New Clark City hosts historic world convention for urban planning this September

The “Olympics of planners” celebrates its 60th year with a world-first in the Philippines

NEW CLARK CITY, TARLAC, Sept. 10, 2024 – Hundreds of the world’s thought leaders – urban planners, architects, engineers, property developers, and academics – arrive in New Clark City (NCC) Tarlac this week, as the Philippines hosts a historic global congress from Sept. 10-13. Planners, architects, and enthusiasts all join this pivotal moment in urban, regional, and environmental planning.

The 60th World Planning Congress (Diamond Edition) or WPC60@NCC, alongside the 1st International Conference on New Cities-Planning New Regenerative Cities, is organized by the International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISOCARP) and the Philippines’ host organization composed of the Provincial Government of Tarlac (PGT), led by Gov. Susan A. Yap and the Local Organizing Committee, headed by Philippine Planner and ISOCARP-member EnP Haydee Jacklyn M. Quintana Malubay.

An established global non-governmental organization founded in 1965 and based in the Hague, ISOCARP is a network of professional urban planners from 90+ countries. Its main event, the annual WPC addresses traditional planning issues through rigorously selected technical papers. In its Diamond year, the WPC opens in NCC Tarlac and closes this October in Siena, Italy.

While WPC is long established, the Planning New Regenerative Cities conference is a world first after many years of deliberation, focusing on challenges facing “new” (regenerative) cities and their relationship with nature. New Clark City Tarlac is the ideal venue for this theme, rising in a former military base from the literal ashes of Mount Pinatubo. Foreign and national delegates can fly into an award-winning international airport, attend sessions at iconic structures created for the 30th SEA Games in 2019, and stroll along the River Park for post-session programs against a stunning backdrop of mountains, sunrise, and sunset.

Over the conference’s four days, keynote speakers include Dr. Arsenio M. Balisacan, National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Secretary, the country’s planning authority; Anacláudia C. Rossbach, Executive Director for UN Habitat; Sylvester Wong, Vice President at AECom Asia Pacific, which formulated the masterplan for NCC Tarlac; Guy Castelaine Perry, VP for Urban Planning & Design at McKinsey; and Ann Forsyth, of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, among many others. Several other international experts from UN-Habitat and other planning and development organizations are set to participate in panels, debates, knowledge-sharing, and capacity-building.

Outside the plenary, delegates may choose from five tracks, each focused on a key issue of new cities and sustainability. A first-ever Do-Track to draft a Regenerative Cities Manifesto, thought-provoking special sessions, and a pre-event YPP challenge for 30 young planning professionals round out the program.

A planning conference must go beneath the surface of its surroundings. Thus, WPC delegates can also join full-day technical tours of Metro Manila, and of Central Luzon, notably Clark, Tarlac, and its environs on adaptive reutilization of existing resources and its Carbon Neutrality Initiative. The latter technical tour is led by Architect Royal Pineda, who designed most of NCC Tarlac’s facilities using the region’s abundant lahar as a composite building material. Lahar flowed out from the bowels of Mount Pinatubo upon its devastating eruption three decades ago. Half-day tours of Central Luzon development are presented along with cultural experiences and more “touristic” visits to Pinatubo and surrounding areas.

The ideas behind a pioneering conference

In a digitalizing world with a circular economy, expectations are rising for sustainably humanized, healthy cities and environments. Urban and regional planners now have both the opportunity and the professional responsibility to take a more robust approach.

Though it was coined 14 years ago, the term “regenerative cities” remains relevant today given digital transformation and the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. What we can learn from the past, ongoing, and near-future urban development will enrich the current stock of knowledge to navigate our future.

In New Clark City, about 100 km northwest of Manila, ISOCARP and the Local Organizing Committee welcome the entire international planning community. Together, in a total of six tracks, delegates will explore the challenges and opportunities of planning sustainable new cities that are healthy, inclusive, compact, regenerative, and embedded in a circular economy, carbon-neutral energy supplies, and nature-based solutions, while fostering sustainable connectivity and complementarity with existing cities in the region, Metro Manila in particular.

A particular focus is to explore New Clark City Tarlac as an inspiring practice of regenerating a former military base. The conference will also explore climate adaptive resilience planning approaches, for new (and existing) cities vulnerable to climate change – from drought to floods – and natural risks such as volcanic and seismic activity.

Finally, this world-first conference highlights Tarlac’s cultural diversity, as an inspiration for new cities to pursue inclusion of the indigenous population and its culture. One conference activity –

Mga Kwento ni Ima – explores the narratives of Indigenous Peoples – Aetas – about Mother Nature and Mother Earth, the mythology of weather forecasting, and the river-landscape design process. The Aetas had historical stewardship of domains now part of NCC Tarlac’s development area.

This congress would not be possible without our co-host and platinum sponsor, the Philippines’ San Miguel Corporation, a consistent proponent of long-term sustainability in major infrastructure.

We also thank institutional members of the Local Organizing Committee: PlanNet [Planning Network] Management and Consultancy founded by its President, Haydee Jacklyn M. Quintana Malubay; Philippine Center for Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development, Inc. and its Chairman Juan Romeo Nereus O. Acosta; Royal Pineda+ Architecture•Design of Architect Royal Pineda; the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) and the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).

Overall, WPC will be a remarkable, substantive, memorable, and unforgettable planning congress, one that the host Philippines is proud to pioneer. (PR)