ISOCARP and IFHP intensify cooperation
On 3rd June 2008, during the IFHP’s annual Conference in Liverpool, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between IFHP and ISOCARP.
The ceremony took place at a small lunch arranged by John Zetter, a member of both organisations and Chairman of the Organising Committee for the Conference. The signing may prove to be a significant event in the history of international planning, but to put it in context one needs to delve further back into the joint history of the two organisations involved. |  |
Joint history
In 1913 at the initiative of Ebenezer Howard, distinguished for his advocacy of Garden Cities, the IFHP was founded. It was ahead of its time in linking together housing and planning and appealing to a broadly-based membership interested in the two topics, rather than having any particular professional affiliation.
However, and understandable in the circumstances of the time, in 1965 ISoCaRP was established by a breakaway group of professional planners, no doubt wishing to assert their separate identity. Since that time planners have achieved this. The priority has swung back to operating planning as an integrating process involving cooperation with many other policy areas, particularly housing.
TCPA
The signing was hosted by the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) the first NGO established in the planning field. Founded in the United Kingdom in 1898, also by Ebenezer Howard, the TCPA aims to embrace and promote his garden city legacy in terms of promoting sustainable housing provided through an effective, democratic planning system. To this end, the Chief Executive of the TCPA attended the lunch, together with the President of the Royal Town Planning Institute, the UK representative body for town planners, with over 20,000 members.
Helping to at least partially reconstitute Howard’s single international legacy is seen as a way of strengthening the advocacy of planning at the global scale.
Collaboration
The Memorandum enforces the further collaboration by opening the communication between the organisations and informing each other of the events and activities. When appropriate the counterpart organisation will be officially present at the main events of the organisation.
In fact this type of cooperation had already begun in the preceding days, when Pierre Laconte the ISoCaRP President acted as Rapporteur at the IFHP Conference.
Signing the Memorandum on behalf of ISOCARP is Pierre Laconte from Belgium, and on behalf of IFHP its Spanish President, Francesc Ventura (see photo).
Last Updated @ Wednesday, 30 July 2008