Any Urban Planners Here? (employment, employer, jobs, career)

[American Luxury]

One of the things I'm looking at for college is urban planning. It sounds like something I'd be interested in, but all of the descriptions I've read seem rather vague. I've seen that it can involve traffic flows and such, but as I said I'm not really sure what else this position would entail. Anybody know?

[chet everett]

Depending on where you go to school and what concentration(s) within Urban Planning you choose this can be challenging career field. Employment prospects are not particularly good; most good paying jobs have traditionally been with larger cities, tax crunch has greatly reduced such openings, the other major category of employer are the large consulatitive architectural / land use / engineering firms that are also high constrained by the global slowdown in construction.

Should you have the talent to combine an interest in Urban Planning with a double major in Civil Engineering or related technical discipline and the wisdom / connections / luck to do internships with the kinds of firms that do infrastructure work you may have better employment prospects...