'Education needs to be part of urban planning'

AHMEDABAD: Planning education is quite removed from actual city and urban planning. It should be included in the decision-making processes, said Darshini Mahadevia and Rutul Joshi from faculty of planning of CEPT University.
On the concluding day of the 10th congress of Asian Planning Schools Association (APSA) here on Thursday, Mahadevia criticized present urban planning practices and processes and argued that the responsibility lay with education system itself, which has narrowed its scope to just allocation of urban space.
After liberalization of the economy, the process of decentralization, increased participation of private sector and communities in the planning process have been greatly emphasized. JNNRUM was one effort in this direction, stressing on urban poverty and community participation by creating a parallel hierarchy of technical advisory groups at local, state and national levels, she said.
Any paradigm shift, she said, "is a complex resultant of a dialogue between the theory, its practices and socio-political implications".