Title - Contents - Introduction

Key Messages: Towards A New Role For Urban Planning
Even though urban planning has changed relatively little in most countries since its emergence about one hundred years ago, a number of countries have adopted some innovative approaches in recent decades. These include: strategic spatial planning; use of spatial planning to integrate public sector functions and to inject a territorial dimension; new land regularization and management approaches; participatory processes and partnerships at the neighbourhood level; new forms of master planning that are bottom-up and oriented towards social justice; and planning aimed at producing new spatial forms such as compact cities and new urbanism.

Acknowledgements

1 Urban Challenges and the Need to Revisit Urban Planning
Over the last century, urban planning has become a discipline and profession in its own right, has become institutionalized as a practice of government, as well as an activity of ordinary citizens and businesses, and has evolved as a complex set of ideas which guides both planning decisionmaking processes and urban outcomes. At certain times, planning has been seen as the activity which can solve many of the major problems of urban areas, while at other times it has been viewed as unnecessary government interference in market forces. More recently, it has been argued that systems of urban planning in developing countries are also the cause of many urban problems, and that by setting unrealistic standards, planning is promoting urban poverty and exclusion.

2 Understanding the Diversity of Urban Contexts
This chapter deals with the emergence and spread of contemporary, or modernist, urban planning. It also examines the various innovative or new approaches to urban planning which are being attempted in both developed and developing countries. ‘Modernist planning’ refers to the approach to urban planning which developed in the post-1850 urban industrial period in Western Europe and other advanced capitalist countries. The innovative approaches discussed in this chapter should not be viewed as models that can be applied in all contexts. While planning has common purposes, tasks and types, the form these take will be shaped by the social and cultural norms of particular places.

3 The Emergence and Spread of Contemporary Urban Planning
This chapter deals with the emergence and spread of contemporary, or modernist, urban planning. It also examines the various innovative or new approaches to urban planning which are being attempted in both developed and developing countries. ‘Modernist planning’ refers to the approach to urban planning which developed in the post-1850 urban industrial period in Western Europe and other advanced capitalist countries. The innovative approaches discussed in this chapter should not be viewed as models that can be applied in all contexts. While planning has common purposes, tasks and types, the form these take will be shaped by the social and cultural norms of particular places.

4 The Institutional and Regulatory Framework for Planning
The institutional and regulatory frameworks in which planning systems are situated vary enormously, derived as they are from the wider governance context and its particular history. The purposes of planning and how it is undertaken are shaped by the wider context of governance. This wider context reflects the way a society thinks about issues such as: how urban areas should develop; how the benefits of urban development should be distributed; and what the balance between individual rights and collective concerns should be as development proceeds. There are usually substantial tensions and conflicts between different sections of any society about these issues. Urban planning institutions and practices are themselves often active players in such struggles.

5 Planning, Participation and Politics
The focus of this chapter is on participation and politics as it relates to planning. It reviews forms of citizen participation in urban planning, the extent and nature of participation in urban planning in different parts of the world and political contexts as well as innovative approaches in this regard. Lessons from these experiences are taken into account in identifying ways to enhance participation in urban planning.

6 Bridging the Green and Brown Agendas
The concept of sustainable cities includes a number of fundamental objectives, that is: minimization of the use of non-renewable resources; achievement of the sustainable use of renewable resources; and staying within the absorptive capacity of local and global waste absorption limits. Action to attain these objectives provides the link between the natural and the built environment, or between the green and brown agendas. How these objectives have been and are being addressed in urban planning is the focus of this chapter.

7 Planning and Informality
The aim of this chapter is to identify trends and patterns of informal development in urban areas, discuss their implications for urban planning and review recent urban planning responses to informality. The prospect for addressing the challenges posed by informal urban development more effectively through new and more responsive planning approaches is also assessed.

8 Planning, Spatial Structure of Cities and Provision of Infrastructure
The provision of infrastructure such as transport networks, water, sewerage, electricity and telecommunications plays key roles in the development of efficient, healthy and sustainable cities. Other urban facilities and amenities such as schools, health services, social services, markets, places for gathering, worship and recreation are also important to the development of liveable cities.
These elements of infrastructure and facility provision are important in shaping the spatial structure of cities, at a city-wide and more local scale, and can result in certain sections of the population becoming spatially marginalized and excluded from access to urban opportunities. While planning potentially plays important roles in the way infrastructure and facilities are organized and in the spatial structuring of cities, its role has often been relatively weak, largely due to informal urban development processes, the growing importance of urban mega-projects and privately driven developments.

9 The Monitoring and Evaluation of Urban Plans
Urban planners and decision-makers need to know how best to use limited resources to address the complex urban challenges (and opportunities) that are presented. Urban planning seeks to be efficient (make optimal use of resources), effective (create desired and meaningful impacts and outcomes), and also seeks to enhance equity (of opportunity, rights and power, especially with regard to gender). To achieve this, decision-makers need a solid foundation of information and direction that can be provided by urban planning, specifically the monitoring and evaluation of urban plans.

10 Planning Education
As noted in previous chapters, urban planning is essential to crafting solutions to the pressing urban problems of the 21st century, yet professional planning practices have not always been able to keep pace with the challenges faced by urban areas. This is particularly the case in developing countries. Rapid urbanization in most developing countries has forced planners to respond to escalating demand for housing, infrastructure and services – from both formal and informal sectors.
The increasingly multicultural nature of many cities requires multicultural planning skills. So, together with changes in technical knowledge essential to successful urban planning, there have been changes in the softer ‘people’ skills needed to manage the processes of change.

11 Towards a New Role for Urban Planning
The purpose of this concluding chapter is to suggest a new role for urban planning. In many parts of the world, a paradigm shift in urban planning is required to ensure tolerable urban living through the next century. This chapter firstly identifies the main urban issues in various parts of the world to which planning will have to respond. The third section following from the second section draws out the main elements of more positive urban planning. What is identified here are the main principles of innovative planning, although the actual form they would take will be influenced by context. The fourth section identifies the changes which would need to be in place, or the initiatives which might be supportive in promoting new approaches to planning. The last section provides the conclusion.

Selected References