and the Mediterranean
Programs, Projects and Links
City Planning
In the year 2000, Catalonia established a Master's degree in city and regional planning through a cooperative agreement between the Generalitat of
Catalonia, the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and the Pompeu Fabra University. Such a program is crucial for today's world.
Planning and the decision making process as we have known them in the 20th century are often questioned today. There are profound changes in today's society that substantially increase the complexity of planning. There are more interests, more actors and agents and an expanded system of communication. Hence every facet of our community becomes a part of every decision. The ecological imperative of sustainability, migrations of populations, globalization, liberalization of the economy, integration of markets, and new social habits in business and spare time are all examples of the breadth of issues that must be considered as we plan for the "best" use of our natural resources beginning with the resource "land", which in many circumstances, has to be considered in itself as an economic good, so scarce and fragile.
The Master's program presents the concepts needed to consider and evaluate all the concurrent issues facing the modern planner including architecture, geography, engineering, economic and social issues, legal matters, the environment and politics. The challenge set forth consists in finding new methods of looking towards the cities and regions with their multiple points of view and finding solutions that can be acceptable to both.
The University of California has input into this program through the Institute of Urban and Regional Development at Berkeley.
www.eapc.es/formacio/urbanistes