Regional planning can cover learning about where to place settlements, how to efficiently dispose of the waste of a given community, or when to adjust previous plans to protect the environment. Programs around the world may be specific to the area where the class is offered.

Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic within the European Union, located in Southern Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia along the Alps.

The PhD is a doctoral degree, specifically called a "doctor of philosophy" degree. This is misleading because PhD holders are not necessarily philosophers (unless they earned their degree in philosophy!). That said, PhD recipients are able to engage in thought experiments, reason about problems, and solve problems in sophisticated ways.