The development of planning education and its relation to the ...

250 Research Briefing
(2) Studies in Planning and Regional Development consist of isolated courses and faculties
scattered among several departments of the Greek Universities. The peculiarity of the subjects
that planning and geography deal with as well as the plurality of approaches to planning and
geography are important explanatory factors referring to the peculiarity of faculties and
departments in Greek Universities that are dealing with all these different aspects. The
importance and nature of the courses dealing with space vary between schools and departments. The same
department in different universities will not always teach the same or similar courses dealing
with space.
(3) As it has already been pointed out there is not only one 'geography' and hence there
are many approaches to geography teaching in universities, placing an emphasis on physical
rather than human geography, on quantitative rather than or on critical geography, etc. (see
Figure 3). Up to now there has not been any opportunity for a substantive scientific discussion regarding the
direction of teaching of geography and planning in Greek Universities should follow.
This is mainly due to the fact that until 1989 there was no university department dealing
with the subject of space. Hence, since the teaching of planning and geography was peripheral
to the main core of the apartments where it was taught, it was to be expected that there was
not going to be any scientific discussion on the approach to planning and geography that the
department was going to take. As for the three departments specializing in the subject of space
that have developed since 1989 at the moment they are still in a process of formation, they
are relatively understaffed and hence one should not have expected them to develop a
dominant view on which approach to geography to follow.
(4) The space related courses are not always incorporated into the curriculum, and their
teaching must adapt to the general direction of the department. The faculties where these
courses are taught are not always orientated towards planning and regional development.
Thus, these courses complement other subjects which make up the core of the faculty or
department. Because of this they cover a limited area of this science, as viewed from the
faculty's or department's main subject. The courses are not taught fully or in a structured way,
and are not orientated towards a specific specialization.
However, a scientific field cannot be properly organized simply by lumping together the
individual subjects that constitute it. The parts must be integrated into a whole with its own
philosophy of studies, conceptual categories, analytical and methodological tools, modus
operandi and mechanisms of growth.
In many departments they are the 'icing on the cake', cut off from the main body of
studies such as: Primary Education, Agriculture and Forestry (AUT), Foreign Languages (IU).
Students are taught subjects that do not recognize the existence of spatial differentiation. In
the final analysis, the scientific approach that prevails in the department is more important than the scientific
subject into which it is incorporated. The difficulties involved in the teaching of the space related
courses in Economics Departments in Greece are considered below.
(a) The neo-classical economists accepted it as a fact that economic activity happened in
a vacuum ('on the head of a pin'). As Richardson (1969/1972, p. 8) points out, if we accept
the assumptions of neo-classical theory (the most important of which are price and wage
flexibility and total mobility of the factors of production—labour and capital—within the
country), then space makes no difference. Intractable regional problems do not exist, since the
market smoothes out all interregional disequilibria. Interregional differences in prices, wages
and incomes cannot persist, other than to the extent that transportation costs prevent their
equalization. In other words, the market smoothes out all interregional disequilibria. For this
reason, the neo-classical economists did not include space in their general economic theory,
nor did they analyse the problems created by the spatial distribution of economic activities.
From the nineteenth century 'spatial theories' had been put forward concerning the
location of agricultural and industrial production (von Thiinen, 1826/1966; Launhardt, 1882;
Weber, 1909/1971), which, however, remained outside the general economic theory.