Association of Town, Regional and State Planning (SRL)
Registered Association
a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO)

 

Membership

In 1969, SRL was founded in Bonn by planners from a broad variety of spheres of the professional field.
Membership in Germany consists of around 2,000 planners, active in the civil service, in study and research, in private offices, associations and other institutions covering the range of town and regional planning, state planning, development planning, transport planning, landscape planning, urbanism, architecture, jurisprudence, sociology, economics, administrative sciences.
Objectives and functions of SRL

SRL is an organisation of individuals who are active in the field of area planning, whilst being conscious of the social responsibility connected to this task.
SRL members want to sharpen, shape and realize their social responsibility within area planning. They regard it as a contribution to safeguard the future and as a prerequisite for a good life for the next generation.
Joint efforts of all members of SRL are required to discern the state of the real world in order to work out creative activities. These activities are vital to SRL – at the same time SRL serves as a platform to bring the multitude of individual and professional experiences of the members to fruition finding expression in a variety of answers.
SRL cultivates a planning and communication culture, handling arising conflicts and uncertainties in a conducive way. That is the requirement for vividness, imaginativeness and creativity of SRL members.
SRL considers its principal task in the commitment to the recognition and the necessity of area planning and a highly sophisticated planning culture.
Planning culture requires procedures, which orientate towards features such as professional and social involvement, responsibility for nature and man as well as safeguarding the future. With this aim in mind, we need opinion-making and the exchange of views of all stakeholders involved in the planning discipline. In doing so, SRL intends to cultivate, to strengthen, and to broaden democratic manners.
Within the membership SRL encourages a critical look at the contents and values of planning and the discussion of possible solutions.
This includes the self-critical consideration of effects and influences of planning as well as further development of methods and procedures – including also the perspectives of an extended Europe.
The maintenance and further improvement and qualification of the planning profession are in the focus of interest.

Working Structure

SRL provides the necessary platform for all these functions. This includes that SRL interferes in planning-related political procedures and establishes contacts with the stakeholders involved.
SRL contributes to public awareness in order to make the way of proceeding and the context of effective area planning transparent.
SRL looks after the interests of the professional groups and has an influence on training and vocational training facilities in the field of effective area planning.
In order to perform its external functions SRL provides the necessary framework and seeks the cooperation of others.
Project teams initiated by individuals or working groups are set up. Individuals, the board, regional groups, professional teams of specialists or committees work on current professional, political, legal, methodical topics of planning practice or matters of the professional order, at local, regional or national, and European level.
They are concerned with, for example, urban renewal, urban design, socially integrative city, active urban centres, rural areas, Europe, energy and planning, connected information systems.

Statements

Statements and contributions to specialist journals are elaborated. Events or study trips are organised. General SRL statements are discussed and decided on by the board and if necessary by the members assembly.
Regional and professional groups organise talks and discussions as well as study trips and by doing this, bring up problems of topical interest for discussion.
Further vocational training and the exchange of ideas and experiences take place at conferences or workshops and within the bimonthly magazine PLANERIN.
So far SRL, together with other professional associations, has brought statements to the public on all new planning laws, on international training and education standards and on job prospects of young people in the profession.
SRL has contributed to the National Plan of Action for Sustainable Settlement Development.
SRL is a member of the National Urban Development Policy Board and the Federal Foundation of Baukultur.
SRL is among the founders and member of the board of ECTP, the European Council of Spatial Planners, and member of ISOCARP, the International Society of City and Regional Planners.

Conferences

Since 1970 SRL has being organising professional conferences, which serve the exchange of experiences, further vocational training and networking of members and non-members. Each year, in autumn the annual conference takes place, complemented by the half-yearly conference in May or June. These conferences are open to the public.
Since 1988 the professional group 'Forum Man and Public transport' has been organising conferences, talks, and discussions.

Publications

The bimonthly published magazine PLANERIN (male and female planner) informs concisely about themes relevant for planning. The series “SRL-Schriftenreihe” reports about events of the regional and thematic working groups.