ABSTRACT
The very nature of urban planning practice requires that we should think carefully about the implications of boundaries. In the most fundamental sense of the term as it pertains to urban planning, boundaries refer to the basic parameters of problem definition, with the observation that what lies beyond may be insufficiently conceptualized, if not overlooked entirely. For practicing planners, the parameters of problem definition are shaped by a number of boundary conditions – jurisdictional responsibilities which lie at the root of planning as a spatial exercise, especially, but also the institutional limitations of prevailing regulatory regimes and the fiscal – and therefore temporal – boundaries of municipal budgeting.1 Considering the possible disjuncture between the practice of planning and the processes and patterns of urbanization, especially rapid urbanization under conditions of limited societal resources, we need to ask whether the boundaries which define and delimit planning practice adequately fit with the overall parameters of urbanization, as understood spatially, temporally, and with regard to the institutional requirements of local governance.
