CPN-ACSP Comparative Planning Education Roundtable
June 17, Beijing
Renmin University

As part of CPN China Week June 15-20, 2009

Chair (Oversea): Prof. Michael Hibbard, President of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP)

Chair (Chinese): Prof. YAN Jinming, Associate Dean, School of Public Administration, People’s University

Themes:
Education for urban and regional planning is reaching its centennial.  For example, this year the Association of European Schools of Planning is holding its annual congress at the University of Liverpool, to recognize the establishment of the Department of Civic Design there in 1909.  From that beginning, planning education has grown to become a global enterprise consisting of about six hundred programs and thirteen thousand academics.

Until recently, though, urban and regional planning practice and education were largely defined by national norms and practices – their institutional, legal, and cultural contexts.  With the exception of a few adventurous graduate students and academics – mostly concentrated in international development – there was very little cross-fertilization of planning ideas.

In the last twenty years or so that has begun to change, thanks to the rise of national and regional associations of planning educators.  Academics and graduate students around the world participate in one another’s conferences and journals, resulting in a lively global exchange.  The Global Planning Education Associations Network, formed in 2001 as an outgrowth of the first World Planning Schools Congress in Shanghai, is the institutional embodiment of the trend toward globalization in planning education.

It is not clear where this cross-fertilization and exchange of ideas might be leading.  Some see a “one world” approach emerging in planning; others expect context-specificity to continue, albeit more enriched by global exchanges.

Topics:

A few of the specific topics that might be addressed include:

• The national context of planning practice and its implications for planning education
• The national context of higher education and its implications for planning education
• The scholarly/professional orientation(s) of planning:
• Design based
• Social science based (policy oriented)
• Engineering based
• The relative emphasis on education, scholarship, and outreach
• Where do faculty come from (the world of practice, or academia)?

Speakers:

• Eugene L. Birch, Professor of Urban Research and Education, Department of City and Regional Planning, Co-Director, Penn Institute for Urban Research, University of Pennsylvania
• Michael Hibbard, President of the (U.S.) Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning
• John R. Logan, Professor of Sociology, Director, Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences, Department of Sociology, Brown University
• Tingwei Zhang, Professor, Department of Urban Planning and Policy, Director, Asia and China Research Program, Great Cities Institute, University of Illinois at Chicago
• LI Xun, Secretary General, China Society for Urban Studies
• TIAN Li, Professor, School of Architecture and Planning, Tongji University
• YANG Jianqiang, Head, Department of Urban Planning, Dongnan University
• ZHU Wenyi, Dean, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University
• WU Zhiqiang, Dean, School of Architecture and Planning, Tongji University
• XU Jiangang, Head, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Nanjing University
• YAN Jinming, Associate Dean, School of Public Administration, People’s University
• ZHAO Yanjing, Director of Planning, the City of Xiamen
• GENG Hongbin, Assistant Secretary General, Urban Planning Society of China
• LV Bin, Dean, Department of Urban Planning, Peking University

Discussants:

• Randall Crane, Vice Chair and Professor of Urban Planning, Associate Director, Institute of Transportation Studies, UCLA
• John De Monchaux, Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning, former Dean, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, MIT
• Robert B. Olshansky, Professor, Dept of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Hugo Priemus, Professor and former Dean, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands
• Fulong Wu, Professor of East Asian Planning and Development, Director of Urban China Research International Network, Cardiff University, UK
• Harry Dimitriou, Professor of Planning Studies, UCL, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Member of Office of Science and Technology(OST) of UK Government

Program:

CPN-ACSP Comparative Planning Education Roundtable
June 17, Renmin University, Beijing

Chair (Oversea): Professor Michael Hibbard, President of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning

Chair (Chinese): Prof. YAN Jinming, Associate Dean, School of Public Administration, People’s University

Venue: Room 2, Yifu Conference Center, Renmin (People's) University

Congress Logistics:
The CPN-ACSP Comparative Planning Education Roundtable will be held as part of the CPN China Week 2009: Urbanization Summit,, the 6th year continuation of CPN’s effort to fuse western knowledge on urban development with China’s unprecedented experience. CPN China Week 2009 will be held in Beijing/Chongqing on June 15-20, including seven conferences:

• CPN Urban Housing Conference (Renmin University, June 16-17, program)
• CPN Urban Regeneration Roundtable (Renmin University, June 17, program)
• CPN Urban Planning and Public Policy Roundtable (Renmin University, June 16, program)
• CPN Urban Economy and Job Creation Roundtable (Renmin University, June 17, program)
• CPN-ACSP Urban Planning Education Roundtable (Renmin University, June 17, program)
• CPN-NRDC Urban Energy, Climate Change and Transportation Roundtable (Tsinghua University, June 18, program)

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About CPN
China Planning Network (CPN) was established in 2004 and has since advanced from simply an academic interest group to become an independent voice that affects the education, research, practice and policies in China’s urban development. CPN has moved forward on its mission to systematically introduce western knowledge and experiences to China and more importantly CPN has started pursuing its vision of cultivating China's own discourse on urban development. As MIT President Susan Hockfield wrote in 2006: "Through the efforts of the China Planning Network, MIT and the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, continue to lead the world to bring the advanced knowledge on urban planning and development to bear on China's urbanization challenges."  

Please contact Jinhua Zhao at jinhua@mit.edu Tel: +1-857-350-0079 or Ming Guo at guoming@mit.edu Tel: +86-(0)10-84418776 for more information.