Overcome Difficulties to Gain Knowledge and Practice Hard to
Cultivate Moral Character:
Reflection on Several Key Issues of Urban Planning Profession in Its Hard Time
in China
Abstract：At present, the quick decline of urban planning tasks in China leads to introspection on this predicament. This paper
discusses some key issues of urban planning profession, and briefly reviews the origin and trace of modern urban
planning, driven by capital and dominated by rational views. Then this paper explores the influence of modernism and
postmodernism on urban planning, and comments on the planning paradigm, fragmentation of labor division, alienation
of rules, and divorce between academic research and practice field. Based upon on that, the history of urban planning
discipline and government responsibility in China are reviewed briefly in this paper, followed by an anticipation of
decaying period for urban planning profession. In the future, urban planning is scatterings of a technology and social
sciences bolstered the traditional architectural determinism as before. In the virtual space construction, there may be
some opportunities, but ChatGPT’s invention declares the prospect of most urban planning skills being replaced by
artificial intelligence. At the end, this paper calls for people who dedicate themselves to the urban planning profession
to reinvigorate it while introspecting the current issues.
