European Field Class

Various Locations Year 3 – ENVS 378

This field class moves from place to place each year, but each year involves travel to an inspiring European city region to consider planning in a new context. The evolution of planning systems has long been characterised by the cross-national exchange of ideas, models and approaches. Recently, globalisation and increasing interconnectedness between regions and populations, and the rise of global challenges such as climate change, have led to sustained interest in how different political systems and cultures address particular ecological, social and economic issues. Equally, UN Habitat (2009) has argued for the adoption a ‘one-world’ approach to planning education which equips students to work in different ‘world contexts’. The UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and New Urban Agenda also identify a key role for planning in helping to deliver sustainable and resilient cities and communities. The field class provides an opportunity to see how a planning system in another state is responding to these goals ‘on the ground’. 

The field class contributes to the module’s consideration of the international dimensions of planning studies and practice, including:  the purposes, value, principles, methods and potential challenges of international planning studies; the ‘context-dependent’ nature of planning as an activity embedded in different national, cultural, political and spatial settings; processes of ‘learning from other countries’; how different traditions and systems of planning can be characterised; the emergence of a global agenda for planning with the rise of global planning challenges and the work of the UN and other agencies; how transnational, supranational and cross-boundary contexts influence spatial planning and territorial development – e.g. in the European Union; and how planning systems in selected countries in different global regions address contemporary planning challenges e.g. climate change, poverty, health, economic development, transport, housing etc.