Planners and their organizations throughout the world provide leadership in addressing many societal issues. Often, challenges and successes cross geographic, national and institutional borders. Best practices are often shared. Requests for assistance, too, occur through personal or institutional networks. Several organizations that have been assisting each other in recent years are sponsoring this website and hope others will join. Please use it, contribute to it and suggest ways in which it can become more useful in bringing planners together from throughout the world. See you in Nanjing, China, in October and November 2008 for the GPN Congress and the World Urban Forum!
American Planning Association (APA)
The American Planning Association is a nonprofit public interest and research organization committed to urban, suburban, regional, and rural planning. APA and its professional institute, the American Institute of Certified Planners, advance the art and science of planning to meet the needs of people and society. APA represents 43,000 practicing planners, officials, and citizens involved with urban and rural planning issues. Sixty-five percent of APA's members work for state and local government agencies. These members are involved, on a day-to-day basis, in formulating planning policies and preparing land-use regulations. APA's objective is to encourage planning that will meet the needs of people and society more effectively.
APA resulted from a consolidation of the American Institute of Planners, founded in 1917, and the American Society of Planning Officials, established in 1934. The organization has 46 regional chapters and 19 divisions devoted to specialized planning interests. The American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) is APA's professional institute, certifying planners who have met specific educational and work criteria and passed the certification exam.
Canadian Institute of Planners (CIP)
The Canadian Institute of Planners has been dedicated to the advancement of responsible planning throughout Canada since 1919. Working on behalf of planners and the planning profession, CIP serves as the national voice of Canada's planning community. More than half of the CIP's 6,000 members are government employees, mainly working for municipal/local planning offices. More than one-third of CIP members work in private businesses, typically as consultants, developers, or as advisors to lawyers or corporations.
Commonwealth Association of Planners (CAP)
The Commonwealth Association of Planners is concerned with the planning and management of settlements and regions across the Commonwealth. Professional organizations of urban and regional planners across the Commonwealth are members. CAP is a forum for creative ideas and practical action to make healthy, attractive and competitive towns, cities and regions.
CAP seeks to focus and develop the skills of urban and regional planners across the Commonwealth to meet the challenges of urbanization and the sustainable development of human settlements. CAP holds conferences where ideas and practical experiences can be shared and compared. CAP has links with its members, with other professional associations, and with non-governmental organizations involved in the struggle to improve human settlements, to alleviate poverty and to move towards sustainable development. CAP welcomes opportunities to participate in activities that bring together planners and communities and /or other professionals.
Planning Institute Australia (PIA)
The Planning Institute of Australia was founded in 1951 and is the only national organization representing qualified urban and regional planners and other related disciplines in Australia. It is a federation of state and territory divisions with national council comprising one representative from each division, an elected National President, an Honorary Secretary/Treasurer, the National Young Planner Convenor and others as set out in the PIA Constitution and By-Laws.
The Institute runs a number of events at both the national and divisional levels, including a biennial National Congress, an Annual State Conference in most States/Territories, special purpose seminars, and a number of social occasions. The Institute also presents National Awards for Planning Excellence to recognize and publicize outstanding achievements in planning and design, and has a code of ethics to which all members are required to adhere.
Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI)
The RTPI exists to advance the science and art of town planning for the benefit of the public.
Town planning involves much more than planning towns, and is often referred to simply as "planning." Many planners, in both the public and private sectors, work within the planning system laid down by Parliament. But planners are also engaged work in a wide variety of other work.
The RTPI is a membership organization, and a registered charity. Most of its members are fully qualified professional planners. Nearly two-thirds work as planning officers for local councils.
The Royal Town Planning Institute has engaged with several partners to create a website about community planning, for a global audience. This website is a great starting point for anyone concerned with shaping their local environment. It provides easily accessible how-to-do-it best practice information of international scope and relevance.
World Urban Forum 4
November 3–7. 2008 in
Nanjing, China
The World Urban Forum has become the world's
premier gathering for the exchange of knowledge
expertise and solutions on managing growing
towns and cities.
The Fourth session of the Forum will be hosted by
the Government of the People’s Republic of China
in partnership with UN-HABITAT in Nanjing.
[More]
GPN Congress 2008
October 31-November 2, 2008
Zhenjiang, China
The Global Planners Network Congress will highlight critical planning issues, organized around the conference themes of urbanization, poverty, and climate change and hazards. Featured speakers include Dr. Anna Tibaijuka, the Director of UN-HABITAT, and Mr. Shi Heping, Party Secretary of Zhenjiang. The GPN Congress will immediately precede the World Urban Forum 4 in Nanjing, only 70 km away.
[Online registration]
[Call for Papers]
[Sponsorship Opportunities]
[Congress
Goals & Program Review]
APA China Study Tour 2008
October 21-30, 2008
As it charges through the 21st century at a pace and scale of urbanization and economic transformation unprecedented in world history, China faces enormous planning challenges in housing, transportation, infrastructure, historic preservation, and environmental protection. How are the Chinese tackling these challenges? Find out on the APA China Tour, and then join the GPN Congress in Zhenjiang and the WUF 4 only 30 km away in Nanjing.
[More]
RTPI Study Tour to China 2008
October 26-November 3, 2008
On the occasion of the GPN Congress in Zhenjiang (see above), the Royal Town Planning Institute is organizing a study tour to include sightseeing and the Congress. Leaving the UK on October 26, the tour will start in Shanghai and go via Dong Tan to Zhenjiang for the Congress. There will be an option to stay on in China for another week to attend the UN Habitat World Urban Forum 4, November 3-7, in the capital of Jiangsu Province, Nanjing, or to visit Xi'an or Beijing. The basic eight-day tour (including GPN Congress registration and attendance) will cost about £2,200, including flights from UK airports; add-on elements will be priced separately. If you would like a brochure about the tour as soon as it is published (with no obligation at this stage), please contact the Institute's International Affairs Officer Judith Eversley.
PIA Invites You to Experience Japan
Discover how the Japanese are planning to move their traditional and often, Heritage listed, cities into the future. Join the the Planning Institute of Australia Study Tour for 2008, which will include the GPN Congress in Zhenjiang and the World Urban Forum 4 in Nanjing.
[More]
GPN Research
GPN has launched a tool designed to help planners around the world assess their capacity to respond to the challenges of urban growth. The Self-Diagnostic Tool to Assess Planning Capacity has been developed by the UK’s Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) and Commonwealth Association of Planners. The outcomes of this project will be presented later this year to the UN Habitat World Urban Forum 4 in Nanjing, and the Global Planners Network Congress in Zhenjiang.
[Begin the self-assessment]
Planning and Climate Change
APA has undertaken a three-year program to research best practices on how to integrate energy conservation and stratgies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into all stages of urban and regional planning in the U.S. Supported by grants from the Surdna Foundation, Gund Foundation, and its own Environment, Natural Resources, and Energy Division, APA has partnered with the Environment and Energy Study Institute (EESI) to advance the work.
[More]
World Planners Congress
The Canadian Institute of Planners, together with the Planning Institute of British Columbia, held its annual planning conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, June 17-20, 2006. This joint conference, called the World Planners Congress, immediately preceded the UN Habitat World Urban Forum 3, also held in Vancouver in June 2006.
[More]
World Planners Congress
Vancouver
Declaration 2006
"We, representatives of the planning profession of the world,
dedicate ourselves to working together, and with others, to tackle the challenges of rapid urbanisation, the urbanisation of poverty and the hazards posed by climate change and natural disasters."
[More in English]
[En Français]
世界规划师议会 温哥华宣言2006
Reinventing Planning: A New Governance Paradigm for Managing Human Settlements
This paper outlines key principles of a new paradigm for managing human settlements that we call New Urban Planning. The purpose of the paper is to provoke and focus debate during the lead-up to the World Planning Congress and the World Urban Forum III in June 2006. The paper reflects the outcome of a series of discussions amongst planners with experience from different countries.
[More in English]
[En Français] 2007
世界规划师议会 温哥华宣言2006