Help shape the future of cities
Graduate Programs in Urban Studies
Whether your interests are in planning, policy, research methods, and statistics or navigating the technical and socioeconomic landscape of city life, you’ll find a home at Northeastern with our master’s programs in Urban Informatics and Urban Planning and Policy.
Features of our programs include:
- World-class faculty who are leading scholars, researchers, and practitioners.
- Opportunities to apply your skills immediately to real-world social, infrastructural, and environmental challenges through cutting-edge research and capstone projects.
- The possibility to earn a graduate certificate in Urban Studies, Public Policy Analysis, Nonprofit Sector, and more.
- Research collaboration and experiential learning like co-ops and internship opportunities as part of each program.
Download the Program Sheets
Explore our programs in Urban Studies
Master of Science in Urban Informatics
Accelerate your career with a STEM-eligible program built to navigate the technical and socioeconomic landscape in which city life unfolds. With classes on campus and online, a new generation of experts will couple comprehensive data analytics skills with an understanding of the big questions faced by cities in the 21st century.
Master of Science in Urban Planning and Policy
This flexible, interdisciplinary master’s program provides a solid foundation in planning, policy, research methods, and statistics while developing expertise in a focus area of urban planning and policy. Choose between four concentrations: Urban Analytics, Urban Sustainability and Resilience, Urban Design and Physical Planning, and Urban Development Policy and Planning.
Better understand and serve the cities of the future
“Once I had my education in urban planning, I noticed there’s this huge coalition going on right now between information technology, urban management and city planning… I think that developing countries like mine are going to be facing a dire need of professionals that can lead or work on this new field of urban informatics because we have huge cities full of people and conflict.” - Antonio Vázquez Brust, MS in Urban Informatics ‘17About Northeastern
Founded in 1898, Northeastern is a global research university and the recognized leader in experiential lifelong learning. Our approach of integrating real-world experience with education, research, and innovation empowers our students, faculty, alumni, and partners to create worldwide impact.
Our global university system provides our community and academic, government, and industry partners with unique opportunities to think locally and act globally. The system—which includes 13 campuses across the U.S., U.K., and Canada, 320,000-plus alumni, and more than 3,800 partners worldwide—serves as a platform for scaling ideas, talent, and solutions.
Northeastern’s personalized, experiential undergraduate and graduate programs lead to degrees through the doctorate in 10 colleges and schools across our campuses. Learning emphasizes the intersection of data, technology, and human literacies, uniquely preparing graduates for careers of the future and lives of fulfillment and accomplishment.
Our research enterprise, with an R1 Carnegie classification, is solutions oriented and spans the world. Our faculty scholars and students work in teams that cross not just disciplines, but also sectors—aligned around solving today’s highly interconnected global challenges and focused on transformative impact for humankind.