Dear Town / Urban Planners, dont you think its about time we are known as Urban Planners rather than Town Planners. The term Urban somehow reflect the scale/complexity of challenges that we as urban planners have to face in carrying out our task.
New areas of specialization have been born through the urban planning profession as a result of a more urbanized and global world.We have Urban Management,Urban Design,and most Planning Schools in the world now days have named their program Urban Planning rather than Town Planning.The word urban defines a more built environment intervention than town planning which seems to have a very limited scope or give a very limited impression to the kind of task that we do.
Some may argue whats in a name,it does not matter,as long as we know what we do and that we do it well.This argument does not recognize that the world has changed and that changes take place at a speed that is sometimes beyond our comprehension.For example there are many of us who still thinks that the core business of planners is to design a layout,sorry folks,there just as many surveyors and architects for whom doing or designing a layout is not a problem,and before the enforcement of Act 172have been doing it anyways.We are way beyond sub-division and if some still feel strongly about this,well...we will never get the recognition we deserve.
The government has recognized the contribution that we make in nation building.This can be credited to a few individuals that have gone way beyond their duties,in educating the powers to be on the usefulness of Urban Planning in national Planning,but more needs to be done.Name changed would be a god start.
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