Public and Urban Policy (MS)

In the "knowledge economy," a solid understanding of quantitative methods, data management, data visualization, and computer-driven statistical analysis enhances your career and ability to make a difference in a variety of settings.

Courses in applied quantitative methods and data visualization offer focused instruction in applied statistics, data collection and management, and the graphic presentation of quantitative data as tools for improving decision making and policy analysis and informing public debate. Taught by faculty and practitioners, courses address real problems that organizations face and help students develop the skills needed to work with complex data. Students are trained in the latest uses of leading statistical analysis and data visualization software, including R, SAS, STATA, SPSS, ArcGIS, and modern Web technology such as JavaScript and CSS, enabling them to acquire essential workplace skills.

View current recommended courses in applied quantitative methods and data visualization.

Nearly all government, nonprofit, and public and private enterprises need staff members or managers whose primary responsibilities are to guide investment activities, report on financial conditions, manage internal financial reports, and develop and carry out financial activities that affect the current and future operating plans of their organization or enterprise.

Courses in finance emphasize accountability and the leveraging of private resources for public purposes. Students learn the fundamentals of budgeting and financial management in the public, private, governmental, and nonprofit sectors. Coursework includes introductory accounting and finance, learning the fundamentals of impact investing, the financing of housing and community development projects, and ways to address the entrepreneurial needs of socially responsible business ventures. In more advanced courses, students prepare financial pro formas for affordable housing, evaluate courses of action for economic development organizations, assess and recommend management decisions in the context of microfinance, and learn to identify and secure gap funding for projects. Courses in this area help prepare students for positions in the public, private, governmental, and nonprofit sectors, including careers in banking, community development lending, and municipal finance and at public agencies, NGOs, and community development corporations.

There is also an opportunity for experiential learning through the Community Development Finance Lab Project. Students work as financial consultants to local community-based organizations to provide analysis based on networking with professionals in the field.

View current recommended courses in finance.

For the first time in history, most of the world's inhabitants live in cities. Urban centers are where change is happening: in the economy, finance, technology, culture, and the environment. It is crucial for policymakers, citizens, and communities to understand how these rapid and unprecedented transformations are linked together and how they can be shaped and managed to improve the welfare of communities, cities, and nations. Courses in global urban futures train practitioners to address these issues and strengthen understanding of possibilities for innovative change. Mindful of history and responding to the imperatives of current problems, these courses prepare practitioners to design and lead the urban future.

These courses draw on the unique strengths of more than 20 full-time faculty members from a range of disciplines, including economics, urban planning, urban studies, public finance, political science, anthropology, sociology, architecture, urban history, environmental sciences, and community development. It explores urbanization in relation to globalization, climate change, the global and national economies, and media, technology, and culture. Students taking courses in global urban futures analyze the way global factors interact with local environments, actors, and institutions to produce new urban forms, policies, behaviors, problems, and opportunities.

View current recommended courses in global urban futures.

Students can also explore the International Field Program.

Courses in housing and community development focus on innovative approaches for improving the quality of life in low-income urban communities, including affordable housing. It situates housing policy and community development within the context of racial disparities and discrimination; global, national, and regional economic trends; the devolution of government responsibilities to the state and local levels; the growing role of community development corporations and other nonprofit organizations; and innovative ways of financing community development projects.

Courses include lectures and class discussions, as well as visits to leading community-based organizations. Along with engaging in current policy debates, students are introduced to cutting-edge initiatives and provided training to build the technical and analytical skills necessary for careers in government, nonprofit organizations, and the private sector. These courses enable students to focus on housing, economic development, and other aspects of community development.

View current recommended courses in housing and community development.

The post-1980 neoliberal era has been characterized by a spectacular increase in income and wealth inequality in the United States, nowhere as great and concentrated as in New York City and other large metropolitan areas. Other exacerbated disparities - in the quality of education, access to health care, affordable housing, decent food, and transportation - are both causes and consequences of the explosion in income and wealth disparities. With the decline of older industrial cities and the rise of Sunbelt cities that tend to be governed with far less regulation and social protections, inequalities have grown dramatically between cities and regions. The labor market is a chief culprit, with workers too often stratified by gender, race, ethnicity, and nativity into different parts of the urban job structure.

What explains and what can be done about this growing inequality? What lessons have been learned and what new approaches need to be tried in the areas of labor, criminal justice, public health, education, technology, and poverty? Courses in this area offer students the opportunity to concentrate their studies on courses that address these questions through a range of social policy lenses.

View current recommended courses in inequality and social policy.

Courses in policy and design strategies draw from both Milano and Parsons School of Design. These courses enable Milano students to incorporate significant elements of design thinking methods and practices into their study of public and urban policy. Students use most of the electives in their degree programs to take courses at Parsons' School of Design Strategies.

These courses emphasize design- and spatial-driven perspectives in the study of the dynamics of urbanization and public services. Students approach design as a field and a discipline that provides an instrumental lens and set of methods through which individuals and social groups engage in co-producing inclusive and participatory urban spaces and services that work.

View current recommended courses in policy and design strategies.

Public policy is often formulated in the context of political negotiations and organized constituencies. Gaining buy-in, mobilizing support and navigating political and institutional systems are part of any policy-making process. Courses in politics, media, and advocacy equip students with the tools to not only identify effective and inclusive policy interventions but also get them supported and adopted.

Coursework focuses on electoral politics, including how political campaigns are organized and supported around an agenda; organizing methods and strategies for developing issue campaigns, public awareness, engagement, and support; strategies that reflect an understanding and take advantage of government and non-governmental formations; and public education and persuasion.

View current recommended courses in politics, media, and advocacy.

The Milano community plays a critical role in countering historic inequities and creating a more inclusive and sustainable economy. Courses in this area equip students to identify systems of stratification and develop policy pathways to remove barriers and generate greater economic, social, and political inclusion. Through critical reflection and practical application, students explore how countervailing forces in the public, private, nonprofit, and informal sectors struggle over the actualization of our "inalienable rights." Courses in this area of study offered at Milano and throughout the university provide an interdisciplinary approach for advancing a new narrative of global and local social justice.

View current recommended courses in race, gender, and economic stratification.

Why do some cities grow faster than others? What can cities do to attract firms and encourage their development and prosperity? Why are there such great disparities in economic resources between urban neighborhoods, and what can public policies do to mitigate these inequities? Courses in urban and regional economic development enable students to grapple with these questions and learn to harness, in a socially conscious way, the complexities of urban economies.

Students take courses that prepare them to design, assess, and engage with policies intended to improve the economic and social well-being of cities and local communities. The approach is holistic and multidisciplinary, relying on both topical and technical coursework to build subject area expertise and transferable skills. Economic development policies are considered broadly, drawing on cases that include but are not limited to spatially targeted enterprise zones, inclusionary housing policies, low-income entrepreneurship programs, and sports stadiums. Much of the coursework also draws on local economic development cases from around the globe to inform creative, feasible, and equitable policy design and evaluation.

View current recommended courses in urban and regional economic development.