This 0.5-credit Planning Field Study Course offers second-year MScPl students an immersive, comparative examination of planning practice in a major metropolitan area outside the Greater Toronto Area. Through preparatory seminars, thematic readings, and a week-long field trip, the course enables students to analyze how planning decisions unfold within distinct governance, policy, and socioeconomic contexts. Working in groups aligned with their areas of concentration, students will select a theme, such as housing, transportation, environmental planning, community development, or economic development, and conduct a focused site investigation or analysis of a local planning dynamic. Each group will build a foundational understanding of its topic through advance readings and briefing materials, using these to frame a set of research questions and field observations.

During the intensive field trip week, students will extend this work by engaging directly with practitioners, public officials, community organizations, and local experts, while conducting on-site investigations that deepen their understanding of the chosen planning issue. Following the trip, groups will synthesize their findings and present them back in Toronto, linking empirical observations with the scholarly literature and broader debates in comparative urbanism and planning practice. This combination of collaborative research, field-based inquiry, and critical reflection enables students to connect theory to lived urban conditions and to develop nuanced insights into how planning concepts, policies, and interventions operate across different metropolitan contexts.