Six Decades of Planning Education in China: Those Planned and Unplanned

Abstract

This chapter attempts to provide a holistic picture of the history of China’s professional urban planning education in the modern era: its beginning, subsequent downturn, heyday, and future challenges. Both quantitative and qualitative development is briefly recorded in this chapter. Planning education in China is above all a physical and technical professional training, with origins in civil engineering and architecture schools, and has contributed to building a relatively homogenous and young profession. The system has survived and thrived in the transition from a planned economy to a more and more market-driven one, serving the needs of rapidly growing Chinese cities. Nevertheless, the legitimacy of physical planning in China could face fundamental challenges in a rising civil society, and it is the key mission for future Chinese planning education to provide a solid training ground for these possible shifts, in terms of planners’ values, attitudes, skills, and knowledge.