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World Urban Planning "Olympics" Held in Shanghai
Thursday saw the first World Urban Planning Schools Conference being held in Shanghai Tongji University.
Li Lanqing, vice premier of the State Council, said in his congratulatory letter to the conference, "China sees a rapid progress of urbanization. We hope that the urbanologists and planners from all over the world may take the opportunity to know more about China, pay close attention to China and give advice to the problems in China's urbanization development." He expressed a sincere welcome to the experts and scholars present at the conference and pointed out that the conference will surely become a milestone in the history of the world urban planning and study.
The first international planning conference is jointly convened by famous regional urban planning organizations of the world. They are the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP, North America), Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP, Europe) and Asian Planning Schools Association (APSA, Asia) and Australian and New Zealand Association of Planning Schools (ANZAPS, Oceania). About 1,000 famous planners and urbanologists gathered for the first time to discuss important problems of the future of the cities.
Taking the advantages of Shanghai as a metropolis, the charm of its recent brisk development and quickly improved infrastructure construction, Shanghai Tongji University succeeded in winning the sponsorship of the conference. The three-day conference will include 153 seminars and 20 round-table discussions. It will invite representatives of the four large urban planning organizations to form an international instruction committee. Thirty-six famous scholars will act as the subject chairmen. The luminaries of the planning circles will make over 100 thematic reports concerning "roles played by cities and regions in globalization", "urban administration and public policies", "development of dwellings and community", "urban planning in developing countries", "transnational planning", etc. The conference received more than 730 dissertations that involve about 900 world first urbanologists and planners.
A healthy and mature knowledge system in urban planning reflects the actual strength and vitality of a country. Developing countries need advanced technologies in the management and operation of their cities while developed countries the creative experiences of developing countries to heal the innate troubles in their cities. Thus emerged the "Olympics" of the world urban planning academic circles. As sources say, an International City Planning Association may probably be formally set up as time requires.
By PD Online Staff Du Minghua
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