Why Rethink Urban Planning?

Abstract

After describing the stages of the history of this new field called urban planning, and its progressive spreading in the West and around the world since the late nineteenth century, the author will be wondering about its future. Isn’t it linked to its conditions of birth: the industrial society of “solid capitalism”? With the globalization, shouldn’t we rethink urban planning and consider the new forms of urbanization in Asia, Africa and Latin America? The world is entering a new period in which several “models” will coexist in a variety of combinations, often for the worse and perhaps sometimes for the best.