This paper aims to provide you with an understanding of the key themes and perspectives which have informed and guided planning practice, and which have in turn sought to understand and to critically evaluate that practice. You will be encouraged to develop a critical awareness of the power of ideas and of the ways in which these ideas and values explicitly and implicitly influence and determine real world outcomes. Planning is, at its very heart, a political process, informed by the knowledge and technical skills of the planning profession. This paper will introduce you to a range of ideas and theories, some useful, some less so; some sympathetic to your existing view of the world, others, again, less so. However, it is in the nature of intellectual enquiry that you seek to understand, even if you are in fundamental disagreement. As Karl Popper pointed out some half century ago, if you wish your own case to be successful in any argument, you need to fully understand and strengthen the case of your opponent. Only then can you judge your own position to be valid and your argument to be worthy of wider acceptance.

This paper consists of a lecture series, complemented by seminars. Each week students will spend part of the time having a lecture and partly in a class discussion. You will be expected to actively participate in the seminar discussions which are structured around one key reading.

This paper is held in the B Semester. It has two contact hours weekly. Students are expected to attend all sessions and complete the required readings. For a 20 point paper it is expected that a student complete 200 learning hours. On the basis of a 16 week semester (including recess and study periods) a student should spend around 11 hours a week on average working on this paper. This includes attending classes, completing assessed work, reading and thinking.