Australia: Perth, a city of another world

Abstract

In July 2011 in Perth (Western Australia), the 3rd World Congress of Planning School (WPSC 2011) took place; the WPSC 2011 was the 3rd edition of the international debate between professors, researchers and university schools of planning that come under the many regional and mainland abbreviations. That two previous world congress took place in Shanghai and Mexico City, this is the first time that the Congress decides not to take into consideration big metropolitan cities but a city of medium dimension like Perth, known also to be, together with Honolulu, one of the remotest city of the planet. The reason to this choice is due first to the organisation available at the University of Western Australia and second the intention to highlight the City of Perth, and a country that is to say Australia, which seems in the imagination of the European and north-western countries, a city belonging to another world. The city that gave hospitality to the Congress, whose theme was Planning Futures - Futures Planning. Planning in an Era of Global (Un)Certainty and Transformation has an outcome a good opportunity to give a glance and understand the difference dynamics related to the process of transformation of urban and regional planning on the planet.In this way Australia became, one the occasion of the WPSC 2011, at the eyes of the planners that participated, a new Scenario process for the research in urban and regional planning systems and also for the professional operator. In this era of transformation uncertainty, full of conflicts and trends towards globalization, there is a fragment of the world that offers new explorative practice in the urban and regional field, a part of land still not well known and that allows as a natural occasion and opportunity to reflect and experiment a new form of urban and regional planning. Since long ago Australia has always been a foreigners a very strong attraction and a very interesting and curious big land to explore. As a globetrotter, and how Italo Calvino always emphasized this, we want to know places, to relate to the city, landscape, and explore the surroundings; this practice is usually in the common sensibility of the planners to find in the last stage a vision-project for the territory. We are usually (planners), and explore with the desire of survey, analyses and to make a synthesis-plans, programs and intentions, to deal with complexity and regeneration of the city and society.