Five issue-oriented concentrations, or specialties, reflect the strengths of the faculty in the urban planning and policy development program. These concentrations include the core of general courses but go beyond that broad foundation of skills, awareness, and understanding to explore more deeply the scope of specific planning issues. They allow more detailed examinations of the dimensions, questions, conflicts, and impacts addressed by the professional as well as by the researcher. They encourage recognition of common elements that resonate between and among various problems, policies, and programs.

The program offers five areas of concentration that allow students to specialize in one or more fields of planning in addition to taking the required core courses. These concentrations are intended to help students develop a program of study that will help them fulfill their individual career goals. Courses in each concentration are grouped into "required" and "recommended" categories. The program requires that any student who wants to specialize in a particular area take proper courses as outlined under each concentration. Additional courses taken in that area will depend upon the student's particular interest and can be selected, with the help of advisers, from among the listed recommended and relevant courses or from other courses recommended by area advisers.

These concentrations cover areas of substantial strength within the program and school. There also are other feasible concentrations, such as information technology. Students who want to blend two concentrations to design their own programs can do so and should speak with their faculty adviser and the area advisers.

The following are the areas of concentration: environmental and physical planning, housing and real estate, regional planning and international development, transportation policy and planning, and urban and community development.

All required and most recommended courses for these concentrations are offered through the program and other units of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. Additional recommended courses are offered within the university in the Departments of Landscape Architecture; Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics; Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources; Environmental Sciences; and Geography, among others. Courses also may be found at Princeton University and New Jersey Institute of Technology.