Lessons learnt from teaching practices of participatory neighbourhood planning in China

Abstract

Healey (2010) has questioned the limitations when planning theories and ideas travelled from developed countries to other places. In 2006, there is a new international university opened in Suzhou China, with close cooperation with Liverpool University in the UK. Since 2010, a new programme of Urban Planning and Design (was called Civic Design as the same as the parent department at Liverpool University) was started and in the spring of 2013, a new module of Neighbourhood Planning was taught. During this module, participatory planning methods (Barton, 2010; Sanoff 2000) were introduced and assessed for the group work at local community. This paper will introduce the teaching practice of Neighbourhood Planning, with a focus on how participatory planning methods were taught, received, developed and applied in the context in urban China. At the end, an evaluation was made based on students' and residents' feedbacks. Lesson and experiences will be concluded for future teaching and practices in China.