Government
Institution and Local Practice of Professional Planning: Community
Planners in Taipei |
| Since 1999, ‘Community Planner’ was put into practice by the Taipei City Government to encourage planners and architects to join the ‘Neighborhood Improvement Program’. With support from the Central Government and the academia, many counties and cities began to implement the policy in order to acquire more resources for understanding ‘Community Building Projects.’ However, many planners, architects, and scholars have different views about the role and the function of ‘community planner.’ The paper reviews the record of the ‘Taipei Community Planner’, refers to the author’s own experience. It argues that ‘Community Planner’ is a subset of the participation planning mechanism and that the concept of community planner should be included in normal professional training in the long term. The paper suggests that Taipei City Government should integrate the systems of ‘Community Planner’ and ‘Neighborhood Improvement Program’ to create a system of community building. In the future, community planner can serve as an advocate in the process of development permission and as a pioneer in urban renewal. |