Course info

Urban and Regional Planning explores the purpose, practice, and theories of modern community planning for the promotion of social and economic well-being as well as a historical overview of the regional planning that has taken place throughout Africa, supplemented by pertinent case studies and examples from the rest of the world. Students will thereby gain the conceptual framework for understanding major trends of urban and regional planning internationally, as well as the complexity of issues that has resulted in uneven development in many parts of the worlds, and certainly in throughout various regions of Africa.

Having successfully completed the module, students should be able to:

i. Know about and understand the important elements in the history of planning, its legal basis, planning tools and practices, types of planning, theories of planning, planning at the regional and national level, and planning in other countries.

ii. Understand a variety of significant contemporary issues in planning including planning for small towns, suburban development and new urbanism, public and alternative transportation, disaster recovery and rebuilding, and issues of public space and public participation.

iii. Understand how to read, analyze, and evaluate urban planning documents and legal documents related to planning.

iv. Be able to observe, analyze and evaluate the built environment of a city.

v. Be prepared to identify the interaction between urban and regional planning and other subfields of human geography (including urban geography, economic geography, cultural geography, population geography, environmental geography, etc.) or their own majors and vocational aspirations. 

vi. Understand the impact that planning decisions have on the lives of people affected by them.

vii. Understand the value of citizen participation in planning.

viii. Care more about how cities are planned and the quality of the built environment.:

ix. Portray a thorough understanding of inherent urban design issues and be able to express these ideas in a structured and coherent way.

x. Demonstrate a familiarity with the basic geographical, chronological and cultural framework of the inception and evolution of urban design.

xi. Become more self-directed as a learner and be interested in learning more about planning issues.

xii. Analyze data collected through research and assimilate into a clear and coherent arguments.

xiii. Demonstrate skill and confidence in clarity of expression in presentations.

xiv. Learn independently in familiar and unfamiliar situations with open mindedness and in a spirit of critical enquiry.

xv. Have clear and thoughtful discussions relating the readings and various topics and themes throughout the course.

xvi. Manage a research project including topic selection, bibliography construction, outlining, and writing a final product.