AESOP 2012

Congress Theme

PLANNING TO ACHIEVE / PLANNING TO AVOID:
The Need for New Discourses and Practices in Spatial Development and Planning

Drastic changes in the globally shared environmental, economic, social, and political contexts concurrently impose problems on societies today which beg new questions, theoretical frameworks, and areas of research, and demand new approaches in the education and practice of spatial planning.

Global warming and consequent climate change, environmental deterioration, ecological degradation, depletion of natural resources, biological degeneration, and other macro irreversible processes are more clearly perceived and understood today by scientists, planners and the world community. The very material conditions these processes give rise to affect the modes of production, consumption, mobility and other patterns of activities today and in the near future. This will demand renewed strategies and policies in social and spatial organization and conduct. On the other hand, escalating and complex forms of natural and anthropogenic hazards and risks faced by societies make safety in cities and geographies of survival a central issue to spatial policy today.

The economic meltdown experienced globally, and in many European countries already had influences in spatial policies and is likely to have profound impacts on the planning and policy agenda today and in the near future. High rates of urban poor, unemployment, socio-spatial inequalities, rural exodus, impoverished environments, risk pooling, and incapacitated local communities tend to persist. New approaches, policy frameworks, and methods of intervention are considered as imperatives today. Politically, reasons seem to have accumulated today so as to transform representative democracies extensively into participatory forms of discretionary practice. As conditions of economic and ecologic existence become more fragile, planning decisions and implementations demand greater transparency and shared responsibilities.