UN-Habitat official: Urban planners must be ‘more specialized’

For the first time, the World Urban Forum will take place in Latin America. At that March 2010 gathering in Rio de Janiero, one major topic will be at the center of the debates: What has become of urban planning? The United Nations Human Settlements Program - more popularly known as U.N.-Habitat - will be one of the main actors at the forum. It works with professionals and organizations from governments, civil society and the private sector to improve the lives of the urban poor worldwide. Cecilia Martinez leads the agency’s regional office in Latin America and the Caribbean. She spoke with Devex about the current challenges facing urban planners and gave some advice for those eager to work in the developing world, notably in Latin America. Martinez is an experienced urban designer and academic. She was also the former national coordinator for U.N.-Habitat programs in Mexico. What kinds of development projects require the intervention of urban planners? Nowadays, the world is opening a lot to the urban issues because the world is now an urban world. More than 50 percent of the population lives in cities. In 20 more years, probably 75 percent of the population will live in cities. Now, there are lots and lots of issues. There is the issue of demography itself - movements of population. Originally, in Latin America, it was pretty much a movement from the countryside to the city. But today, we have also movements from cities to cities, or we have what we call the “new migration” of people leaving cities from the South to cities of the North, from developing countries to developed countries. With these movements of people, you will constantly have areas of rapid urbanization. It means that you constantly need the access to services. There are basic ones such as water, sanitation, electricity, and then more complicated but very much needed services like Internet, communication. You need also airports, industries for employment. And then you have other services like safety, for example. Another issue is the whole planning of the city as such, which nowadays is going to face a new challenge, which is the challenge of how to cope [with] climate change. Everybody is talking about climate change, but I think we need to see it from the perspective of cities. A lot of green people like to blame cities for the climate change situation. But we like to think that cities, in fact, are part of the solution today. So we need people to understand how to improve cities - how to control the growth of cities. How many of these new challenges offer more professional opportunities for urban planners? Now, planners not only work with local governments - and that was what used to happen before. Nowadays, we see some movements of citizens working with the cities, and more and more planners are working with organizations, communities, community leaders, plus governments. I think that has been a big change. Twenty years ago, we were talking of policies of top-down [nature], and then we talked about policies from bottom up. Today, you know that in order to improve cities, you need to work policies at the national level to create the appropriate framework - and then you have to act at the local level. Planners will have to work with people at the national level but also with mayors at the local level. But lots of people are working with NGOs, grassroots, or citizens in general because citizens are now more involved in the management of cities. Which organizations are recruiting urban planners? There are all kinds of organizations: There are associations of NGOs, associations of mayors, institutions working on specific issues, international NGOs, local organizations of citizens. It is very opened and very mixed. What is important to say is that more and more planning has to be less a generalized discipline, and people have to be more specialized in what they want to do or who they want to work with. I don’t think we can have planners who know everything from water, to sanitation, to climate change, to planning regionally, to planning locally or with communities. I think planners have to be more specialized in their own field and know precisely where they want to work, what they want to achieve, and who they want to work with. What kind of specialists? Housing, gender, environment…? Exactly, but not only that. I think as well it is important to say that the planning is very different at the regional level when you are working with several cities, at the same time. When you are working at the local level, you are working with the mayor of the city, and it is not the same as when you are working with women in communities, and see how that is reflected within the city or the region. So I think also that scale matters too, maybe more than services. Then you would have institutions looking for local people, and you would have institutions looking for people with international experience, if they are looking for new kinds of joint ventures. If, for instance, European urban planners wanted to work in Latin America, would there be any possibilities for them? It depends. He would need to have the skills, the knowledge and the relevant experience. My suggestion would be for young professionals to travel more, to do internships in Latin America if they want to work later in Latin America, and they should really try to get good experience in terms of study and in terms of working. What about midlevel professionals that have been working only in Europe or Africa? It would be difficult for him to find a job in Latin America. If he doesn’t have the experience of working in Latin America, nobody would be interested in hiring him. You have to see what Latin America is about. I think it is very important to understand Latin America much more. Are there subsectors in urban planning that offer more work opportunities now? There are certain sectors that are better organized internationally. Water sanitation is a sector that works a lot at the international level because it already has a good international arena. There are certain issues that are more international because they are technical, like water, waste management. Energy is also an area where it is going to need a lot of work. And then there are other issues that are very local. If you want to study land, land issues, the legalizing of land, land tenure - there, you have to be very knowledgeable about what is going on at the local level because the laws differ from one state to the other. Are there regions or even cities that might offer more opportunities for urban planners? In terms of cities as such, it is more difficult because the economic crisis does not push cities to do a lot of changes. So, in general, I would see fewer opportunities there. Is there something you would like to add? Well, I think we need more professionals on the planning field. But I think we need to revise a lot about what urban planning is and what needs to be addressed. Plus, we are having the World Habitat Day, which is the 5th of October of this year. Precisely, this year, this is going to be about planning and planning for the future. We are going to do a lot of research on what is planning now and how do we address planning. Read more urban planning career advice: - Development Aid Careers in the United Nations System: What You Need to Know - Urban Planning Jobs: What You Need to Know Read more career advice articles.