The occupational profile of the town and regional planner in the Republic of South Africa 1993

Abstract

In a study on Town and Regional Planners a decade ago, Badenhorst (1984) highlighted the fact that Town and Regional Planning was a young profession, not yet completely “pro­fessionalised” in the true sense of the word. Unlike established professions, such as Architecture, Land Surveying and so forth, it did not satisfy among others the primary prerequisite of any profession, recognition/acceptance by society at large. It lacked legitimacy in the sense that the role specification of practitioners was not embodied in a statute defining their duties and privi­leges, as well as the fact that the public was not willing to pay a fee commensurate to that paid to the established professions’ for their services, either from private or public funds. At best the measures repre­sented basic, indirect criteria of accep­tance, reflecting the state of affairs at the time.