The world in the Americas – a reflection on the 2016 World Planning Schools Congress in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract

(ACSP), the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP), and the Asian Planning Schools Association (APSA), one may feel compelled to question the purpose of such meetings. Isit still relevant and opportune to organize world congresses, such as those of the World Planning Schools? Are congress participants still drawn by the opportunity to meet their colleagues from thousands of miles away in a setting they may or may not have been before? Are conference participants mindful of the carbon impact of such professional gatherings, including the flying often required to reach conference locations? Do individuals still need face-to-face interactions in order to develop and cultivate successful professional networks in the age of social media? Or are world congresses mostly part of a battery of mega-events punctuating cities that want to place themselves and their leadership on the map as cosmopolitan, welcoming, competitive and as having lessons to share with the rest of the world? These interrogations are certainly pertinent now more than ever for at least three reasons: (1) the growing role of new information and communication technologies (ICTs), (2) higher degrees of awareness in what pertains to local actions with global impacts, and (3) the incongruousness of reductive unidimensional worldviews (Kennedy, 2015). These tendencies seem to be shrinking distances among individuals and informing worldwide audiences of the need to accept that a city - and its urban and regional planning - is more complex than professional practice can grasp (Balsas, 2015; Brenner, 2014).