Tenth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

Planning is still perceived as a top-down implementation of policies lead by a bureaucratic structure of civil servants. Much has changed in recent years and now working towards the implementation of smart cities, walkable cities, elder-friendly cities, or livable cities, to name a few of the current labelling trends the discipline has evolved. The discipline has emerged with Ildefons Cerdà’s “General Theory of Urbanization,” 1867 and Ebenezer Howard’s “Garden Cities of Tomorrow,” 1898 concept at the turn of the last century and was embraced and pushed by the modernist movement in the 1920s. Later it was focused on infrastructure and suburbs critiques by the vanguard in the ‘50-‘60s and has famously invented the lollipop and the cul-de-sac layout organizing neighbourhoods around the world. How do we plan today? With new technologies and social media, the bottom-up, grassroots movement had taken hold after 2000 in the planning communities and engagement is the norm. But we can do better. Participation and collaboration have led to new paradigms and concepts to co-create our cities. The discussion now embraces the democratization of space and encourages social movements to play an active role. Stakeholders are encouraged to participate. A review of the past reveals where we are today, and we can speculate on the next steps for the planning discipline to collectively build the places we live tomorrow.