An Introduction To Global Planning Scholarship

In partnership with Routledge and the Global Planning Education Association Network, Volume 2 of Dialogues in Urban and Regional Planning has been published. The edition features 12 urban planning research papers authored on six continents, originally in four languages, and nominated by nine planning school associations.

The papers discuss planning issues of economy and urban place; environment and conservation of heritage; planning processes and the nature of decision making; the development of planning ideas; transport; and gender; each from a different planning scholarship perspective. The editors' introduction proposes directions to overcome regional isolation in planning research. Reviews of Volume One are posted to the book's web page.

From the introduction:

"There is much talk about globalisation and its effects on urban planning. Less in the headlines, but prominently positioned in the view of some planning educators, is the potential for international comparison to improve planning scholarship. International comparison can take two forms: comparison of practice and its contexts on the one hand, and comparison of research on the other.

The Dialogues in Urban and Regional Planning project is designed to foster comparison of planning research, although it cannot help but contribute to comparison of planning practice. Our premise has been that planning scholars often labour in isolation from others from whom they might productively

learn: isolation brought on by language differences, geographic and cultural distance, and contextual distinctions in planning practice systems that seem to create barriers to cross-national application of planning principles." (References removed for readability.)

"...We have suggested in this introduction that the various regional contributions can be classified according to certain 'universal' planning themes and concerns, and that cross-application of research approaches and fi ndings from one region to another can produce useful growth in the range and quality of planning thought. The Dialogues project has raised three significant cautionaries, however. It highlights the values of regional specificity in planning thought, points to regional isolation in the use of planning research, and underscores the difficulties researchers have

gaining access to research from other regions and languages."

[Editor's note: The full journal is available for a fee. However, a detailed 24-page Chapter 1 / Introduction by Bruce Stiftel, Vanessa Watson and Henri Acselrad, offers a useful and interesting introduction to each of the articles featured in the volume.]