The Origins of Planning Education: Overview

Abstract

Planning education in the early twentieth century developed in response to the need for professionals in architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, public health, and law to understand and address the unique challenges of rapidly growing cities and regions. It was in the United States and the United Kingdom that the first standalone planning education programs flourished prior to World War II. Former colonial nations expanded planning education initially on the model provided by the West, often because their leading educators were products of the Anglo-American system. The proliferation of planning education programs in Eastern Europe, sections of Asia and Africa and especially in China since the end of 1980s owes to increased global engagements coupled with continuing challenges of urbanization. Throughout the twentieth century, transnational exchanges of ideas and strategies have helped to shape the global planning education movement.