Land use, transportation and infrastructure planners prepare plans and policies that affect the growth and appearance of neighborhoods, cities, and urban regions. Their work affects the siting and sizing of new development at the urban scale as well as the physical design of specific sites. The site planning process itself involves site selection, program development, site analysis and design, and plan implementation.
Their work may also protect historic buildings and special design districts in the urban core, as well as open spaces and agricultural lands affected by unwanted or premature urban growth in rural areas. Integrated land use and transportation plans have emerged in recent years to promote new concepts, such as: “transit-oriented development,” “complete streets,” and “safe routes to schools,” and to reverse the negative effects of urban sprawl and decay. These planners often use geographic information systems (GIS), population projections, economic base studies, and land suitability analyses based on roadway and infrastructure capacities and environmental factors to determine the quantity and location of new industrial, commercial and residential development in towns and cities. They also forecast the impacts of new urban development on communities, roadway networks, and the environment. They may also prepare plans and strategies to make our use of natural resources in land use and transportation systems more efficient. In general, their work seeks to make our neighborhoods, cities and regions more livable, sustainable and resilient for everyone.
Recent capstone topics
- Neighborhood design quality and walkability tools for a pedestrian-oriented McCully-Mo‘ili‘ili
- Revisiting public space in Honolulu: A case study of Thomas Square
- Alternatives to the gas tax in Honolulu
- Condo-based car sharing: Assessing its potential role in the TOD toolkit
- Promotional focus areas to normalize bicycling: A look at Honolulu
- An evaluation of road diets as an appropriate measure for Honolulu’s Complete Streets Policy
- Historic preservation as a planning tool for the protection of a culturally diverse island community
- Health Impact Assessment as a tool in land-use planning
Courses in this stream
Courses may be listed in more than one stream.
- PLAN 605 Planning Models
- PLAN 636 Culture and Urban Form in Asia
- PLAN 640 Land Use Policies and Programs
- PLAN 641 Neighborhood and Community Land
- PLAN 642 Planning Urban Infrastructure
- PLAN 645 Land Use Planning
- PLAN 646 Urban Form
- PLAN 648 Urban Transportation Planning
- PLAN 654 Applied Geographic Information Systems
View full course descriptions and class availability.