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- Promoting Excellence in Planning Education and Research
- Congresses, Workshops, Meetings, Lectures and Summer School Events
- Safeguarding the development of AESOP’s Quality Recognition Programme
- Awards in Teaching, Best Published Paper, Best Congress Paper
- International, peer-reviewed, open-access journals
Recent Submissions
Proceedings of the IV World Planning Schools Congress, July 3-8th, 2016 : Global crisis, planning and challenges to spatial justice in the north and in the south
(AESOP, 2016) Randolph, Rainer
We are publishing here the extended abstracts presented at the IV WPSC. Those which were discussed in the Track Sessions, as well as a considerable number of contributions in Plenary and Special Sessions and Roundtables. Farnak Miraftab´s Opening Keynote “Insurgency, planning and the prospect of a humane urbanism” was published (in portuguese) in ANPUR´s journal Revista Brasileira de Estudos Urbanos e Regionais (Brazilian Journal of Urban and Regional Studies), v.18, n. 3 (2016), p. 363-377 (http://rbeur.anpur.org.br/rbeur/article/view/5499).
It is our conviction that these texts reflect an important panorama of ideas, thoughts, experiences and practices of the nearly 600 researchers, scientists, students and practioneers who attended the congress in Rio de Janeiro with the aim to have an unique opportunity to discuss the matter of planning with colleagues from all over the world.
As it puts our colleague Carlos Balsas in the conclusions he wrote about his experiences by participating the discussions at the congress: “Attention was directed at the need to look forward to more planning not less, more planning research not less, and more educational opportunities to strengthen urban and regional planning. … Alternative paradigms based on the radical deconstruction of prevailing knowledge sets and philosophies by some of those living in southern and northern hemispheres are making positive strides and can be confidently further developed”
Agenda od the Head of Department (HoD) meeting in Bratislava
(AESOP, 2006)
March 16th, Thursday
9.00 – 12.00 hours: ExCo meeting
14.00 – 17.00 hours: CoRep meeting
March 17th, Friday – The HoD meeting
9.30 h. Welcome by Simin Davoudi, President of Aesop
9.45 h. Planning education and research, Klaus Kunzmann and Barrie Needham
10.30 h. Bologna process: preliminary results of the survey, Simin Davoudi
11.00 h. Discussions, focusing on common conflicts and specific solutions
12.00 h. Lunch 14.00 h. Introducing the importance of research assessments by Sandro Balducci
14.30 h. General discussions
15.00 h. Parallel workshops, focussing on in-depth discussions on both Bologna and research
16.30 h. Plenary conclusions: The way forward
17.00 h. Drinks
March 18th, Saturday – Case and study trip
9.30 h. Welcome by our Bratislava hosts
9.45 h. Introducing the specific local context of the Bratislava planning school
10.30 h. Introducing Bratislava’s urban planning context
11.30 h. Study trip around and through Bratislava I
13.00 h. Lunch
14.30 h. Study trip around and through Bratislava II
16.00 h. Drinks
18. How public norms help to cope with uncertainty in complex practices of planning
(AESOP, 2021) Salet, Willem
Planning has become more fallible in the transitional stage of post-modernity. Facing errors and increasing uncertainties does not give an alibi to abandon purposive planning strategies. The public would not accept a flaw of public action when social problems increase. Rather, it is an incentive to make planning strategies more resilient and corrective. Planning always has been tentative and adventurous rather than relying on given certainties. When the problems of time become more intractable, more agility of pragmatism is in the line of expectation. However, what if the purposes and solutions become part of the problem instead of bringing relief? Today, planning and public action are challenged in depth. In his main work Public Norms and Aspirations (2018) Willem Salet argues that improving on pragmatic agility is a permanent drive for planning, it is necessary and worthwhile but not adequate and might even become a problem in itself when taken as the sole point of orientation. The lone preoccupation with problem solving and targeting purposive aspirations has become one of the main concerns of planning practices today. It has become matter of urgency to re-appreciate the role and the meaning of public norms in planning and public action. Public norms differ strongly of goal-specific or problem-solving aspirations; they are normative conditions to social interaction rather than performing purposive action and solving problems. They provide a normative antenna of the public in its permanent search to value 'what one might expect from another' providing reliability in uncertain situations, justifying what is 'appropriate' to do rather than performing outcome oriented planning processes. Both processes of social normalisation and purposive strategies of problem solving are needed in planning: it is in their dialectic interaction that the answers must be found for the problems of planning in our time. However, the normative dimension of planning is deeply neglected today in the prevailing managerial practices of planning and public action (and even in law and legislation). As a result, the purposive and problem solving strategies themselves have become nomadic and fragile. Willem Salet will discuss the contemporary dilemmas of planning by confronting the prevailing approaches of urban and regional planning with challenges of public norms and social normalisation. He will discuss major topical issues of public planning practices in city-regions and raise attention to the normative dilemma's with regard to recent climate policies; the normative dilemma's regarding housing policies for low- and middle-income groups in European city-regions; the normative dilemma's of mobility planning, facing particularly challenges of multimodal infrastructures; and the normative conditions of landscape and heritage to purposive processes of urban development.
Video available at: https://youtu.be/u8QHC_Nuzis
14. Lessons from Paradise
(AESOP, 2019) Needham, Barrie; Van Leeuwen, Eveline
Hosted by Wageningen University
07 October 2019
The 14th Lecture Series took place at Wageningen University, Netherlands and featured Prof. Barrie Needham Paradise Lost! Can it be regained.
The Lecture was introduced by Thomas Hartmann and Wim Van Der Knaap and also included a presentation from Eveline Van Leeuwen The fairphone approach dealing with spatial and temporal dynamic
Video available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMz8N_63OzM&t=5s
15. Manuel Aalbers and Iván Tosics: From the financialization of the city to planning for efficient housing
(AESOP, 2019) Aalbers, Manuel; Tosics, Iván
The 15th Lecture Series took place at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon, Portugal and featured two talks by Manuel Aalbers and Iván Tosics.
The Lecture was organised in collaboration with the final conference of project exPERts: Making Sense of Planning Expertise (coordinated by Marco Alelgra; https://expertsproject.org/). The Lecture was chaired by Marco Allegra and Simone Tulumello and introduced by an AESOP ExCo representative.
In the first talk, Manuel Aalbers argued that a new form of urban development is emerging in which processes of financialization play a key role, and focus on the implications for the emerging, global housing crises. In the second talk, Iván Tosics reflected on how planning can contribute to efficient and inclusive housing, and the role of the various actors at stake.
Video available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yIwgdoyPeU&t=6s