No abstract
The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) should be proud that it was one of the first organizations to introduce the idea that good cities require public planning by qualified professionals. It is not that no one had thought of urban planning before; there are numerous examples, starting with the design of ancient cities in the Middle East and Asia, medieval cities in Europe, the restructuring of Paris by Napoleon, extensive planning of cities by Bismarck in Germany, planned cities in the UK, and even in the USA. When the RTPI was founded in 1914, there was significant accumulated knowledge that "the market" alone did not produce either majestic or well-functioning cities (Hall, 1998). Public interventions were necessary to produce cities that served as spatial nodes for the governing of emerging markets. What differentiated the creation of the RTPI in the early twentieth century was that "town planning" was now to be embedded within a democratic process, rather than being left to the whims of kings and queens. Its goal was not just to serve the needs of the royalty and the bourgeoisie, but the "emancipation of all communities." 1 To appreciate the significance of what the RTPI's founding members were conveying by creating the new organization requires an awareness of that historical moment in 1914 -before World War I, before the Bolshevik Revolution, and before the Great Depression that led to massive state intervention and planning, now known as "Keynesianism". Deeply aware of the adverse impact of capitalist industrialization and urbanization on the daily life of many citizens, the RTPI's founding members had no illusions about the power of markets to improve the situation, but they had faith that if democratic institutions provided a forum for public deliberations, guided by expert knowledge of issues related to land use, land consolidation, and land taxation, then solutions could be found that would promote both capitalist industrialization and public well-being in the context of political democracy.Was the RTPI founded on contradictory ideas that hurt its effectiveness? Did its creation immobilize "naive planners" with fundamental "conundrums" they simply cannot resolve, as Kelvin MacDonald suggests? The evidence, now visible around the
This article takes a critical look at the British planning system and the way it operates today. It has the reputation of being the best in the world, but it is widely misunderstood and misused. The present British government is trying to make planning less effective and far-reaching in the name of the need for national economic revival. Some of the planners on the defensive argue that the need and potential for planning is as great as ever. But there is no cause for complacency as the system has not been working smoothly. A long-running debate about the desirable degree of control over minor development will be quietened when the government passes new legislation on the subject. But the basic issues remain unresolved. Public participation in planning has been fashionable, but many planners are now disappointed by it. In pursuing quantity rather than quality of response from the public, the efforts of planners to involve people in preparing plans have been misdirected. Public inquiries have become an important part of the planning system, but the public is being tricked into thinking that it has a real opportunity to influence decisions when in fact it does not. Gradual changes in the nature of public inquiries are making them widely misunderstood.
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