculum draws from 34 different academic disciplines.
By partnering with industry, government, and non-governmental organizations, ITS-Davis has successfully contributed to and advanced public discourse on key transportation issues, while also creating a diverse funding base. The Institute's diverse research programs are focused on issues important to society.
University of California Agricultural Issues Center
Land Use and Farmland Conversion
The UC Agricultural Issues Center is a forum for the identification and analysis of important issues affecting the agricultural sector. AIC provides broadly based, objective information on a range of critical, emerging agricultural issues and their significance for the economy and natural resources through studies, conferences and publications.
We study topics such as international markets, invasive pests and diseases, the value of agricultural research and development, agricultural policy and the rural environment among others. The issues are often global, but we emphasize implications for agriculture and natural resources in California. The audience for AIC research and outreach includes decision makers in agriculture and government, scholars and students, journalists and the general public.
Our priorities
- International trade and globalization of agriculture.
- Advances in productivity and technology in agriculture.
- Linkages between natural resources, the environment and agriculture.
- Rural-urban interactions, particularly land use issues.
- Agricultural personnel and labor issues.
- Commodity market and agribusiness issues.
Road Ecology Center
The Road Ecology Center was created by a cooperative effort between the John Muir Institute of the Environment (JMIE) and Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS-Davis) at the University of California, Davis. Our goal is to bring together researchers and policy makers from ecology and transportation to design sustainable transportation systems based on an understanding of the impact of roads on natural landscapes and human communities. To accomplish this goal, we are developing a broadly interdisciplinary program dedicated to the design of transportation systems that are environmentally and socially friendly.
The Information Center for the Environment (ICE)
The Information Center for the Environment (ICE) is an environmental information brokerage and research laboratory in the Department of Environmental Science & Policy at the University of California, Davis, under the direction of Professor Jim Quinn and Academic Administrator Mike McCoy. ICE specializes in the development and dissemination of geospatial data and technologies; the development of robust data architectures dedicated to the cataloging of global environmental information; and the creation of decision support systems geared toward improving the capabilities of resource managers in a variety of sectors.
Center for Water and Land Use
The mission of the Center for Water and Land Use is to increase awareness and understanding of the relationships between water resources and land use policies and practices through education, training, applied research, collaboration and dissemination of information. The Center’s vision is to see all forms of future development and redevelopments positively and thoughtfully address the following areas of concern:
water use efficiency; sustainable water resources management; source water protection; quality of water in streams, rivers, lakes, wetlands and aquifers; impact of development on water quantity and supply; and protection of aquatic habitat.
UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program
Mission: to assist California farmers and ranchers in developing and implementing sustainable production and marketing systems; and to support California's rural and urban communities in understanding the concept and value of sustainable agriculture and participating in sustainable food and agricultural systems.
Center for Regional Change
The Center for Regional Change at UC Davis brings together faculty, students, & communities to collaborate on innovative research to create just, sustainable, & healthy regional change in California's Central Valley and Sierra Nevada.
The Center for Regional Change
- connects university research with planners, land managers, non-profits, environmentalists, communities and social service providers.
- links university knowledge with state and local governments to develop policies that effect regional change.
- works across boundaries, leverages resources, builds unity and creates programs to address unmet needs.
Community Development Grad Group:
Tools for Building Community
The Community Development graduate program at the University of California, Davis, is a two-year multi-disciplinary applied social science program that leads to a Master of Science degree. The course of study provides a strong theoretical background in Community Development derived from a multi-disciplinary approach that includes Sociology, Anthropology, Political Economy, Geography, Environmental Science, Landscape Architecture, and other social sciences, combining both their theoretical as well as applied aspects.
The current research and teaching areas in which the Community Development Graduate Group has particular strengths are:
- Community economic development
- Community organizing and organizations in under-served communities
- Local impacts of globalization and trans-nationalism
- Urban political development and change
- Rural development
- Community design and planning
- Public health and welfare of Communities
- Environmental conservation and planning
- Community based agriculture and gardens, sustainable agriculture
- Gender and development
Landscape Architecture
The goal of the Landscape Architecture Program at UC Davis is to increase the quality of life through the development and preservation of landscape design and planning processes that are meaningful, relevant and sustainable:
- meaningful in that they reinforce sense of self, sense of place, and sense of community
- relevant in that they provide solutions to environmental problems rather than contributing to them
- sustainable in that they embody long-term, permanently beneficial relationship between human culture and the physical/natural environment.
Through our research, as well as through innovative landscape design and planning, we aim to provide individuals with a means of making positive connections between their personal lives and the environment in which they live.
UC Berkeley
Department of City & Regional Planning
The Department of City and Regional Planning (DCRP) at UC Berkeley opened its doors in 1948, and along with the Departments of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, became part of the newly established College of Environmental Design in 1959. Concentrations
- Transportation Policy and Planning
- Housing, Community, and Economic Development
- Urban Design
- Land Use Planning
- Environmental Planning and Policy
Recent research projects undertaken by DCRP faculty and students include:
- Promoting Equitable Redevelopment in Richmond, California
- California Infill Study
- Carsharing in San Francisco
- Social Enterprises for Learning
- Planning for Eco-Tourism Development in Thailand and Sustainable Redevelopment in Tianjin, China
Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning
LAEP combines the art of creating landscapes with a deep concern for ecology, natural resources, and social equity. We work at all levels of the built and natural environment, from inner city environmental restoration and community landscape design to regional environmental planning and protection.
Urban Design
The Program in the Design of Urban Places offers a year of advanced study for graduate students with previous professional degrees in architecture, landscape architecture, and city planning. Students learn to form and reform urban settlements and reason with change as cities adapt to new social and ecological conditions.
Institute of Transportation Studies
ITS is one of the world's leading centers for transportation research, education, and scholarship. It is home to a large, diverse, and continually changing community of people who are experts in all aspects of transportation.
Transportation Engineering Program
Graduate study in transportation
Prepares students for professional, teaching, and research careers. Emphasis is on the acquisition of advanced knowledge concerning planning, design, operations, maintenance, rehabilitation, performance, and evaluation of transportation systems, including their economic and public policy aspects. The program stresses development of analytic, problem-solving, design, and management skills suitable for public and private sector professional work.
UC Berkeley Extension Sustainability Studies
Sustainability Studies focuses on a timely topic in sustainability such as the sustainable design of the built environment, responsible business practices, clean energy, or sustainable transportation planning.
UC Berkeley Extension Landscape Architecture
The Landscape Architecture Certificate Program offers a pre-professional curriculum focused on the numerous and varied opportunities that exist in the landscape architecture profession. The program enables students to develop a diverse array of skills and aims to reflect the current professional practice as well as it anticipates changes so that our students are well equipped to make worthwhile contributions from the outset of their career. The curriculum encourages individual creativity and expression while emphasizing the practical applications of design solutions. In short, the program offers realistic exposure to the theory and practice of the landscape architecture.
Specifically, the landscape architecture curriculum is designed to develop (1) aesthetic sensitivity and environmental awareness, (2) a thorough knowledge of historical precedent, (3) a definable and defensible design methodology, and (4) the technical knowledge and skills necessary to compete effectively for entry-level jobs in both the public and private sectors. The curriculum has been designed to comply with the highest standards of the profession.
UC Riverside
Edward J. Blakeley Center for Sustainable Suburban Development
The Center's name was carefully chosen; the burgeoning suburbs must be sustainable. There is no point in creating communities which will die on the vine. They must be sustainable not only in making sensible use of resources, but because they must continue to meet human needs for housing, jobs, shopping and recreational activities.
But sustainability is not a code word for stopping growth. Whether in the Center's neighboring communities, or on the fringes of cities around the world, it is clear that suburban development will take place. The challenge is to plan and direct that development to make the communities it creates livable now and sustainable for the future.
UCR Extension Planning, Development & Resource Management
Land Use and Environmental Planning Certificate
Providing participants with a working knowledge of urban planning as it is currently practiced in governmental and private sectors, this program helps participants:
- Learn theories and methods needed to perform in the planning arena.
- Understand policies and legislation that pertain to the land use planning and regulatory powers of local government.
- Understand the political, social and economic forces at work in our urban and natural environments.
Sustainable Development and Green Design Certificate
Upon completion of this Certificate, participants will gain an in-depth understanding of the processes and practices of incorporating the economic, environmental and social issues into the planning, design and building of communities.
UC Santa Barbara
Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science
Spatial Resources for the Social Sciences
The CSISS Mission recognizes the growing significance of space, spatiality, location, and place in social science research. It seeks to develop unrestricted access to tools and perspectives that will advance the spatial analytic capabilities of researchers throughout the social sciences. CSISS was funded in 1999 with support from the National Science Foundation under its program to promote research infrastructure in the social and behavioral sciences.
Biogeography Lab
Brings conservation science and geographical analysis to bear in land use planning and the conservation of wild species. Davis heads the Biogeography Lab at the Bren School and his research focuses on the landscape ecology of California plant communities; the design of protected-area networks; rangeland and farmland conservation; and the biological implications of regional climate change.
Department of Geography Graduate Program Specialization in Transportation
Transportation Modeling and Simulation (TMS) is a specialty in the geography department integrating the three principal areas of training: Earth System Science (ESS); Modeling, Measurement, and Computation (MMC); and Human Environment Relations (HER). This special emphasis provides training in the methods used in transportation systems planning, design, and operations with key focus areas on data collection, modeling, and simulation. A variety of courses are available within the specialty, and students belonging to the specialty have many opportunities for fellowships and research grants supporting their dissertation research. The specialty has required courses that are tailored to individual student background and research plans. Admission to this specialty follows the same criteria as the Department of Geography. For more information, please contact coordinator: Kostas Goulias at goulias@geog.ucsb.edu.
GIS/Environmental Modeling Teaching Laboratory
This 950-square-foot third-floor lab supports the Bren curriculum in computational modeling, geographic information systems, and environmental information management. It is home to 32 high-end GIS workstations that feature advanced graphics, visualization, and processing capabilities and have shared access to large-format, high-resolution color printers and scanners. For AV needs, the room has screens, projectors, DVD, VCR, audio inputs, a computer, and Internet connections.
Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management
Academic Programs - MESM SPECIALIZATION: Conservation Planning
Conservation planning is concerned with societal activities to protect productive ecological systems, conserve native biological diversity and associated ecological and evolutionary processes, and maintain wild species of special interest. Conservation includes a diverse array of policy and management approaches (e.g., zoning, ex-situ and in-situ nature reserves, conservation easements, adaptive ecosystem management) and engages a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. Interdisciplinary research in systematic conservation planning is concerned with theory and techniques to improve the scientific basis of planning and the cost-effectiveness of conservation and management actions.
The conservation planning specialization will teach students to assess and develop effective strategies for conserving, managing and restoring wild populations and ecosystems in a landscape and regional context. Conservation Planning students will be well grounded in the fields of population and community ecology, landscape ecology, conservation biology, and conservation planning with training in ecological inventory and monitoring, data analysis, mapping, and modeling. They will also learn about the regulatory and policy framework surrounding issues such as land use planning, endangered species protection and wetlands restoration. Potential employers for these students include domestic and international public agencies, NGOs and private firms involved in environmental planning, natural resource conservation, environmental impact and risk analysis, as well as endangered species recovery and habitat restoration.
UC Santa Cruz
Center for Integrated Spatial Research (CISR)
The Center for Integrated Spatial Research (CISR), formerly the GIS/ISC Laboratory, is the central facility for spatially-focused research and training at the University of California, Santa Cruz. CISR is focused on integrating state-of-of-the-art spatial technology and methods (geographic information systems, global positioning systems, remote sensing, spatial modeling/statistics) with pressing interdisciplinary research and fostering cross-domain cooperation in the application of these tools. In order to advance this purpose, CISR is dedicated to promoting a diversity of research by increasing campus and community literacy in spatial methods and engaging in innovations in spatial science.
UC Merced
UC Merced’s Partnership with The Great Valley Center
With the ultimate goal of creating a sustainable future for California's Central Valley, the University of California, Merced and the Great Valley Center announced a strategic partnership on November 17, 2005 that leverages the complementary strengths of both institutions.
A natural extension of the organizations' shared commitments, the alliance joins UC Merced's mission to bring the UC tradition of excellence in teaching, research and public service to the Central Valley with the Great Valley Center's mission to promote the region's economic, social and environmental well-being.
The formalized affiliation combines the community networks and connections of the Great Valley Center with the intellectual resources and world-class research capacity of the new University of California campus to tackle tough issues and create new opportunities in the state's fastest-growing region. Partnering also allows the institutions to create a new model for civic engagement and regional focus.
As the alliance evolves, the nonprofit Great Valley Center will continue to provide regionally focused data and information, facilitate leadership development programs, assist with regional initiatives such as the recently formed California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley and facilitate coordination of projects to address critical topics such as Highway 99.
A natural extension of the organizations' shared commitments, the alliance joins UC Merced's mission to bring the UC tradition of excellence in teaching, research and public service to the Central Valley with the Great Valley Center's mission to promote the region's economic, social and environmental well-being.
The formalized affiliation combines the community networks and connections of the Great Valley Center with the intellectual resources and world-class research capacity of the new University of California campus to tackle tough issues and create new opportunities in the state's fastest-growing region. Partnering also allows the institutions to create a new model for civic engagement and regional focus.
As the alliance evolves, the nonprofit Great Valley Center will continue to provide regionally focused data and information, facilitate leadership development programs, assist with regional initiatives such as the recently formed California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley and facilitate coordination of projects to address critical topics such as Highway 99.
Sierra Nevada Research Institute
The San Joaquin Valley and the Sierra Nevada Regions of California are legendary for their vast natural resources, physical and biological diversity, and cultural heritage. These regions lead the nation in agricultural production and in several natural resource and recreation industries. However, rapid population growth, competition for natural resources, air, water and soil pollution, climate change and competing land uses pose serious threats to the sustainability of these regions.
Faculty, researchers, and students in the Sierra Nevada Research Institute conduct basic and applied research on these issues, using the San Joaquin Valley and the Sierra Nevada as their "outdoor laboratory". Our mission is to discover and disseminate new knowledge that contributes to sustaining natural resources and promoting social well being in the San Joaquin Valley and Sierra Nevada regions of California, and related regions worldwide, through integrated research in the natural, social, and engineering sciences.
UC Los Angeles
UCLA Extension Public Policy Program
The Public Policy Program provides a forum for bringing together public officials, planners, attorneys, private sector representatives, community groups, and the research community to critically examine the public policy issues that are confronting Southern California, the state, and the nation. Through its conferences, seminars, custom programs, and other activities, the program emphasizes sharing public policy information, analyses, perspectives, and strategies.
Offerings include seminars that provide practical and timely information about changing laws and policies, planning practices, technologies, and analysis tools in the areas of urban planning, land use and planning law, environmental policy, public infrastructure finance, and transportation policy, planning, and management.
UCLA School of Public Affairs, Department of Urban Planning
Research Centers & Institutes
The School of Public Affairs houses 10 research centers, which blend high-quality research with a direct concern for practical policy problems. The centers are producing a significant volume of research, much of which has influenced actual policy making. They also provide financial support and research experience to large numbers of graduate students.
The centers most closely affiliated with The Department of Urban Planning are:
The Lewis Center was established to promote the study of understanding and solution of regional policy issues, with special reference to Southern California, including problems of the environment, urban design, housing, community and neighborhood dynamics, transportation and economic development. It is a focus of interdisciplinary activities, involving numerous faculty members and graduate students from many schools and departments at UCLA. It also fosters links with researchers at other California universities and research institutes on issues of relevance to regional policy. Research projects include studies on; Welfare-to-Work programs; Immigration and American Cities; Non Custodial parent employment and training; Environmental studies with social implications; Pollution prevention policies; Transportation and parking policies; Work-residence relationships in restructuring metropolitan areas; and Economic development strategies for local areas (Community Development Work Study Program). With support from a number of foundations, the Center has also begun a research program on ethnic and immigration issues.
The Center sponsors a lecture/seminar series, as well as workshops and conferences focusing on Southern California, in an effort to build bridges to the local community. It has sponsored two international conferences and has a Visiting Fellows program whose first participant was Henry Cisneros, former Secretary for Housing and Urban Development. The Lewis Center publishes a series of working papers on a wide variety of policy issues, and is currently seeking submissions for its working paper series.
The University of California Transportation Center (UCTC)
A multi-campus research unit of whose theme is Transportation Policy and Systems Analysis. UCTC was established in 1987 to serve as the Federal Region IX University Transportation Center (UTC) and as the statewide UTC for California. We are sponsored in equal parts by the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans).
UCTC’s mission is to significantly advance the state of the art in transportation research and practice and to expand the workforce of transportation professionals. To accomplish this, we 1) carry out basic and applied research, 2) support top-flight, multidisciplinary education programs, 3) provide an ongoing technology transfer programs that make research results available to a wide range of users in forms that can be readily implemented or applied. and 4) co-sponsor new transportation research, education, and tech transfer activities and entrerprises during their critical start-up phases.
We focus on surface transportation in the US, but we will support work on water and air transport and on international comparisons when it is clearly relevant to domestic surface transportation issues. Specific topics cover the full spectrum from theory and methods - through data, design, planning, and policy development, to implementation and post-implementation evaluation. UCTC aims to put its research findings into practice, and our results are disseminated to other academics, practitioners and policymakers through publications, conferences, workshops, expert testimony, news media, and more. Currently over 800 working papers, research reports, journal article reprints, books, book chapters, and films stemming from UCTC-funded research are available. In addition, UCTC publishes ACCESS magazine twice a year.
The Center was established in the autumn of 2000 in response to the growing need for informed research and debate on all aspects of globalization, and, in particular, on the many difficult policy questions that are being raised as globalization runs its course.
Globalization thus presents major challenges to social scientists and policy makers at many different levels of scale.
The work of the Center for Globalization and Policy Research will focus upon five main areas of social inquiry and policy making, all of which have a particularly close connection to globalization. These are:
-The organization and structure of the economy, with special reference to international finance, trade, e-commerce, industrial technology, employment patterns, and local-global economic interactions.
-Processes of migration and social mobility, above all where these have important implications for labor market development and social policy.
-Processes of migration and social mobility, above all where these have important implications for labor market development and social policy.
-Systems of cultural expression and conflict, and all the more so as worldwide commerce in cultural products is creating many new problems and predicaments.
-Natural and built environments, where globalization is associated with new and exacerbated forms of degradation from global warming to air and water pollution.
-Structures of governance, including current trends to political re-scaling at the global, multinational, national, and local levels.
The Center for Civil Society is the focal point for the School of Public Affairs’ programs and activities in nonprofit leadership and management, grassroots advocacy, nongovernmental organizations, and philanthropy. The Center focuses on both regional and international aspects of civil society.
The Center coordinates teaching on nonprofit organizations and aspects of civil society; conducts research; and offers seminars, conferences, colloquia, and executive education as part of our community engagement. In undertaking these mutually supporting activities, we seek to contribute to the policy dialogue on the current and future role of nonprofit organizations, philanthropy, and civil society.
A healthy civil society offers the hope of an expansion of local democracy, just and efficient service delivery, and the creation of a shared and inclusive civic identity. These are the aspirations of the Center of Civil Society – that through research, teaching, and community engagement with nonprofit and community-based organizations – civil society in Los Angeles, and worldwide, will be strengthened and sustained.
UC San Diego
The Urban Studies and Planning Program (USP)
USP draws from the various social science disciplines as well as arts and humanities and the natural sciences. The curriculum focuses upon regional planning and policy issues, particularly in the San Diego/Tijuana cross border region, and encourages students to think creatively and holistically across academic divides. Areas of concentration include Urban/Regional Policy and Planning; Urban Design/Built Environment; Health, Social Services and Education; Urban Diversity; and Cities in Historical and Comparative Perspectives.