Urban Designer

A city’s best features are its parks and public spaces. Take Central Park in New York, for instance, the lakefront in Chicago, or Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. For residents as well as tourists, those places and others like them are nothing short of magical.

Magic as they may be, however, public spaces aren’t the work of elves, mystics, and Magicians. Instead, they’re the work of Urban Designers.

An Urban Designer is responsible for the arrangement, appearance, and functionality of cities and towns, which employ them to plan and design public spaces, including parks, plazas, streets, and public infrastructure — for example, public transportation systems.

Not to be confused with an Urban Planner — who usually is responsible for the residential, commercial, and industrial zoning of cities, for the purpose of private development — you — an Urban Designer — are the person who designs the actual public spaces within those zones. In the case of a park, for instance, you determine its size, shape, layout, and amenities (does it have a playground, for instance, a running path, a basketball court, or an amphitheater?) in order to maximize the use of space while meeting community needs.

Because you don’t do the actual design and construction — that’s left for Architects and Engineers — you’re something of a Project Manager, responsible for surveying land and making design recommendations that take into account aesthetics, geography, accessibility, function, and safety, among other things.

Put in modern terms: You’re like a Level Designer in the video game industry. Instead of virtual spaces, however, you create real ones!