Reconceiving the knowledge-base of planning education in the developing world

Accelerated economic change in developing countries is rapidly transforming cities; existing urban systems and land-use patterns are poorly adapted to the scale of growth and the spatial restructuring of economic activity. Within this context, the paper assesses the challenges in educating planners in the knowledge and skills needed to deal with these trends. The paper argues for a review of planning education premised on the characteristics of new and complex urbanisation processes. The paper first examines the factors transforming cities: economic reform and structural adjustment as a driving force for novel inter- and intra-urban development processes; the city in a globalising economy, dependent on external economic imperatives; and a new framework of urban governance. The core of the paper explores the impact of these trends, and the radically revised role for urban planning which they have created, on planning education. The paper argues for a new knowledge-base contingent on developing an understanding of the radically changed processes of urbanisation and urban planning, in which urban management, decentralisation and community enablement are key areas of the new reality.