Course Objectives
- To improve students' understanding of regions as interconnected spatial, socio-economic and ecological systems, and of the ways in which contemporary development processes interact across space;
- To improve students' understanding of urban areas in their wider regions, of urban structures and contemporary urban problems and issues;
- To provide students with the theoretical knowledge and technical skills of comprehensive and in-depth analysis of regions, urban areas, and their different spatial and sectoral components;
- To help students make use of various mapping and GIS techniques in spatially representing the outcomes of their analysis;
- To provide students with the theoretical foundations, methods and techniques of strategic spatial planning, including the exploration of alternative futures and development scenarios;
- To develop students’ ability to define critical regional planning problems, formulate a long-term regional development vision, evaluate alternative strategic choices and trade-offs, and develop goals, objectives, strategies and policies consistent with this vision;
- To enable students to translate strategic planning decisions across spatial scales and to understand how upper-scale strategies can be spatially differentiated, refined and operationalized at lower planning scales;
- To introduce students to the implementation dimension of strategic spatial planning by relating spatial strategies to appropriate policy instruments, responsible actors, priorities, timeframes and monitoring indicators.