Double Degree - Bachelor of Arts - Urban and Regional Studies & Bachelor of Business Administration - Economics (Optional Co-op)

The Combined B.A./B.Mgt. degree program takes five years (50 courses) to complete and leads to the conferral of two degrees.

Economics is the social science that provides understanding, meaning and relevance of human action under conditions of scarcity. In other words, the study of economics enables a more effective use of scarce resources such as the time and talent people have available, the land, buildings, equipment, other tools on hand, and the knowledge of how to combine them to create products and services to satisfy human wants.

Economics is a value-free science. It never tells people how to act; it merely shows how they need to act to attain specific results.

Urban & regional studies (URS) delves into the physical, social, economic and political factors that shape the cities. It looks at the role of planning to manage dynamic forces of change such as immigration, global warming, aging populations, energy conservation, congestion, urban forests, homelessness and smog, to name just a few.

Students in this program will learn to approach contemporary development challenges from various frames of reference. Issues include the evolving social, ethnic and architectural character of urban neighborhoods, the decline of agricultural service centers in the west or the governance of urban sprawl.

This multidisciplinary major will provide students with a broad range of conceptual and practical tools to understand cities and regions. Urban & regional studies is housed in the Department of Geography & Environment, but as a multidisciplinary major, the program includes courses outside the department’s offerings, such as anthropology, economics, political science, sociology and statistics.

The knowledge and experience students gain in the Urban & regional studies program will provide an exceptional stepping stone, whether students choose to continue their studies to the master’s or doctoral level or to enter the working world. Either way, they will have the educational background to play an important role in providing an understanding of, and solutions for, some of the most pressing urban and regional concerns.