Journal of Urban Planning and Development

A recent study in this journal reported that, while civil engineering and planning concerns often overlap and that there is a role for civil engineers in planning related issues, there was no need for civil engineering to include planning in its curriculum. That study did not include planning educators. This paper reports results of a similar questionnaire administered to planning educators representing accredited professional planning programs. The general finding is that because planners and civil engineers interact in so many contexts, engineers should know something of planning and the planning profession.

The interface between civil engineering and urban planning is deep‐rooted and multifaceted. The two professions have and are involved in making possible the modern city. The scope of planning, the increasing societal responsibilities of civil engineers, and the need for curriculum revision are examined. It is concluded that if civil engineers want to retain a leadership role in society they ought to acquire at least a rudimentary knowledge of planning principles.

Civil engineers interact with planners at various levels and should, arguably, have some formal training in that discipline. The arguments against such formal training are: (1) Today's civil engineering students are regularly being exposed to broader viewpoints and there is no explicit need for courses in planning; (2) few civil engineering programs could offer a planning course per se; and (3) or most, the differences between planning and civil engineering are distinct and should be maintained. In summary, another discipline's educational task should not be usurped; planning educators should teach planning to the planners and to the engineers who would be both, while engineering educators should teach engineering to the engineers and to the planners who would be both.

More than 40% of the more than 20,000 planners in the United States influence the manner in which water, sewer, drainage, streets, and other kinds of physical infrastructure are planned and used. But to what extent are planners educated about infrastructure? Information suggests that only about half of the accredited urban planning programs offer infrastructure engineering and planning in their curricula. Fewer than 10% include infrastructure instruction to their core curriculum. New information provides some insight into the current state of infrastructure education in graduate planning programs. This paper reviews and comments upon the situation, and offers curricular recommendations to graduate planning programs. This paper also challenges civil engineers to become involved in the education of professional planners in specific ways since it is engineers, and not planners, who will be blamed for infrastructure that is badly arranged by the planning process.