A Study On The International Planning History Society

In 1974, The Planning History Group was inaugurated in Britain, and transformed into the International Planning History Society (IPHS) in 1993. By publishing the journals Planning Perspectives and Planning History and establishing the biennial international conference program, IPHS promoted the internationalization and standardization of planning history research and played an important role in the development of the planning history research in the world.In order to search for some references for the current Chinese planning history research and compete the theoretical system of the western planning history research, this study, in the background of the rapid development of the urbanization in China, mainly focuses on the academic activities, journals and key figures'activities of IPHS from 1974 to 2010 by the method of both quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis from the perspective of academic thoughts. After setting IPHS in the background of the post-war reconstruction activities and the transition of history research, this study explores the internal mechanism of the foundation of IPHS and reviews the development of IPHS including its academic activities, personnel and organization. Then it looks back at the academic activities of the founders and all the previous presidents of IPHS, so as to search for their achievements to the society and the western planning history research. And this paper not only analyzes the places, themes, participants and academic achievements of all the previous international conferences of IPHS but also the features of Planning perspectives. Then, in the background of the western planning history development, this paper induces the features of the evolvement of the subjects and objects as "nativelism-diversity-internationalism-culture-future", and concludes that IPHS as a leading force does not promote the internationalization and standardization of planning history research, but also provides an academic base. By comparing the Chinese and western planning history research, this study explores some references for China in the aspects of organization, research method and range.