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The most important asset of any organisation or country is its reserve of human resource. The capacity of society to understand and successfully adapt to new situations is highly related to the levels of training and education of its individual members. The education system, therefore, is one of the main foundations of any society's future. Over the last decade, Spain and the Valencia region, in particular, have experienced precipitous drops in fertility that will inevitably reduce school enrolments. In this paper we quantify the magnitude of the reductions and, after some analysis, lay out the potential consequences for the regional education system, and for society as a whole.

Spatial planning at the regional level is a particularly good example of 'centralization versus decentralization' in a federal system. In one respect the region is dependent on the central level, as far as its legal bases, organizational forms, and planning tasks are concerned; but the cities and counties should be allowed to specify the functions they perform in their own region. This is the crux of the conflict in finding an effective balance between centralization and decentralization. Solutions to date in the FRG have favored a progressive centralization. Because of the increasing economic and ecological problems with which the regions are faced, this centralist solution is no longer tenable and decentralizing reforms are now required and under discussion. These concern the institutional organization and functions of the regions, a mobilization of the capacities available in the respective regions for solving their problems, plus a gradual shift to new region-specific planning. Thus, changes are occurring in regional planning which pave the way for a more decentralized planning process. However, in spite of the new understanding, even at central level, that the regions are capable of contributing efficient solutions to actual problems, these changes have not yet achieved a breakthrough in planning practice.

To achieve sustainable development in any society the educational system must beresponsive to the dynamics of that society. This article discusses issues on the level oftraining on informality in African planning schools with emphasis on the Lagos, Nigeriasituation. The article reviews the concept of informality, the challenges, the quantum oftraining in planning schools curricula on issues relating to the informal sector, legislativetools available to tackle the phenomena, among others. The article concludes thatthere is currently inadequate training and paucity of legislation to guide the integrationof the informal sector into the urban system in the study area. In the light of these findings,the need for responsive planning education curriculum in Africa is imperative. There isthe need to teach on issues concerning the sporadic emergence of the informal sectorin the African urban landscape. This is one of the major consequences of 21st-centuryAfrican urban growth. Unfortunately, African planning schools curricula are based onstandards of developed countries; thus formal training on planning solutions for theinformal sector are not well entrenched, nor adequate planning regulations providedto integrate the informal sector into land use. To achieve a sustainable city landscapethis article recommends the need to introduce courses such as informality, communityengagement, social mobilisation, participatory planning, among others, in planningcurricular. This will go a long way in improving the skills of planners towards resolving thechallenges posed by the sporadic phenomena of the informal sector in Nigerian cities.

Frontmatter -- Preface by the Director of UNRISD / McGranahan, Donald V. -- Foreword by the Editor -- Contents -- PART ONE: PAPERS -- 1. Contact systems and regional development / Törnqvist, Gunnar -- 2. Regional information and regional planning in Latin America / Odell, Peter R. -- 3. Regional information and regional planning in Mexico / Carrillo-Arronte, R. / Grosman, V. -- 4. Regional information and regional planning in Tanzania / Lundqvist, Jan -- 5.The regional analysis problem / Leven, C.L. / Legler, J.B. / Shapiro, P. -- PART TWO: CASE STUDIES -- 1. Regional statistics in Poland: Current problems and development prospects / Kawalec, Wincenty -- 2. Information systems for regional development in Sweden / Hermansen, Tormod -- 3. Information systems for regional development in Chile / Boisier, Sergio -- 4. Regional information, regional statistics and regional planning in India / Pal, Manindra Nath -- Biography of the contributors

Urban planning as a networked field of governance can be an essential contributor for de-colonising planning education and shaping pathways to urban equality. Educating planners with the capabilities to address complex socio-economic, environmental and political processes that drive inequality requires critical engagement with multiple knowledges and urban praxes in their learning processes. However, previous research on cities of the global South has identified severe quantitative deficits, outdated pedagogies, and qualitative shortfalls in current planning education. Moreover, the political economy and pedagogic practices adopted in higher education programmes often reproduce Western-centric political imaginations of planning, which in turn reproduce urban inequality. Many educational institutions across the global South, for example, continue teaching colonial agendas and fail to recognise everyday planning practices in the way cities are built and managed. This article contributes to a better understanding of the relation between planning education and urban inequalities by critically exploring the distribution of regional and global higher education networks and their role in de-colonising planning. The analysis is based on a literature review, quantitative and qualitative data from planning and planning education networks, as well as interviews with key players within them. The article scrutinises the geography of these networks to bring to the fore issues of language, colonial legacies and the dominance of capital cities, which, among others, currently work against more plural epistemologies and praxes. Based on a better understanding of the networked field of urban planning in higher education and ongoing efforts to open up new political imaginations and methodologies, the article suggests emerging room for manoeuvre to foster planner's capabilities to shape urban equality at scale.