International Collaborative Planning Through Private Consultancy

In town planning, international commissions or collaborations provide an opportunity for comparative learning and sharing among planners and planning consultancies. This chapter discusses five projects conducted by global planning consultancy, Arup, to explore how international comparative planning can be successfully delivered in varying contexts, including across Hong Kong, Africa, and Australia. The projects depict the myriad of ways that international comparative planning provides benefits to projects, clients, project outputs and outcomes, and the consultancy team. An analysis of these projects identified three methodologies frequently used by practitioners to conduct international comparative planning: drawing on international best practice examples, involving team members with experience working in other geographies, and seeking input from global networks. While these can be recommended, it is important to be aware of barriers to delivering successful outcomes through international comparative planning in consultancy, such as biases in data and a lack of examples from remote areas, as discussed in detail in this chapter. Although international comparative planning is likely to be a relatively small part of planning consultancy work, technological advances, and adapted behaviours of clients and consultants mean there is increasing potential for this type of work. Planners are now more connected and collaborative than ever before, and this creates a greater opportunity for international collaborative planning activities for planning consultants.