Urban planning is a technical and political process focused on developing land use and infrastructure in urban areas. It determines how people will live and work in a given area through orderly community development. Urban planning aims to systematically improve decision making and is highly political. Local governments are primarily responsible for urban planning and development in the Philippines according to the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992. Planners come from various backgrounds but most have a master's degree in city or urban planning. They work to anticipate and solve problems in the public interest through advising decision makers. Political awareness and strong communication skills are invaluable traits for planners.

1. Contemporary Urban
Planning
John M. Levy

2. What is planning?
 Planning is the fundamental management function, which involves deciding
beforehand, what is to be done, when it is to be done, how it is to be done and
who is going to do it. It is an intellectual process which lays
down an organization's objectives and develops various courses of action, by
which the organization can achieve those objectives. It chalks out exactly, how to
attain a specific goal.
What is Urban Planning?
 It is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and
design of land use and built environment, including air, water, and the
infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportation,
communications, and distribution networks and their accessibility.

3.  Urban planning answers the question about how are the people going to live,
work and the progress direction into the given areas they have, how they are going to
be guided by the orderly development, community settlement and development
infrastructure.
 All types of planning have a conscious effort to systematically improve the quality
of decision making. Urban planning is a highly political activity. It is immersed in
politics, and inseparable from the law.
 Planning decisions often involve large sums of money, both public and private.
Even when little public expenditures is involved, planning decisions can deliver large
benefits to some and large losses to others. Thus, one must understand something of
the economic and financial issues at stake.
 Planning issues and controversies inevitably raise questions about the proper
role of government and the line between public needs and private rights. Planners
are a fairly idealistic lot and often enter the field to serve the public interest.

4. The Need for Planning:
1. INTERCONNECTEDNESS
 It is the fact of interconnectedness that helps justify public planning
efforts.
2. COMPLEXITY
 It is the condition that justifies that planning as a separate
profession and as a separate activity of government.
 The complexity of the community also means that many things that
in a simpler place could be done privately must be done publicly.

5. The Specific Concerns of Planning:
 In a growing community, planners might be concerned with shaping the pattern of
growth to achieve a sensible and attractive land-use pattern.
 In a modern planned community, it might mean providing a system of pathways so
that pedestrian and bicycle traffic is separated from automobile traffic.
 The community’s planners will also be concerned with the location of public
facilities like schools and social service centers, both for the convenience of the
people served and for reinforcing the development of a desirable land-use pattern.
 If the community anticipates or desires significant industrial or commercial
development, its planners will be concerned with seeing that sufficient,
conveniently located blocks of land are available and that they are served with
adequate roads, water and sewer facilities.

6. The Specific Concerns of Planning:
 In an older community that is not growing and that does not anticipate growth,
planners maybe concerned primarily with preserving or improving that which now
exists. Thus planners may focus on measures to preserve the quality of the housing
stock.
 In many communities, planners will also be concerned with housing cost questions,
specifically, how to provide housing for the community’s lower-income residents.
 In many older communities, planners devote much effort to preserving historic
buildings and other landmarks.
 If the community is concerned about the health of its downtown, planners may be
involved in implementing street improvements and other changes designed to help
downtown businesses compete successfully with establishments in outlying areas.

7. The Specific Concerns of Planning:
 In a community that faces a serious unemployment problem or that sees its
property tax base as being inadequate, economic development may be a major task
of the planners. Much of their effort may be devoted to creating conditions that
encourage existing industry to remain and expand, and new firms to locate within
the community.
 Planning efforts has focused on environmental issues: how to guide and manage
development to minimize environmental damage.
 Planners employed by regional planning organizations may be concerned with
improving the regionwide road network, with acquiring or developing land for a
regionwide park and open-space system, or with improving regionwide sewage
disposal and water systems.

8. Who are the Planners?
 Planners come from a variety of backgrounds. The single most common educational
background is formal training in planning, most often a Master’s degree, either a
Master of City Planning (MCP) or a Master of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP).
 Agencies with a separate research operation likely to hire people with training in
economics or statistics.
 Agencies that handle transportation planning are likely to hire people with training
in civil engineering and particularly, transportation engineering.
 Large agencies often do a substantial amount of data handling and are likely to have
a few people with backgrounds in programming and data processing.

9. Who are the Planners?
 Agencies that handle significant amounts on environmental planning are likely to hire
people with backgrounds in biology, chemistry, environmental science, and remote
sensing.
 Planning inevitably involves mapping and spatially organized data, so that
geographers and cartographers find their way into the profession.
 Planning involves many issues of law, particularly in regard to land use and
environmental considerations. Thus, many attorneys and people with joint training in
law and planning have entered the field. In fact, several universities have joint four-
year law and planning degree programs.

10. Who is in charge of urban planning in the
Philippines?
 Urban planning in the Philippines is a shared responsibility of
national and sub-national levels of government but local
governments are considered to be the key in urban development.
 RA 7279 – Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992
“The National Urban Development and Housing Framework is
mandated by the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992 (RA
7279) to provide a macro framework for urban development and
housing and consists of policy statements and strategies intended to
guide the Philippine government’s efforts towards improving the
performance and efficiency of the country’s urban system.

11. Satisfaction and Discontents:
 Planning is both anticipatory and reactive. At times planning will be
devoted to anticipating and developing responses to problems that
have not yet presented themselves. At other times, planning will be
devoted to responding to problems that are here and demand
solutions. In either case, planning is about trying to serve that elusive
and controversial – but very important – item known as “the public
interest”.
 Planners are basically advisors. Sometimes they are heeded and
sometimes they are not. In general, it is not a good field for someone
with a short time horizon or very low frustration tolerance. It is also
not a good field for someone who cannot tolerate ambiguity.

12. Useful Abilities:
 One basic skill, which is probably not very teachable, is just being able to
understand the political environment around oneself. Planning and politics are
intimately related, and people who rise in planning generally have political smarts.
 Planning is ultimately about persuasion. Good plans that are poorly expressed and
poorly presented tend to end up on the shelf under a layer of dust. Therefore, the
ability to speak well in public – to express an idea cogently and also to respond to
questions and criticism – is extremely important.
 The ability to write well is also important. The planner doesn’t need great literary
gifts, but it s important to be able to explain things clearly and in a user-friendly way.
 In short, political smarts and good communication skills are important across the
entire profession.

13. CONCLUSION
Urban Planning is one of the most important factor of societies integration to
economy of emerging business in terms of investments, infrastructure towards
connecting and building easiest way and conducive to everyone, the volume of
residential like real estate, the livable spaces for Filipinos like affordable house and
lot for them, condominiums development and rent to own housing, the
transportation system, environmental impact and commercial projects. Urban
Planning affects our daily life from our personal transactions to business, to
residents and to our own economic autonomy. Without properly planning our cities
will become inefficient and undesirable to us and to our neighboring countries. It
will affect the factor appearance of our city and the possible development that may
occur.

14. Thank you and God bless!
MAY JEAN D. ESTACA
MPA