139R_The landscape and evolution of urban planning science (research summary)

Are you interested in the boundaries and directions of urban planning science? Summary of the article titled The landscape and evolution of urban planning science from 2023 by Milad Haghani, Soheil Sabri, Chris De Gruyter, Ali Ardeshiri, Zahra Shahhoseini, Thomas W. Sanchez, and Michele Acuto, published in the Cities journal. This is a great preparation to our next interviewee in episode 141, Soheil Sabri, where we talk a lot about the urban planning science. Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see what urban planning science is. This article presents insights how the science of urban planning has historically transitioned and where it is headed. As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects: Urban planning is a multidisciplinary technical profession, and endeavour that aims to create better places and public spaces for people by balancing the built and natural environment. The current trajectories towards resilience, smart cities and urban green spaces reflect global concerns about climate change, natural disasters, and the influence of technological developments in smart urban planning and management. Urban planning science is evolving to help urban challenges, so should its education too: for example. urban resilience and smart cities are very specific and distinct domains that need a multi-disciplinary training approach to prepare urban planners and policy-makers in addressing climate change issues and leveraging emerging technologies for sustainable, productive and liveable cities. You can find the article through this link. Abstract: The science of urban planning has drawn on a wide range of disciplines and research perspectives. This makes it challenging to define the boundaries and directions of the field. Here, nearly 100,000 articles on urban planning are analysed to objectively determine divisions, temporal trends and influential references and actors of urban planning. In terms of the structural composition, four broad divisions are identified: (1) governance and policy, (2) economics and markets, (3) housing and (4) built and natural environment. In terms of the temporal evolution, the earliest trends were related to “welfare economics”, “agglomeration economies”, “urban economics”, and “urban growth machine”. During the 1980s and 1990s, the focus moved towards “regional policy and development”, “social welfare”, and “urban renaissance”. This trend continued during the 2000s and 2010s, heading to “urban morphology”, “participatory planning”, “urban sociology”, “global cities”, and “political economy”. The field has recently headed towards areas of “resilience”, “smart cities” and “urban green space”. These transitions have been derivative, and the paradigm shifts have been very gradual. Another key observation is a notable increase in author connectivity and international collaboration. The results provide objective insights into how the science of urban planning has historically transitioned and where it is headed. Connecting episodes you might be interested in: No.055R - Smartness that matters about urban water management; No.108 - Interview with Dr Anthony Kent about urban geography; You can find the transcript through this link. What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available. I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in. Music by Lesfm from Pixabay