Travelling Planning Educators: The Flow of Planning Knowledge Across Borders.

Abstract

There exists no “one size fits all” approach to planning education in Europe (Healey 2011; Kunzmann 2015; Kunzmann, Schretzenmayr 2015; Gilliard, Thierstein 2015; Alterman 2016). A European-wide planning education approach seems neither possible nor desirable. Not possible because “Europe has many quite different regional traditions when it comes to educating planners” and “there does not seem to be much willingness to agree on a best approach to planning education” (Kunzmann, Schretzenmayr 2015: 89). Not desirable, because “it would endanger the diversity of planning cultures across Europe” (Kunzmann 2015: 2). Planning is a discipline, which seeks to achieve progress towards an environmentally-sensitive future of the built environment in response to socio-culturally embedded human needs. It is a social practice oriented towards enhancing liveability and sustainability in the future and to serve the many rather than only the few (Healey 2014). Planners around the globe, shape, create and make places and cities (Landry 2006) and as a consequence influence the living conditions of the people residing in these places and cities (Jacobs 2011). Educators therefore should teach their students – the planners of tomorrow – how to plan for people in their specific geo-political, socio-cultural, economic, legal, administrative, local, regional and national contexts and environments. Let us agree that there is no single planning approach that fits everyone. One of the emerging questions then is: what happens when planning educators travel from place to place, for example, as a Visiting Professor, to teach future planners in a different country (different context and environment, different planning culture, different language)? What kind of knowledge, values and beliefs do they transfer to these new settings? What are the opportunities and/or risks of this transnational flow of knowledge for students and educators? How far can educators from a different country prepare students to develop endogenously-shaped responses to their own particular situations? Are there any contingent universals in planning? If yes, how can they be translated into a specific context, planning culture and language? The purpose of this essay is to briefly discuss some challenges that I – an Austrian planning academic – faced as part of a four-month Visiting Professorship at the University of Cagliari, Italy. The arguments made in this essay build on my own personal experiences and observations. They are offered here for the purpose of furthering the discussion about the future of planning education.