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The Sustainable Community Development major gives students the opportunity to consider a variety of perspectives on creating a more sustainable world through planning and design.  The curriculum is flexible and interdisciplinary, allowing a student to broadly explore ways of envisioning sustainable communities.  Students will become familiar with the theories and techniques of design and planning for creating sustainable communities, conserving the environment, and responding to other social, cultural, economic and political challenges of the built environment.

Because the planning and design of a sustainable world is complex, this major offers students the opportunity to prepare academically to deal with this complexity by drawing on a variety of disciplinary fields and working at a range of scales.  Students will gain an understanding of the wide range of disciplines, approaches, debates, and ultimately professional opportunities in this field of endeavor.  Students will develop an understanding of the various ecological, economic, social and cultural aspects of design and planning, and an understanding of ways in which planning and design affect sustainability and the human environment.  In addition, the will gain the knowledge, skills and values that will help to critically analyze, assess and act to change the built environment.

The Sustainable Community Development major offers four areas of concentrated study: Urban Studies, Landscape Studies, Horticultural Studies, and Built Environment Studies.  Concentrations within the major allow students to focus on particular issues and scales of design and planning.  Students are required to take a total of 16 classes: 7 core requirements and 9 classes in one of the concentration areas.