Entrepreneurship and enterprise skills: A missing element of planning education?

Few would contest that planning and its professional practices and approaches have undergone profound change in the past halfcentury (e.g. Rodwin & Sanyal, 2000). The field’s focus has moved beyond land use planning and infrastructure provision to areas such as community planning, regeneration and sustainability. In addition, a philosophical shift is noticeable as public sector planning gradually turns away from controlling the market towards a promarket, enterprise orientation, especially in Western industrialized democracies. For example, McGuirk and MacLaran (2001) observe that ‘entrepreneurially-minded’ city governments employ competitive business strategies in conjunction with public-private partnerships to facilitate urban renewal and regeneration. And, local authorities having to cope with delivering more complex planning tasks are resorting to increasingly subcontracting related tasks such as masterplan development, land use monitoring and GIS support as a means to cope. These developments, together with a rising acceptance that planning is a collaborative process that requires an active dialogue and consultation with the private sector and the public, are transforming planning and planners. The professional implications include a flourishing market of independent, private planning consultancies on one hand (Rodwin & Sanyal, 2000; Early, 2004; Johnston, 2004), and a host of new skills requirements. The rich tradition of scholarly reflection and debate on the purpose and content of planning education (Frank, 2006) demonstrates educators’ concern about providing appropriate skills and knowledge. The theoretical and ideological evolution of the planning agenda – partly driven by practice and partly shaped by academia and research is clearly reflected in planning curricula (Dalton, 2001). Most academics consider the inclusion of new relevant topics that address societal developments vital for ensuring professional relevance and student employability (e.g. Cuthbert, 1994a, 1994b). Recent changes to planners’ roles, planning and indeed social and economic conditions have been perceived significant enough to spur proposals for a revised ‘core curriculum’ in the USA (Friedmann, 1996; Castells, 1998) and a comprehensive review of planning education in the UK (Royal Town Planning Institute – RTPI, 2003). Academy-led studies on the most relevant professional skills suggest that communication and writing skills remain relevant while analysis skills provision needs refocusing (Cuthbert, 1994a, 1994b; Wong, 1998; Ozawa & Seltzer, 1999; Alexander, 2001; Seltzer &Ozawa, 2002).Management and people skills have gained importance over technical skills not only in the private sector; they are identified as key competencies by various government reviews (Egan, 2004; Communities Scotland, 2004; Turok & Taylor,