Friedmann, John. 2003. Why do planning theory?. Planning theory 2(1): 7-10.
There are three different planning theory’s according to Friedmann.
- There is a widespread acceptance in our profession that there are significant
differences between theories that are used in planning and are specific to its
several specialisations (land use, transport, urban design, regional development,
environmental planning, etc.) (theory 1).
- No one argues about the relevance of theories of migration or economic
location as they are deployed within the sub-discipline of regional
development planning
- And theories that address what is common to all of them, i.e. theories of planning
tout court (theory 2)
- A theories about planning (theory 3)
- Critical planning. Expl. Marxist, political economy.
,Fainstein, Susan and James Defilippis. 2016. Introduction: The structure and
debates of planning theory. In: Fainstein, Susan and James Defilippis (Eds)
Readings in Planning Theory: Fourth Edition, Wiley, pp. 1-18
What is planning theory?
The field of planning is divided into
- the roles of the states, the market and civil society.
- those who define it according to its object and those who do so according to its
method.
- those who understand planning through analysing existing practices and those who
theorise in an effort to transform planning practices. Thus, planning theory may be
either explanatory or normative.
Why do planning theory?
The relationship between theory and practice in planning is a problematic one. Most
planning practitioners largely disregard planning theory and do not often think fondly of any
planning theory course they had to take as a student. The planner works with applied
engagements of the theory which leads to new theories. This raises another problem, which
is that the devaluing of planning theory by practitioners leaves too much of the
decision-making in day-to-day planning practice to be based on intuition and instinct.
How do we understand the history of planning?
Four basic eras characterised its history: (1) the formative years during which the pioneers
(Ebenezer Howard, Patrick Geddes (Patrick Geddes → the city is always under pressure of
different influences. Which makes you have to adapt your plans.), Daniel Burnham, etc.) did
not yet call themselves planners (late 1800s to World War I); (2) the period of
institutionalisation, professionalisation, and self-recognition of planning, together with
the rise of regional and national planning efforts (ca. 1920–45); (3) the postwar era of
standardisation (cost benefits analysis), crisis, and diversification of planning (1945–75); and
(4) the time up to the present of redefining planning in relation to the private sector, with
emphasis on the planner as mediator, strategist, and advocate within public–private
partnerships.
Is planning about means or ends, and which should it emphasise?
In the beginning the focus was on outcomes. Throughout the twentieth century, planners
increasingly focused on procedures. Rules for creating master plans and zoning maps,
formulating standards, proposing regulations that would ensure adherence to plans. There
was a focus on least-cost alternative and beneficial outcomes. Planners would act as
negotiators or mediators within the proces. It was presented as a plus game.
This emphasis methode led to counter movements such as the “just city” movement. The
argument of just city theorists is that inequalities of resources and power lead to unjust
planning decisions. Which flourish under neo-liberal regimes.
,Why and when should we plan?
If the public sector was dominant in terms of planning, it could be chaos or domination by
powerful private interests. But planning is always a collaboration between the state and the
market. This inter-connection has grown during the neoliberal period under the name of
public-private partnerships.
The constraints on planning power - how can planning be effective within a mixed
economy?
Unlike some other professionals, planners do not have a monopoly on power or expertise
over their object of work. Which makes it hard to determine the outcome.
What values inform planning?
Presenting professional ethics in planning presents many problems.
- First, if planners work in the private or quasi-private sectors, as is increasingly the
case, do they still owe loyalty to the public at large?
- Second, planners must deal with uncertainty.
- Third, planning decisions are further complicated because so much of planning
extends beyond technical activities and into much larger social, economic, and
environmental challenges.
- Finally, ethical questions inevitably emerge from the planner’s role as “expert.”
The enduring question of the public interest
In sum, attacks on the concept of the public interest take two forms: first we cannot know
what the public interest is; and second, and more fundamentally, there is no such thing as a
unified public that can have an interest. A belief in the public interest is the foundation for a
set of values that planners hold dear: equal protection and equal opportunity, public space,
and a sense of civic community and social responsibility
, Hudson, Barclay M. 1979. Comparison of current planning theories:
Counterparts and contradictions. Journal of the American Planning
Association 45(4): 387-398
Bases for a classification scheme
Benefit-cost analysis became prominent in the sixties. There are five different schools of
planning. Each school helps the other by its own shortcomings.
Name: Synoptic planning
Core: Synoptic planning has roughly four classical elements: (1) goal-setting, (2)
identification of policy alternatives, (3) evaluation of means against ends, and (4)
implementation of policy. The process is not always undertaken in this sequence. It ignores
or avoids issues of conflict by referring to a unitary (eenheid) concept of the public interest
How it works: conceptual or mathematical models relating ends (objectives) to means
(resources and constraints) with reliance on numbers and quantitative analysis.
Advantage: Very simple
Disadvantage: Unrealistic, its insensitivity to existing institutional performance capabilities,
its reductionist epistemology, its failure to appreciate the cognitive limits of decision-makers,
bias toward central control-in the definition of problems and solutions.
Name: Incremental planning
Core: Partisan mutual adjustment. Works better in terms of the push and tug of established
institutions that are adept at getting things done through decentralised negotiation processes
best suited to a free market and a democratic political economy. Based on dialogue and
negotiation among plural interests, although without an explicit treatment of power.
Advantage: Works well in practice.
Disadvantage: Not much empathy. Adheres more closely to the economic logic of
individuals pursuing their own self-interest.
Name: Transactive planning
Core: Focuses on the intact experience of people's lives revealing policy issues to be
addressed. Personal dialogue and the process of mutual learning is important. Is part of
decentralised planning (mediator). Based on dialogue and negotiated among plural interests,
although without an explicit treatment of power.
Advantage: Gives more emphasis to processes of personal and organisational
development.
Disadvantage: Personalities might clash when in conversation. It can take forever.
Name: Advocacy planning
Core: Defending the interests of the weak against strong-community groups, environmental
causes. Based on conflict based on the public interest.
Advantage: Negotiations are open. Greater sensitivity to unintended side effects
Disadvantage: Posing stumbling blocks without being able to mobilise equally effective
support for constructive alternatives
Name: Radical planning
Core:
There are three different planning theory’s according to Friedmann.
- There is a widespread acceptance in our profession that there are significant
differences between theories that are used in planning and are specific to its
several specialisations (land use, transport, urban design, regional development,
environmental planning, etc.) (theory 1).
- No one argues about the relevance of theories of migration or economic
location as they are deployed within the sub-discipline of regional
development planning
- And theories that address what is common to all of them, i.e. theories of planning
tout court (theory 2)
- A theories about planning (theory 3)
- Critical planning. Expl. Marxist, political economy.
,Fainstein, Susan and James Defilippis. 2016. Introduction: The structure and
debates of planning theory. In: Fainstein, Susan and James Defilippis (Eds)
Readings in Planning Theory: Fourth Edition, Wiley, pp. 1-18
What is planning theory?
The field of planning is divided into
- the roles of the states, the market and civil society.
- those who define it according to its object and those who do so according to its
method.
- those who understand planning through analysing existing practices and those who
theorise in an effort to transform planning practices. Thus, planning theory may be
either explanatory or normative.
Why do planning theory?
The relationship between theory and practice in planning is a problematic one. Most
planning practitioners largely disregard planning theory and do not often think fondly of any
planning theory course they had to take as a student. The planner works with applied
engagements of the theory which leads to new theories. This raises another problem, which
is that the devaluing of planning theory by practitioners leaves too much of the
decision-making in day-to-day planning practice to be based on intuition and instinct.
How do we understand the history of planning?
Four basic eras characterised its history: (1) the formative years during which the pioneers
(Ebenezer Howard, Patrick Geddes (Patrick Geddes → the city is always under pressure of
different influences. Which makes you have to adapt your plans.), Daniel Burnham, etc.) did
not yet call themselves planners (late 1800s to World War I); (2) the period of
institutionalisation, professionalisation, and self-recognition of planning, together with
the rise of regional and national planning efforts (ca. 1920–45); (3) the postwar era of
standardisation (cost benefits analysis), crisis, and diversification of planning (1945–75); and
(4) the time up to the present of redefining planning in relation to the private sector, with
emphasis on the planner as mediator, strategist, and advocate within public–private
partnerships.
Is planning about means or ends, and which should it emphasise?
In the beginning the focus was on outcomes. Throughout the twentieth century, planners
increasingly focused on procedures. Rules for creating master plans and zoning maps,
formulating standards, proposing regulations that would ensure adherence to plans. There
was a focus on least-cost alternative and beneficial outcomes. Planners would act as
negotiators or mediators within the proces. It was presented as a plus game.
This emphasis methode led to counter movements such as the “just city” movement. The
argument of just city theorists is that inequalities of resources and power lead to unjust
planning decisions. Which flourish under neo-liberal regimes.
,Why and when should we plan?
If the public sector was dominant in terms of planning, it could be chaos or domination by
powerful private interests. But planning is always a collaboration between the state and the
market. This inter-connection has grown during the neoliberal period under the name of
public-private partnerships.
The constraints on planning power - how can planning be effective within a mixed
economy?
Unlike some other professionals, planners do not have a monopoly on power or expertise
over their object of work. Which makes it hard to determine the outcome.
What values inform planning?
Presenting professional ethics in planning presents many problems.
- First, if planners work in the private or quasi-private sectors, as is increasingly the
case, do they still owe loyalty to the public at large?
- Second, planners must deal with uncertainty.
- Third, planning decisions are further complicated because so much of planning
extends beyond technical activities and into much larger social, economic, and
environmental challenges.
- Finally, ethical questions inevitably emerge from the planner’s role as “expert.”
The enduring question of the public interest
In sum, attacks on the concept of the public interest take two forms: first we cannot know
what the public interest is; and second, and more fundamentally, there is no such thing as a
unified public that can have an interest. A belief in the public interest is the foundation for a
set of values that planners hold dear: equal protection and equal opportunity, public space,
and a sense of civic community and social responsibility
, Hudson, Barclay M. 1979. Comparison of current planning theories:
Counterparts and contradictions. Journal of the American Planning
Association 45(4): 387-398
Bases for a classification scheme
Benefit-cost analysis became prominent in the sixties. There are five different schools of
planning. Each school helps the other by its own shortcomings.
Name: Synoptic planning
Core: Synoptic planning has roughly four classical elements: (1) goal-setting, (2)
identification of policy alternatives, (3) evaluation of means against ends, and (4)
implementation of policy. The process is not always undertaken in this sequence. It ignores
or avoids issues of conflict by referring to a unitary (eenheid) concept of the public interest
How it works: conceptual or mathematical models relating ends (objectives) to means
(resources and constraints) with reliance on numbers and quantitative analysis.
Advantage: Very simple
Disadvantage: Unrealistic, its insensitivity to existing institutional performance capabilities,
its reductionist epistemology, its failure to appreciate the cognitive limits of decision-makers,
bias toward central control-in the definition of problems and solutions.
Name: Incremental planning
Core: Partisan mutual adjustment. Works better in terms of the push and tug of established
institutions that are adept at getting things done through decentralised negotiation processes
best suited to a free market and a democratic political economy. Based on dialogue and
negotiation among plural interests, although without an explicit treatment of power.
Advantage: Works well in practice.
Disadvantage: Not much empathy. Adheres more closely to the economic logic of
individuals pursuing their own self-interest.
Name: Transactive planning
Core: Focuses on the intact experience of people's lives revealing policy issues to be
addressed. Personal dialogue and the process of mutual learning is important. Is part of
decentralised planning (mediator). Based on dialogue and negotiated among plural interests,
although without an explicit treatment of power.
Advantage: Gives more emphasis to processes of personal and organisational
development.
Disadvantage: Personalities might clash when in conversation. It can take forever.
Name: Advocacy planning
Core: Defending the interests of the weak against strong-community groups, environmental
causes. Based on conflict based on the public interest.
Advantage: Negotiations are open. Greater sensitivity to unintended side effects
Disadvantage: Posing stumbling blocks without being able to mobilise equally effective
support for constructive alternatives
Name: Radical planning
Core:
