This module offers a comparative perspective on urban policy design and planning analysis. Four key issues are explored: evaluating policy contexts, designing policy/planning processes, analysing and evaluating policy outcomes, and surveying different policy/planning instruments.
The module will be assessed through one semester-end portfolio, equivalent to 5,000 words. This includes a reflective piece on planning theory and policy analysis exercise. Formative assessments will take place throughout the semester. At the end of the semester, students will gain a more comprehensive understanding of the political, social, and economic processes behind urban policies and plans, the different instruments and drivers of planning and implementation in local contexts, as well as the equity, sustainability, and inclusiveness implications of particular policy designs and planning interventions.
Students will attend a combination of lectures, small-group discussion seminars. Seminars facilitate discussion, student interaction, and collective reflections on specific policy interventions, socioeconomic assumptions, and their procedural/distributive implications. Students will be grouped to present facilitate a discussion on particular planning challenges, such as transportation/mobility, open/green space, economic (re)development, housing, social welfare, environmental sustainability, and critical infrastructure, as well as the methods and data required to explore these theme.
By the end of the module students should be able to:
- Compare and contrast theories and models of poverty urban policy design, implementation, and evaluate how planners and other actors involved in the built and natural environment use these instruments.
- Explore the causes and consequences of urban poverty political, economic, and social foundations of policy and planning interventions in cities.
- Analyse the methodological strengths and weaknesses main models of institutional design, participatory decision-making, project/plan implementation, and monitoring and evaluation.
- Reflect on the extent to which different policy mechanisms might help address issues of equity, sustainability and inclusiveness.