Urban & Regional Governance

Earn an O'Neill MPA with an Urban and Regional Governance concentration

The Urban and Regional Governance concentration prepares students with the ideas and technical skills needed to address the challenges and opportunities found in urban areas.

The Urban and Regional Governance concentration leverages the expertise of O’Neill IUPUI’s faculty, the urban location of the university, and the social, demographic, and economic trends that are attracting greater numbers of students to study, live, and work in metropolitan areas.

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The importance and challenges of cities

A busy city at night

Cities generate the majority of economic output and represent the political and cultural centers of states and nations. Moreover, 60% of the world’s population is projected to live in cities by the year 2030.

At the same time, cities are facing pressing challenges including fragile budgets, deteriorating infrastructure, education and housing pressures, declining public trust in government, and a shrinking middle class.

Required courses (18 hours)

Analysis of concepts, methods, and procedures involved in managing public organizations. Problems of organization, planning, decision making, performance evaluation, and management of human resources are considered. Cases are drawn from a variety of public services found at federal, state, and local levels of government.

Focus on analytical models and their use in solving problems and making decisions in the public sector. Discussion of standard approaches to modeling and estimation of parameters.

This course focuses on the interaction between the public, private, and nonprofit sector to achieve consensus in decision making to influence federal, state, and local policies. The courses conveys theoretical and practical aspects of multi-sector collaboration to achieve more effective outcomes that each sector could individually conceive.

An examination of the role of public affairs professionals in policy processes. Focuses on relationships with political actors in various policy areas.

The fiscal role of government in a mixed economy; sources of public revenue and credit; administrative, political, and institutional aspects of the budget and the budgetary process; problems and trends in intergovernmental fiscal relations.

Conceptual and technical overview of geographic information systems (GIS). Applications in various fields of public affairs and environmental science.

Urban and Regional Governace students will also take two 3-credit-hour electives to complete the degree requirements.

Solve problems at the crossroads of policy, management, and science.