Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science

Faculty members in planning schools operate with the inherent assumption that the education they are providing is essential to the adequate preparation of future planning professionals. Yet, public-sector positions continue to require a “degree in planning or related field”. Many advertisements state that work experience will be accepted as a direct substitute for education. If there is not a widespread recognition of the value of a formal planning education as a prerequisite for practicing in the field, how can planning educators continue to justify what it is that they are doing and teaching? This paper is focused on three related issues: (1) What should be the value of a formal planning education? (2) How can the actual value of a formal planning education in general, and more specifically of that education provided by individual planning schools, be assessed? (3) How can planning schools more effectively assess how they are doing, and which changes to make?

In this paper is an outline of four distinct traditions or “modes” of environmental planning. These are planning as rule-making, as place-making, as targeted action, and as principled action. The four modes are discussed in relationship; each mode challenges and reinforces the others in powerful ways. The basic educational requirements are also presented. Environmental planning belongs in the vanguard of the new educational paradigm.

The schooling and the practice of planning remain two very distinct cultures, and this gap has seemingly widened in recent years. The author argues that what is driving the wedge between the schooling and the practice of planning today is a growing undercurrent of antiplanning sentiment in the US planning academia. The two streams of antiplanning thoughts discussed are not new as ideas, and flow out of two very distinctive intellectual traditions: Marxism and marketism. The antiplanning roots of marketism are deeper and are derived from the ideas of economic liberalism. Yet until recently, the marketist critique of planning had remained seemingly muted within the field of planning. In the wake of the Thatcher-Reagan era, however, the marketist critique of planning has become vocal and shrill, and has indeed continued to chip away at the very intellectual foundations on which the practice of planning is based. Comparatively speaking, the Marxist critique of planning, although potentially no less pernicious, has been more cynical than threatening, and has remained largely as a rhetorical stance. In considering the antiplanning positions of these two traditions the author considers whether these positions are ideologically motivated or are simply presented as a logical antithesis to the very arguments for planning.

The current globalization calls for a globalizing pedagogy of planning education. By “globalization” is meant a process whereby certain megatrends are made universal to the human condition, although they are differently experienced by diverse cultures and activities and at various territorial scales. A “globalizing pedagogy”, on the other hand, is a mode of education which brings these trends to bear upon the planning profession in such a way as to allow for the advent of common global visions and locally specific practices. The author gives the rationale for a global approach to planning education, indicates the main characteristics of the current globalization, discusses past attempts at cultural universalism, and pedagogical innovations, and outlines some of the main features of a globalizing pedagogy for planning education. Some of the major challenges that the planning profession faces for adopting a global approach are also identified.

Bringing international perspectives to education has been a concern of many academic areas. In the case of urban planning, a professional field, this means preparing students to practice effectively in the variety of contexts found in the United States and around the world. The urban planning accreditation requirements and the views of graduates of accredited programs practicing abroad are herein examined. The vast majority of graduates suggest that a more “international view of planning” be incorporated into the curriculum. Based on specific suggestions from graduates and the current content of the accreditation guidelines, the authors recommend ways in which a global approach can be brought to planning education.

During the 1990s, we will observe continuing trends of increased “interconnectedness” among regions, nations, and people. These trends will generate dynamic forces leading the human race to a global society. The coming twenty-first century may well be termed as “the global century”. A successful transformation towards the global century, however, will require a new leadership and democratic process. Institutions of higher education will play a crucial role in this transformation.

In this paper the author proposes reform strategies for higher education to meet the new challenge of the global century. To be more specific, the following three items are examined. First, major trends toward the global century are highlighted. Second, the current situation of educational institutions is described. Third, with the above analyses, strategies of reform are discussed. Five key ideas in this paper are: (1) the global integration of knowledge and practice, (2) the development of long-term strategies at the levels of university administration and the departments, (3) the creation of stronger incentives and rewards for faculty and students, (4) the strengthening of the cultural foundation of learning and life, and (5) a major reorientation of funding practices toward a longer-term endowment approach.

This paper is a further development of presentations made to the fourth congress of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) in 1990, and to the joint congress of AESOP and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning in 1991. The author advances a proposal to facilitate international academic experiences for students, faculty, and researchers in planning. The focus is an information system which will include relevant and comparable data, from a single source, on planning education programs worldwide. In its final form, the system will make available to anyone interested these data, in whole or in any part, in computerized or hard-copy format.

The introductory section has a few indicators of the recent trends and current magnitude of international student exchange in all academic fields. In the absence of comprehensive data on the international exchange of planning students, these indicators will suggest the future significance of international activities in planning education.

Within the many changes happening at the global level, the integration by the end of 1992 of diverse European countries in a unified EC will represent one of the major socioeconomic and political accomplishments to happen at the eve of the twenty-first century. This integration is intended to produce a Europe infused with a “continental mindset” and totally open, in all sectors, to academic and professional mobility. Planning as an academic discipline and a profession will influence and be influenced by this process of unification. Already, planning schools and their representative organization AESOP, see their roles, activities, and future in a different emerging context. To mediate the differences among the countries, in language, legislation, institutions, and planning processes, the planning schools are turning whatever they have as international planning education, inwards and toward each other. They seem to shy away from their historic attention to the problems of less developed countries; many seek to shift their attention to Eastern Europe and the rising economies of the Pacific Rim.

The country profiles presented in this paper reflect on an extensive survey of seventy-four European schools of planning, and personal interviews in twenty-six of these schools. Their perspectives vary within a country and between countries; their assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of the planning programs are candid; and their intentions for the future of international planning education in Europe beyond 1992 are insightful and very telling of major shifts.

In the conclusion or epilogue are a summary and comments on the positions of the European schools. The implications of their future intentions for international planning education are highlighted.