Matching Emerging Urban Challenges and Planning Education

Abstract

In recent times, within the context of sustainable development, urban problems have increasingly evolved in form, place, and time. Critical aspects of urban sustainability for African cities include climate change, energy, biodiversity loss, informality, food system, pandemics and gender. To address these challenges, studies have long argued that needed capacity must be developed. However, the extent to which these critical challenges are addressed in urban planning education is limited. This chapter seeks to unpack how urban planning education in Ghana addresses these challenges. Drawing insights from existing planning curricula and contrasting them with these emerging challenges, this chapter argues that current planning education is not in sync with the lived realities of these emerging challenges. Planning pedagogy has largely failed to incorporate urban food systems, biodiversity, informality and energy. The chapter recommends a national framework for planning education, capacity development of planning educators and practitioners, and finetuning planning education curricula to conform with the sustainable development agenda and emerging global concerns such as biodiversity, energy, food systems and informality.