City Planning and Political Values

Abstract

City planners have increasingly come to interpret their mandate as a broad demand for social planning. In response to the many criticisms of master planning and urban renewal design as naive attempts to change society through manipulation of the physical environment, city planners have begun to seek wide training in the social sciences and to produce grand designs for social change. The recent New York Master Plan is an archetypal example. Moreover, the requirements of much federal urban legislation mean that cities must produce plans or forfeit aid.As the breadth of planning increases, as it affects more and more aspects of the urban environment, and as a growing number of cities enact plans of various sorts, it becomes important to understand the political implications of different kinds of planning. While the planner himself may not be a political figure, an enacted urban plan constitutes the substance of a political decision. In Lasswell's terms (1958: 13), it determines who gets what. Thus, even though many aspects of the planning process are technical and &dquo;nonpolitical,&dquo; the way in which a plan is formulated and implemented can be treated in the same terminology as political decision-making. For the purposes of this paper, we shall define planning as futureoriented, public decision-making directed toward attaining specified goals. Although a plan once enacted constitutes a politically determined public policy, it differs from other kinds of political decisions in that it is based on formal rationality and is explicit about ends and means. This is in sharp contrast to many other public decisions which are left purposefully vague and ambiguous so as to mitigate controversy. While a decision need not be labeled a plan in order to fit our definition, political decisions directed at long-term goals are rarely made except under the auspices of a planning group.It is possible to set up a typology of planning methods on the basis of who determines the plan's goals and who determines its means. While one can conceive of a number of different bases for typologies of planning, that of policy determination is politically the most important. For once planning is viewed as a political process, and once a typology is established which is based upon the location of authoritative decision-making, it at DUQUESNE UNIV on July 4, 2015 uar.sagepub.com Downloaded from

Marine spatial planning in the Middle East: Crossing the policy-planning divide

“…In a positivistic view, this model assumes that it is possible to find one best way to allocate space and resources. Otherwise it is based on the notions that (1) scientific knowledge and modern technologies can control the environment; (2) common public interest is identifiable and clear; and (3) change is engineered from the top [32].…”

“…It is based on "bounded" instrumental functionalism which expects the planner (or planning entity) to simplify the complex world by finding a satisfactory solution, rather than the best one. Incremental planning is carried out in a decentralized manner with a focus on what can be implemented without clear objectives while redefining the problem at regular intervals [31,32]. This type of planning is less relevant for the marine environment because most MSP processes are concerned with arriving at a specific product where there has been no plan before.…”

Planificación Urbana Y Calidad De Vida: Aproximación Al Estado De La Planificación Local en Chile

“…Esto ha dado paso a un modelo híbrido en la conducción del desarrollo urbano, en el cual conviven el paradigma de la planificación tradicional (Fainstein y Fainstein, 2001) vertical y jerarquizada, con nuevos modos de relacionamiento horizontal (Sierra, 2006) entre el sector público y privado (Vicuña, 2013).…”

“…Así, el modelo de planificación local se orienta hacia un tipo incremental, que avanza mediante aproximaciones sucesivas y según objetivos de corto plazo (Fainstein y Fainstein, 2001). …”

Understanding the Disposition of Urban Planning Students Toward Social Justice and Equity Themes

“…Yet, the social justice and equity concerns of planning must be understood in the context of the political history and the political economy of the United States. Fainstein and Fainstein (1971) posit that The United States for a variety of historical and cultural reasons has been dominated by the liberal tradition. This tradition values individualism, accepts the primacy of private interests, and prefers minimal government.…”