The "Outdoor Architecture" Assumption
Walk across any university campus with an urban planning program, and chances are, you’ll find its departmental home nestled within the school of architecture. Or perhaps cheek-by-jowl with civil engineering. It’s a default assumption, an institutional habit passed down through generations of academics. But is it the right home? Does this conventional placement truly reflect the essence of urban planning in the 21st century? I’d argue, emphatically, no. This placement stems from a narrow, outdated view of urban planning – a view that reduces it to “outdoor architecture,” concerned primarily with the visual and physical form of the city, rather than its deeper social, economic, and environmental dynamics. If we are to acknowledge urban planning as fundamentally about people, quality of life, and navigating complex systems, then we need to re-evaluate where urban planning education truly belongs within the university ecosystem. It’s time to move beyond architecture school and towards a more robust, interdisciplinary, and yes, more philosophical foundation for the discipline.
