ABSTRACT
For many young planners, the noble intentions with going to planning school seem starkly out of place in the neoliberal worlds they have come to inhabit. For some, the huge gap between the power they thought they would have and what they actually do is not only worrying, but also deeply discouraging. But for some others, practice means finding practical and creative solutions to overcome challenges and complexities.
How do young planners in different settings respond to seemingly similar situations like these? What do they do – give up, adjust, or fight back? What role did their planning education play, and could it have helped in preparing and assisting them to respond to the world they are encountering?
In this edited volume, stories of young planners from sixteen countries that engage these questions are presented. The sixteen cases range from settings with older, established planning systems (e.g., USA, the Netherlands, and the UK) to settings where the system is less set (e.g., Brazil), being remodeled (e.g., South Africa and Bosnia Herzegovina), and under stress (e.g., Turkey and Poland). Each chapter explores what might be done differently to prepare young planners for the complexities and challenges of their ‘real worlds’. This book not only points out what is absent, but also offers planning educators an alternative vision.
The editors and esteemed contributors provide reflections and suggestions as to how this new generation of young planners can be supported to survive in, embrace, and change the world they are encountering, and, in the spirit of planning, endeavor to ‘change it for the better’.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|29 pages
Education, Reality, and Ethical Challenges
chapter 2|18 pages
Mismatch Between Planning Education and Practice
chapter 3|9 pages
Challenges of Planning Practice and Profession
part II|242 pages
Lost, Oblivious, or Boundary Pushing? Responses from Practicing Planners
chapter 4|15 pages
A Spider in the Web or a Puppet on a String?
chapter 6|14 pages
Good Intentions, Deep Frustrations, and Upward Mobility
chapter 7|19 pages
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
chapter 8|19 pages
Confronted and Disappointed?
chapter 10|15 pages
“Things Can Only Get Better”?
chapter 11|16 pages
“The Door Is Now Half Open”
chapter 13|16 pages
Facing up to Finnish Planning Pathologies
chapter 15|13 pages
“I Shall Survive”
chapter 16|13 pages
A New Generation of Professionals in Urban Planning – A System Full of Limitations
chapter 18|13 pages
Deregulation of the Spatial Planners’ Profession in Poland and the New Inconsistent System
chapter 19|16 pages
Planning Pedagogy and Practices in Transition
part III|26 pages
Recommendations, Reflections, and Conclusions