Educating Australia's future planners

Abstract

Planning is both a generic activity combining mind and senses in appraisal, speculation, analysis, synthesis, evaluation and design, and a practical profession performing a necessary social role of spatial organization. As the pace of change accelerates in contemporary society, there is an increasing need for these roles to help integrate diverse innovations into coherent wholes and provide processes of assessment and control for new physical development (Alexander, 2003). As a result, there is mounting world wide demand for well educated and competent planners, which is exceeding supply (Planning Institute of Australia [PIA], 2004). This, in turn, creates pressures on traditional educational systems and provides incentives for new providers to consider entering the field of planning education