CITTA 2nd Annual Conference on Planning Research

PLANNING IN TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY

Organizing Committe:

Paulo Pinho, Vítor Oliveira, Cecília Silva, Vera Palma, Rita Guimarães

Scientific Committe:

Patsey Healey, David Perry, Kenneth Button, Klauz Kunzmann, Paulo Pinho, Isabel Breda-Vázquez, Álvaro Costa

Introduction

The second annual conference of CITTA will take place in gloomy times of economic decline, raising unemployment, and deep uncertainties about our near future. Planning as both a professional field and as a scientific discipline, seem always to be better equipped to deal with managing growth and change, rather then decline, complexity and uncertainty. However, our understanding of the spatial dimension of social, economic and environmental processes maybe crucial helping to find a way out of this current crisis. But our planning doctrines, paradigms, methods and techniques have to be revisited and reinvented to face the challenges ahead. In this difficult context, it is time to discuss the role of planning research to prepare a more balanced, sustainable and socially sensitive future.

Paulo Pinho