Planning Education in an International Perspective: Making the Most from Global and Local Knowledge

Abstract Central to my academic experience, teaching and research, is the development of theoretical and methodological approach called Territorialist Approach. Its central concept is territorio as manifest in space and time, and of the convergence of the local and global knowledges expressed in specific contexts from the different types of man-nature relationships to the culture of work and produc-tion, from local social practices and ways of life to the different physical, historical, and architectural components of urban and rural fabrics. All these elements con-stitute the multifaceted and ever evolving cultures and identities of places, cities, and regions generating the very specific physical and emotional landscapes when territories relate to their inhabitants. Territorio, considered as holistic common good, represents the main resource for both the general well-being of local com-munities and their significant and indispensable belonging at a global level. Planning education must stem from the awareness of that meaning of what are the resources, local and global, available to produce the desired effects of planning action on a specific area, where inhabitants are the fundamental actors in the process of transformation of their own Territorio.