MSc Environmental Impact Assessment & Management / Course details

This module provides an introduction to some of the most important debates in contemporary urban theory, planning theory and practice. It does not, could not, attempt to cover all of planning theory and urban theory – rather it looks at the intersection of the two. The particular ‘take’ of this module involves exploring evolving issues in these two literatures around ‘the good city’ and ‘the good planner’.
 

1. To explore the relationship between planning theory, urban theory and planning practice.
2. To question the main functions of planning intervention.
3. To explore the development of different (often competing) modes of planning thought.
4. To consider the impact of ethics and values upon planning thought and practice.

 

By the end of the course students will have developed:

1. Critical awareness of the broader social and environmental context to planning activity.
2. An appreciation of the dominant themes in planning theory and urban theory.
3. Awareness of the nature of the theory-practice gap.
4. Understanding of the impact of differing social and political agendas upon the direction of urban planning.
5. Have established an appropriate framework for reflective practice
    

For post-graduate students, the course will have at its heart a series of weekly 2-hour lecture slots, supported by four seminar classes and two essay workshops. You are welcome to email and to come and discuss issues with Graham Haughton and by arrangement with other module teaching staff.  All lectures take place between 2 and4 on Thursdays. Week 8 is International Fieldtrip Week, so there are no lectures scheduled. 

Continuous assessment (100%): Two essays, both individual. Essay one will be 1,000 words and worth 35% of the course total. Formative feedback from this essay will be provided before the submission of the final essay. Essay two (1500 words) 65%.

Written feedback will follow submission of essay one, which will be provided before submission of the second essay. Opportunities will be available to discuss this feedback with the course lecturers. Essay two comes at the end of the course – written feedback on this will be provided within the standard SEED time limits (15 working days).

Core reading
***Campbell, S. & Fainstein, S. (eds.) (2012) Readings in Planning Theory, Blackwell, Malden. (3rd edition – earlier ones are fine, but very different – the current edition says it has 70% new chapters in it)
Other course books
**Allmendinger P (2009) (2nd edition – 1st edition is fine too) Planning theory Palgrave Basingstoke
Allmendinger, P. (2000) Planning in Postmodern Times, Routledge, London.
*Allmendinger, P. and Tewdwr-Jones, M. (eds) (2002) Planning Futures: New Directions for Planning Theory, Routledge, London.
**Fainstein, S. & Campbell, S. (eds.) (2011, third edition) Readings in Urban Theory, Blackwell, Oxford.
Haughton G, Allmendinger P, Counsell D, Vigar G (2010), The New Spatial Planning: soft spaces, fuzzy boundaries and territorial management, Routledge, London.
Healey, P. (1997) Collaborative Planning: Shaping Places in Fragmented Spaces, Macmillan, Basingstoke.
*Hillier J and Healey P (eds) (2010) The Ashgate Companion to Planning Theory, Ashgate Aldershot
Kitchen T (1997) People, politics, policies and plans Paul Chapman London
McCann, E. and Ward, K. ed. 2011 Mobile Urbanism: city policymaking in the global age. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
*Sandercock, L. (1998) Towards Cosmopolis: Planning for Multicultural Cities, Wiley, Chichester.
*Taylor, N. (1998) Urban Planning Theory Since 1945, Sage, London.