PhD in City & Regional Planning

At UC Berkeley, we understand cities as sites of potential revolutionary change, where new forms of social, political, and economic organization can emerge. The PhD in City & Regional planning focuses on the intersections of environmental sustainability, social inequality, and governance. Our approach to teaching and research connects theory to action, emphasizes the value of interdisciplinary and mixed-methods scholarship, and focuses on multiple scales, from the local to the global.

Our goal is to advance research and policy in four critical areas that cut across all areas of specialization in our curriculum and research:

With have nearly 20 faculty with expertise in community and economic development, transportation, housing, urban design, international development, environmental planning, and global urbanism, the Department of City & Regional Planning offers a rich, vibrant intellectual community for doctoral studies. 

The Department of City & Regional Planning, founded in 1948, joined with the Departments of Architecture and Landscape Architecture to form the College of Environmental Design in 1959. Berkeley was the first university to bring together these disciplines into a single college, leading the way toward an integrated approach to analyzing, understanding, and designing our built environment. The college emphasizes environmental design as a profoundly ethical practice, inseparable from social, political, economic, and cultural contexts and co-produced through dynamic engagements with diverse communities.

At UC Berkeley, you’ll have the opportunity to study with world-class faculty who are experts in a range of disciplines, including city planning, public policy, anthropology, geography, physics, and architecture.

The Berkeley Planning Journal is a collaborative forum dedicated to advancing public-oriented and practice-engaged scholarship from the Department of City & Regional Planning. Published in print and online as an open-access journal, the Berkeley Planning Journal convenes scholars, activists and practitioners to examine contemporary problems in the built environment and define the challenges they pose to established planning theory and method. Situated in the San Francisco Bay Area, we see the Bay as a living laboratory whose challenges directly inform how we understand and engage with planning issues. 

We are committed to recruiting students from all backgrounds with outstanding achievement and potential. All admitted PhD students receive five years of funding, which typically includes two years of fellowship funding with the remaining years covered by teaching assistant or research assistant positions. Students of the program have also been successful in securing additional funding for their research from both internal and external sources such as the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Fulbright Foundation.The Department of City & Regional Planning and UC Berkeley offer multiple types of financial support to its graduate students.

Interested students are invited to reach out to faculty regarding their interests as potential advisors, but note that some faculty will prefer to review a complete application before scheduling a meeting. Note also that admission decisions are not made by individual faculty, but rather an admissions committee. Our PhD admissions process begins with three initial reviews of your application: the two faculty members you list as preferred advisors and one member of the PhD admission committee. The admission committee then meets to review all applications as a cohort and make admission/denial decisions. More information can be found on the department admissions page.

We recommend you start the application process as early as possible. As a prospective graduate student, you will submit your application through UC Berkeley’s Graduate Division. You can find useful information on the Graduate Division website, including application instructions and information about funding your education.

Please note: Only online applications (including letters of recommendation) are accepted. Transcripts, diplomas, and certificates should be provided in the original language of instruction AND in English.

Successful applicants to the doctoral program in City & Regional Planning typically show overall excellence in past academic work and research; demonstrated creativity and intellectual leadership in professional activity; and the strong promise of sustained intellectual achievement, originality, and scholarship. The doctoral program emphasizes scholarship and research.

At the same time, because the doctorate is offered in the context of a professional school, we welcome scholars pursuing applied research relevant to city and regional planning and policy problems.

Admission to the doctoral program is highly competitive. Only six to eight students are admitted each year from a pool of as many as 120 applicants.

Please note: Admission decisions are not made by individual faculty, but rather are made by an admissions committee. Applicants are admitted to the program as a whole rather than to work with a specific faculty member. However, because fit is a critical component of our review process, we encourage you to clearly articulate how your research aligns, both substantively and methodologically, with our specific faculty expertise.

Follow this step-by-step to complete and submit your application to the UC Berkeley Graduate Division.

Note: Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) positions have higher English language proficiency requirements than standard admission. Review the Graduate Student Instructor website for detailed score requirements.

Many PhD students choose to pursue one or more of the designated emphases (DEs) offered through programs across campus. These DEs are unrelated to the outside field required by the City & Regional Planning PhD, and can be thought of instead as elective “minors” which provide opportunities for focused interdisciplinary work, mentorship, conference funding, research fellowships and an extra credential along with the doctoral degree. Common DEs pursued by DCRP PhD students include: