Planning Scenario and Policy Workshop (PLAN30001)

Undergraduate level 3Points: 12.5On Campus (Parkville)

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Overview

Availability
Semester 1
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A key challenge for urban planning is to develop and assess a range of possible future scenarios that can confirm, question, and sometimes challenge ongoing processes and trends. Scenario planning provides planners a framework to make non-emergency decisions more effectively by providing insight into plans, budgets, and forecasts, and painting a clearer picture of key drivers for urban development and growth, and the potential impact of future planning decisions or development problems (e.g., climate change).

In doing so, scenario planning can provide a competitive advantage by enabling planners and decision makers to react quickly and decisively — because a situation has been thought through and actions documented, no one must scramble when during a crisis. Thus, scenario planning aims to define planning’s critical uncertainties and develop plausible scenarios (situations) in order to discuss the impacts and the responses to give for each one of them. If planners are aware of what could happen, they are more likely to deal with what will happen. So, how can planners use scenario planning to help to make planning decisions agile and able to adapt to multiple eventualities?

This subject uses a range of publicly available, quantitative and qualitative data, along with key policy documents, to analyse selected current processes and trends in urban areas. These trends and issues are used as a basis to generate goals and assess a range policy for managing urban processes and ongoing change under different scenarios. Students will critically examine existing policy, alongside their assessment of key trends, as a basis for developing and justifying new policy options. More importantly, students will learn about scenario planning as a disciplined method for imagining possible futures that planning applies to a great range of urban issues.

Intended learning outcomes

Students who have successfully completed this subject should be able to:



  • Exercise their knowledge of the main mechanisms available to planners to manage cities and regions;
  • Understand key urban trends in terms of fundamental quantitative assessments;
  • Develop and implement a process of initial goal identification, data gathering, assessment, scenario testing and selection of appropriate mechanisms for urban management;
  • Use urban planning strategies and interventions to respond to contemporary issues in urban spaces;
  • Identify the causes of conflict in negotiation;
  • Identify, gather and use key data sources to develop and justify policy decisions;
  • Generate urban management scenarios and propose appropriate policy responses.

Generic skills

  • Ability to undertake problem identification, formulation and solution
  • Capacity for independent thought
  • Ability and self-confidence to comprehend complex concepts, to express them lucidly and to confront unfamiliar problems
  • Ability to conceptualise theoretical problems, form judgements and arguments and communicate critically, creatively and theoretically through essay writing, tutorial discussion and presentations
  • Ability to manage and organise workloads for recommended reading, the completion of essays and assignments and examination revision
  • Ability to participate in team work through involvement in syndicate groups and group discussions
  • Develop communications that convey important information convincingly to a wide audience.
  • Capacity to understand and apply indigenous and conventional strategies to urban development issues

Last updated: 9 April 2025

Eligibility and requirements

Prerequisites

Code Name Teaching period Credit Points
PLAN10002 Introduction to Urban Planning
Semester 2 (On Campus - Parkville)
 12.5

OR

Admission into the B-ENVS Bachelor of Environments

AND

Code Name Teaching period Credit Points
ABPL20035 Cities: From Local to Global
Semester 1 (On Campus - Parkville)
 12.5

Corequisites

None

Non-allowed subjects

None

Inherent requirements (core participation requirements)

The University of Melbourne is committed to providing students with reasonable adjustments to assessment and participation under the Disability Standards for Education (2005), and the Assessment and Results Policy (MPF1326). Students are expected to meet the core participation requirements for their course. These can be viewed under Entry and Participation Requirements for the course outlines in the Handbook.

Further details on how to seek academic adjustments can be found on the Student Equity and Disability Support website: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/student-equity/home

Last updated: 9 April 2025

Assessment

DescriptionTimingPercentage

Issues paper and process proposal

  • 500 words
Week 415%

Scenario Development and Analysis Paper

  • 1500 words
Week 935%

Individual Oral Presentation

  • 10 minutes
Week 1210%

Scenario Management Report

  • 2000 words
Week 1440%

Last updated: 9 April 2025

Dates & times

  • Semester 1
    CoordinatorAsh Alam
    Mode of deliveryOn Campus (Parkville)
    Contact hours1X1 hour Lecture + 1X2 hour tutorial per week
    Total time commitment170 hours
    Teaching period26 February 2024 to 26 May 2024
    Last self-enrol date 8 March 2024
    Census date 3 April 2024
    Last date to withdraw without fail 3 May 2024
    Assessment period ends21 June 2024

Time commitment details

170 hours

What do these dates mean

Visit this webpage to find out about these key dates, including how they impact on:

  • Your tuition fees, academic transcript and statements.
  • And for Commonwealth Supported students, your:
       -  Student Learning Entitlement. This applies to all students enrolled in a Commonwealth Supported Place (CSP).
     

    Subjects withdrawn after the census date (including up to the ‘last day to withdraw without fail’) count toward the Student Learning Entitlement.

Last updated: 9 April 2025

Further information

Last updated: 9 April 2025