## 3 Evolution of the World Pattern of Planning Research Investment
### A Sharp Increase in the Total Number and Diversity of Participating Countries  
Of all the countries, only eight countries participated in the urban planning research in the 1960s, means these countries invested their research efforts in the field of planning. It can be seen that these 8 countries are all 'big countries' in the political and economic sense at that time. They are the United States, Canada, France, Pakistan, United Kingdom, India, Sweden, and Switzerland. Until current days, 2016 to 2019, there were 193 countries and regions that invested their research efforts in the planning field, covering almost all countries and regions in the world.  
The studies show that the number of participating countries and regions increased rapidly over the past 70 years, from only single-digit countries involved to coverage of all countries in the world, which proves that as a result of the urbanization, countries realized the importance of planning research and increasingly took the research investment seriously.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Country/Region** & **GDP (us5 mm)** & \begin{tabular}{c} **GDP per** \\ **Capita (USD)** \\ \end{tabular} & \
\begin{tabular}{c} **Population** \\ **(Million)** \\ \end{tabular} &
\begin{tabular}{c} **Urbanization** \\ **Rate (\%)** \\ \end{tabular} & **HDI** & **Land Area (km2)** \\ \hline Netherlands & 777,227 & 45,493 & 17.1 & 91 & 0.932 & 33,720 \\ New Zealand & 185,017 & 38,954 & 4.7 & 85 & 0.92 & 263,310 \\ Norway & 370,557 & 69,219 & 5.4 & 79 & 0.953 & 365,268 \\ Peru & 192,094 & 5901 & 32.6 & 78 & 0.756 & 1,280,000 \\ Poland & 469,509 & 12,322 & 38.1 & 61 & 0.868 & 306,230 \\ Portugal & 204,565 & 19,878 & 10.3 & 67 & 0.848 & 91,590 \\ Republic of Korea & 1,411,246 & 27,583 & 51.2 & 81 & 0.904 & 97,230 \\ Russian Federation & 1,283,162 & 8913 & 144.0 & 73 & 0.856 & 16,376,870 \\ Saudi Arabia & 646,438 & 19,265 & 33.6 & 77 & 0.704 & 2,149,690 \\ South Africa & 294,841 & 5137 & 57.4 & 62 & 0.891 & 1,213,090 \\ Spain & 1,237,255 & 26,666 & 46.4 & 82 & 0.935 & 498,800 \\ Sweden & 511,000 & 51,189 & 10.0 & 85 & 0.943 & 410,340 \\ Switzerland & 668,851 & 78,283 & 8.5 & 73 & 0.762 & 39,516 \\ Thailand & 406,840 & 5881 & 69.2 & 52 & 0.805 & 510,890 \\ Turkey & 857,711 & 10,471 & 81.9 & 71 & 0.747 & 769,630 \\ Ukraine & 93,270 & 2119 & 44.0 & 70 & 0.864 & 579,320 \\ United Arab & 348,743 & 36,550 & 9.5 & 90 & 0.919 & 83,600 \\ Emirates & 2,647,898 & 39,774 & 66.6 & 87 & 0.919 & 241,930 \\ United Kingdom & 18,624,475 & 56,996 & 326.8 & 89 & 0.69 & 9,147,420 \\ Viet Nam & 202,616 & 2100 & 96.5 & 34 & 0.683 & 310,070 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular} Source: UN 2019a, UNDP 2020, and Worldometer.  
\end{table}
Table 1: _Cont._By analyzing the diversity of participating countries, it is found that the diversity of countries engaged in planning research has grown rapidly over past 70 years, initially dominated by developed countries, followed by developing countries, which have gradually integrated into the mainstream research community and become the main contributor. For example, China overtook the United States since the end of 2000 and became the world's largest investor in planning research. This is highly related to economic and political situation; after WWII, developing countries started the process of rapid urbanization, which caused a multitude of urban problems, thus planning practices and research of planning were proved to be useful in dealing with large scale urbanization and gradually resulted in high investment in planning research (Figure 1).  
From 1961 to now, the number of participating countries engaged in planning research shows a rapid rise, from 8 in 1966 to 193 in 2019.  
According to the yearly increased number, on average 18.4 countries are engaged in the investment every 5 years. The largest increase was in the decade of 2001-2005 to 2006-2010; participation increased by 35 countries, contributing to an increase of 81.4%.