Is my topic/focus too broad?

[akroor]

My opening sentence for my SOP for a PHD in Urban Planning reads:

In my PhD, I want to examine the matrix of material, institutional and cognitive contexts involved in the urban development policy environment in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Is that too broad? I feel like one could write several dissertations on each of the three contexts that I present here. Should I be focused like, I want to examing the nature of informal housing in urban planning, or something really narrow like that? I want to get into the program and I imagine a focus will help me get in, But i also want to explore the broad topic I present above and find my focus eventually. Any thoughts?

[fuzzylogician]

It's fine for an opening sentence, but the rest of your SOP needs to demonstrate that you know this is a very broad research area and detail which parts of it you want to focus on. I'd suggest picking one or two narrower topics and expanding on them in a paragraph. It's fine that you also have other interests and it's fine if you end up changing your mind and studying something different than what you wrote in your SOP--what you write in your SOP is not binding. But you do need to show that you're focused and can ask coherent questions that can be reasonably answered in the course of a PhD.