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Planning theory is an elusive subject of study. It draws on a variety of disciplines and has no widely accepted canon. The purpose of this reader is twofold: (1) to define the boundaries of this area of inquiry and the works that constitute its central focus; and (2) to confront the principal issues that face planners as theorists and practitioners. It is organized by the questions that its editors raise, rather than by the chronological development of the field.

Compiling a reader in planning theory presents a tricky dilemma. One can either cautiously reprint the early postwar classics -thereby duplicating several past anthologies, including Faludi's pop~ar 1973 reader -or else run the risk of prema-turdy elevating otherwise transient ideas. We take a different path; we have seleCted a set of readings -both "classic" :Ind recent -that effectively address the pressing and enduring questions in planning theory.

, We see the central question of planning theory as the following: What role can planning play in developing the good city and region within the constraints of a capitPlist political economy and a democratic political system? The emphasis is not o~"'developing a model planning process. Rather, we look for explanations and guides to planning practice bas~d on analyses of the respective political economies of the United States and the United Kingdom. Our effort is designed to determine the historical 'and contextual influences and strategic opportunities that shape the cap-acity of planners to affect the urbaRand regional environment.

What is Planning Theory?

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2 SCOTT CAMPBELL AND SUSAN S. FAINSTEIN

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and spacial transformation. Consequently, planning theory appears to overlap with

theory in all the social science disciplines, and it becomes hard to limit its scope or to stake out a turf specific to planning.

Second, the boundary between planners and related professionals (such as real

estate developers, architects, city council members) is not mutually exclusive:

plan-nersdon't just plan, and non-planners also plan. Failure to distinguish adequately the

specific task of planning from the broader forces of urbanization makes it harder to

recognize what can actually be done by planners. The most basic of questions too often remains unanswered: who exactly designs, builds, manages, and finally tears

down cities? Ambitious, omnipotent planning theories often collide with the modest,

constrained powers of actual planning practice.

Third, the field of planning is divided among those who define it according to its

object (land use patterns of the buil t and natural environments) and those who do so by its method (the process of decision making). The result is two largely separate sets of

theoretical questions and priorities that undermine a singular definition of planning.

Finally, many fields (such as economics) are defined by a specific set of

method-ologies. Yet planning commonly borrows diverse methodologies from many

differ-ent fields, and so its theoretical base cannot be easily drawn from its tools of

analysis. It is defined more by a shared interest in space and place, a commitment

to civic community, and a pragmatic orientation toward professional practice. It is

also a field deEmed by a series of both theoretical and practical questions, reflecting

its somewhat ungainly straddling of both academic and professional causes.

Taken together, these considerable disagreements over the scope and function of

planning and the problems of defining who is actually a planner obscure the

delinea-tion of an appropriate body of theory. Whereas most scholars can agree on what

~onstitutes the economy and the polity -and thus what is economic or political

theory -they differ as to the content of planning theory.

The abstract quality of planning theory means that practitioners largely disregard

it. In this respect, planning resembles other academic disciplines. Most politicians do

not bother with political theory; business persons generally do not familiarize

them-selves with econometrics; and community organizers do not regularly concern

them-selves With social theory. P.L~lJ:g-,"~~~30..pra"~~,~_.ficld~o£endea~or",h@wever;'diffe:rs fr<?:m other, activities in its claim to be able to predict the c9~~~qu~~~~s,pf .its,actions,-,'

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Planners need to generiliZe.:£torii'piioi'exp.enence.ifth"ey are to practice their craft. In

their day-to-day work, planners may rely more on intuition than explicit theory; yet

this intuition may in fact be assimilated theory. In this light, theory represents

cumu-lative professional knowledge. Though many practicing planners may look upon the

planning theory of their graduate education as inert and irrelevant -and see in their

professional work a kind of homespun, in-the-trenches pragmatism -theory allows

one to see the conditions of this "pragmatism." Just as Keynes warned of being an

unwitting slave to the ideas of a defunct economist, we believe that it is also possible to

be a slave t9 the ideas ofa defunct pla~ng theorisy

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Why Do Planning Theory?

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One of our prime motives in selecting the readings lor this book is to enable practitioners to achieve a deeper understanding of the processes in which they are

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3

THE STRUCTURE AND DEBATES OF PLANNING THEORY

engaged than can be attained through simple intUition and common sense. Many in the field have decried the gap between theory and practice; yet we do not envi$ion eliminating it completely. It is both unrealistic and inadvisable that planning practice and education become identical. We should no more expect practicing land use planners to implement the unadulterated arguments of the German philosopher jtirgen Habermas (who provides the conceptual foundations for communicative planning) in their jobs than expect graduate students to accept without question existing land-use practice. True, if the gap is too big, then planning education is irrelevant; but if there is no gap, then planning education is redundant. The role of planning theory should be to generate a creative tension that is both critical and constructive and that provokes reflection on both sides. In other words, its role is to

create both the reflective practitioner and the ractica lar. These tw~ed~

a J e, ut t ey s 0 at east e able to talk to each other.

We therefore believe that theory can inform practice. Planning theory is not just some idle chattering at the margins of the field. If done poorly, it discourages and stifles; but if done well, it defines the field and drives it forward. We have conse-quently identified a set of readings that address themselves to the questions that planners must ask if they are to be effective, and we include case studies of planning in action with this purpose in mind.

Beyond this intention, we aim to establish a theoretical foundation that provides the field not only with a common structure for scientific inquiry, but also with a means for defining what planning is -especially in the intimidating company of more established academic disciplines. Theory allows for both professional and intellectual self-reflection. It tries to make sense of the seemingly unrelated, contradictory aspects of urban development and to create a rational system with which to compare and

evaluate the merits of different planning ideas and strategies. ~ the underlying

~Q!!1~IltS_~~~e to~ether t~~~E.~-;umjng.a!:-(;aS..~w~

iiIld-community development to transportation planning and urban design. Providing a common language is an important function of introductory theory and history courses for master's students, who gain a shared identity as planners with other students during their first year before veering into their sub-specialties in the second year. It can be both comforting and encouraging, when encountering the challenges of contemporary urban poverty, the lack of public space, the greed and shortsightedness of urban developers, to read Sam Bass Warner's (1987) account of nineteenth-century Philadelphia as a private city, or William Cronon's (1991) slaughterhouse vision of nineteenth-century Chicago. We not only know that we have been here before, but we also remind ourselves that in many ways urban life has improved, and planners and reformers can take some credit for this.

Because of this common language, planning theory is often the arena where the

field of planning reassesses itself. Though too often this reflection degenerates into

self-doubt (such as "if planning is everything, perhaps it is nothing"), it is not an

exaggeration to say that lanning theory is the philoso hical conscienc

~~~:.. This self-crincal functIon 0 p anDlng t eory therefore cuts both ways:

Ohe can use it to both claim legitimacy to others and question one's own legitimacy. The language of planning theory also encourages planners to translate their specific issues into more general social-scientific theoretical language. It allows ideas and values from planning to find a broader audience, and it gives planning greater intellectual legitimacy. However, there is always the danger of intellectual

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SCOTT CAMPBELL AND SUSAN S. FAINSTEIN

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grave robbing: of borrowing ideas from other disciplines that have been long dead in the discipline of origin. Or it may be that in borrowing from other fields, we sometimes are not up to speed: employing, for instance, a concept from ]iirgen Habermas without understanding its deeper context in German intellectual history. So, planning theory should borrow, but with caution and rigor, avoiding out-of-date, oversimplified ideas taken out of context.

A well-developed theoretica] foundation serves as a declaration of scho]arly autonomy, often institutiona]ized in the form of a planning theory requirement for master's degree programs and professional certification in city p]anning. The rela-tively recent expansion of planning ph.D. programs goes hand in hand with the rise of planning theory. Such programs not only support research within planning departments; they also encourage the development of the discipline's theoretical foundations. Ph.D. programs also use theory to distinguish and e]evate themselves above master's programs and professional training.

Though theory helps p]anning assert its distinctiveness as an;autonomous field, that field remains a diminutive newcomer surrounded by larger, more established disciplines. The result is that planning must define (and defend) itself by differenti-ating itself from its larger neighbors: if next to architecture, planning will emphasize the socio-economic city; in relation to geography, planning stresses the field's policy orientation; if adjacent to public policy, planners focus on space ana local commu-nities; and in contrast to economists, planners attend to issues of redistribution and market failures. These institutional boundary lines become crucial when planning shifts its academic alliances, such as from a school of architecture to a school of policy. This relational identity of planning shapes the debate regarding the "natura]" institutional home of planning: should we go back to our architectura.Uland-nse roots, push further ahead into social science, be subsumed into public policy, or .strategically ally <:urselves mo~e closely with business and real e~tate? As a conse

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1 quence of these ISsues, plannlng theory thus becomes an arbiter of the field's I changing boundaries.

Our Approach to Planning Theory

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Our approach is to place planning theory at the-int~n of political e~~n!!!!!y

andintelle~l his~ We do not see it, however, as mechanisticaIlydeierminedby

these two for~se who misuse structural theory will inevitably fall victim to a

sense of helplessness in the face of predestined social forces. Instead, the planner should use theory to view how the local and national political economy, in addition to the field's own history, influences the collective imagination of planning's possibilities, limitations, and professional identity. The challenge for this professional -and sometimes activist -discipline is to find the negotiating room within the larger social structure to pursue the good city.

We also place planning theory at a secondi!1ter~e£!!oQ; that of the city and regio~"as a henomenon and planning as a human activity. Planning adapts io~cnariges in the

tity and region, w in turn are trans orme y planning and politics. This

inter-forecast, research, survey, and organize financing. Nor do planners have an exclusive influence over territories; developers, businesspersons, politicians, and other actors

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also shape urban and regional development. The result is that the discipline of planning is influenced by a wide variety of procedural and substantive ideas beyond its own modest disciplinary boundaries. Studies of planning refer to works in political science, law, decision theory, and public policy. Writings about cities and regions draw upon traditions primarily in urban history, urban sociology, geography, and econom-ics. Though not always consistently, we use this practical distinction of substantive

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versus procedural theory to distinguish Readings in Planning Theory from its com-panion volum.e' Readings in Urban Theory {Fainstein and Campbell 2001).

Debates Define Theory: Five Questions of Planning Theory

No single paradigm defines the foundation of planning theory. Such a lack of agreement about planning priorities and planning ideologies is inevitable; yet this disagreement is mistakenly carried over into the classroom, leading to unnecessary conflict over how planning theory itSelf should be taught. As a result, many academic departments shy away from developing a rigorous, unified theory program. However, it is possible to agree on how to teach planning theory systematically even though planning itself may lack a systematic, uniform strUcture. To the contrary: the teaching of planning theory should explicitly explore the roots and implications of long-standing disputes in the field. Planning is a messy, contentious field; planning theory should provide the means to define and address these debates and understand their deeper roots/,

In this light, we view planning theory as a series of debates. Here are five questions at issue.

What are the historical roots of planning? (the role of history in planning theory)

The first question of theory is one of identity, which in turn leads to history. The traditional story told of modern city planning is that it arose from several separate movements at the turn of the century: the Garden City, the City Beautiful, and public health reforms. Three basic eras characterized its subsequent history: (1) the forma-tive years during which the pioneers (Ebenezer Howard, Daniel Burnham, etc.) did not yet identify themselves as planners (late 1800s -ca. 1910); (2) the period of institutionalization, professionalization, and self-recognition of planning, together with the rise of regional and national planning efforts (ca. 1910-1945); and (3) the postwar era of standardization, crisis, and diversification of planning (Krueckeberg

1983).

This story, often repeated in introductory courses and texts, is useful in several ways. The multiplicity of technical, social, and aesthetic origins explains planning's eclectic blend of design, civil engineering, local politics, community organization, and so~ial justice. Its status as either a quasi-, secondary, or pubescent profession is explained by its development as a twentieth-century, public-sector, bureaucratic profession, rather than as a late-nineteenth-century, private-sector profession such as medicine (Hoffman 1989).

At the most basic level; this framework gives the story of planning (at least

modern professional planning) a starting point. ~ e~as~

~tie~-cen response to the nineteenth-century industriaiC1tY (HaJrf996). It also

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provides several foundational teXts: Howard's and Osborn's Garden Cities of To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (1945 [1898]), Charles Robinson's The Improvement of Towns and Cities; or the Practical Basis of Civic Aesthetics (1901), and Daniel Burnham's plan for Chicago (1909), as well as several detlh:trig events: the Columbia E..xposition in Chicago (1893), which launched the City Beautiful Movement; the construction of Letchworth, the first English Garden City (1903); and the first national conference on city planning, held in Washington, D.C. (1909). Yet this tale of planning's birth is also problematic. As the years go by and the planning pioneers fade from memory, the story is simplified and unconditionally repeated. Contingent or coincidental events and texts are elevated to necessary steps in the inevitable and rational development of modern planning. Even the best of tellers can succumb to repeating this tale of the "great men of planning history." The result is an essentialistic life-cycle model of planning's birth, growth, maturation, and mid-life

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crisis -a model that largely excludes the political, economic, and cultural forces that

continually transform planning in both ideology and practice. In fact, such an uncrit-' ical acceptance of these early years of planning ju.xtaposes oddly with the soul-searching of the last quarter-century, especially after the failures of 1960s poverty programs and weariness of urban renewal created a crisis of confidence.

One path out of this debilitating historicism is to bridge benign past folklore and current skepticism through a reassessment of planning history in which both past and present are retold with the same critical (and sometimes revisionist) voice. Richard Foglesong's Planning the Capitalist City (1986) and Robert Fishman's Bourgeois Utppias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia (1987) are but two of the better examples.l Some critical histories, however, are also narrow-minded, replacing the heroic stories of "the great men of planning history" with an equally unreflective disquisition on the historic logic of capital. The challenge is to write a planning history that encourages not only an accurate, but also a critical, subtle, and reflective understanding of contemporary planning practice. An effective planning history helps the contemporary planner shape his or her complex professional identity.~

2 What is the justification for planning? When should one intervene?

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timing and egttIm~q of planned intervention therefore ecome questions ce~tral to planning theory: Why and in what situations should planners intervene? Implicit here is an understanding of the alternative to planning. Though it is most commonly assumed that the alternative is the free market, it could equally be chaos or myopic self-interest. Indeed, automatically assuming that we know the alternative to planning

is dangerous. For some, the hope of rational tannin is sirn 1 to re lace the

uncer-tainty of the market with eo' e I .Yet others hold the reverse beli :

at the logic of t e market should re lace-!he ~!taosJe£}L~~~--c1'1ayeK

1944). Whereas t e rea epression seems to vindicate the former view, the

collapse of Eastern European state socialism is frequently cited in support of the latter.

theory, and is the leitmotiv of classic readings in the field (such as Banfield 1968;

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Dahrendorf 1968; Galbraith 1971). Evaluations of planning reflects his or her assumptions about the relationships betWeen the private and public sectors -and how much the government should "intrude." The safe stance in planning has been to see its role as making up for the periodic shortcomings of the private market (Klosterman, chapter 4, this volume, Moore 1978). This approach creates a neat and tidy division between the public and private worlds, each with its unique comparative advantages. It treats planning as the patient understudy, filling in when the market fails but never presuming to replace the market permanently or change the script of economic efficiency. This way of legitimizing planning signifi-cantly limits creative or redistributive planning efforts, but it does make a scaled-down version of planning palatable to all but the most conservative economists (e.g.

Friedman 1962).

Nevertheless, not everyone sees the market-planning duality as so clear-cut. For some, the function of planning is to confron~ the private market directly every step of the way (Harvey 1985); others see planning as helping the market along (Frieden and Sagalyn 1989). This debate becomes even murkier when one challenges the tidy

separation betWeen the public and private sectors, from either a relatively upbeat (Galbraith 1971) or a skeptical point of view (Lowi 1969). Public and private sectors no longer, if they ever did, represent mutually exclusive sets of actors, interests, or

planning tools. The rise of public-private partnerships in the wake of urban renewal efforts also reflects this blurring of sectoral boundaries (Squires 1989). The growing number of planners working in the private sector further upsets the traditional professional role that planners play in the battles betWeen public and private interests. Public-sector planners borrow tools developed in the private sector, such as strategic planning. The emergence of autonomous public authorities to manage marine ports, airports, and other infrastrUctures has created hybrid organizations that act like both a public agency and a private firm {Doig 1987; Walsh 1978}. In addition, the growing non-profit or "third sector" demonstrates the inadequacies of viewing the world in a purely dichotomous framework of the government versus the market. Arguably more troublesome than this public-private blur, however, is the apparent appropriation of the public domain by the logic of privatizarion. Privatization of traditionally public services raises the question of whether only the public sector can serve the public interest or whether democratic citizenship -and all its rights -and responsibilities -is being reduced to consumerism and con-sumer freedom.

3 "Rules of the game"; What values are incorporated within planning? What ethical

dilemmas do planners face?

This growing complexity and uncertainty in the planner's stance between the public and private sectors also renders problematic traditional ethical assumptions. As planners increasingly work in the private and quasi-private sectors, do they no longer owe loyalty to the public at large? As William Lucy outlines in this volume (chapter 22), planners are tom between serving employers, fellow planners, and the public (see also Marcuse 1976). In this terrain of contested loyalties, what remains of the once accepted cornerstone of planning: serving the public interest?

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8 SCOTT CAMPBELL AND SUSAN S. FAINSTEJN

f""" This dilemma is further complicated by the fact that planning's functions e..'Ctendt ~ beyond merely technical activities to address larger social, economic, and environ- '\ ~ mental challenges. Within society at large the values of democracy, equality, and "'" ~;;) efficien<:y often clash. These conflicts are reflected in the choices that planners must"'

make as they try to reconcile the goals of economic development, social justice, and environmental protection. Despite the long-term promises of sustainable develop-ment, this triad of goals has created deep-seated tensions not only between planners and the outside world but also within planning itself (Campbell, chapter 24, this volume).

Another ethical dimension arises from the difficulties surrounding the planner's role as expert. Questions concerning the proper balance between expertise and citizen input arise in issues like the siting of highways and waste disposal facilities, when particular social groups must bear the costs. They are played out, as Frank Fischer discusses (chapter 23, this volume), when experts seek to quantify risk, placing a monetary value on human life. They show up, as Martin Wachs argues, in the assumptions used by model builders when they forecast the future impacts of public facilities (Wachs 1982). Critics of those relying on expertise to justify policy doubt the legitimacy of ostensibly scientific methods, arguing that technical lan-guage disguises the values being interjected and obscures who wins and who loses. Nevertheless, the development of technical forecasting methods is necessary if planners are to fulfill their responsibility of designing policies for the long term.

4 The constraints on planning power -how can planning be effective within a mixed

economy?

It is not enough to determine that planners should routinely intervene 'in the private market; that determination in itself raises the question of authority and power. Unlike some other professionals,..p1&n!:!,~!"~~.,.<!<?_!lg~"h,~y~...~,.m9!1;;.9.P.~_lr-.-?~.P"q,W~~-,.9~,., ~;;;J1.e~se,.O-vel'o-theiI:.f)bj~~.".qf»':9~!c. Planners operate Within the constraints of the

capitalist political economy, and their urban visions compete With those of develop-ers, consumdevelop-ers, and other more powerful groups. When they call for a type of development to occur, they cannot command the resources to make it happen. Instead, they must rely on either private investment or a commitment f1;om political leaders. They also work within the constraints of democracy and of the governmen-tal bureaucracy (Foglesong, chapter 5, this volume). Their goals, however, otten have low priority within the overall political agenda. Thus, despite the planning ideal of a holistic, proactive vision, -planners are frequently restricted to playing frustratingly reactive, regulatory roles.

The most powerful planners are those who can marshal the resources to effect Change and get projects built (Doig 1987; Walsh 1978). They bend the role of the planner and alter the traditional separation between the public and private sectors. The resulting public-private partnerships make the planner more activist (Squires 1989); yet they also strain the traditional identity of the public planner and make many idealistic planners squirm. How else "can one explainrhe uncomfortable mixture of disgust and envy that a lot of planners felt towards Robert Moses, who as the head of various New York City agencies had far more projects built than did all the traditional city planners he disparaged (Caro 1974)?

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5 Style of planning: what do pla'nners do?

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--' the attempt to coordinate- tile niUltl je

develo ment and re ulato Imtlatlves un erta en In a re ion or ci .Success epende on a high level of knowledge and the technological capability to use it. It was ostensibly a worthy attempt, but failed on two accounts. First, it reqillred a level of knowledge, analysis, and organizational coordination that was impossibly complex; critics questioned whether planners had any special capacity to coordinate all the specialists (Altshuler 1965). This critique led to the endorsement of incre-mental planning (Lindblom, chapter ~o,- this vol~e). Se- conct, it presum~ a cOffiffion~c interest, but in effect gave voice only to powerful interests and ignored the needs of the poor and the weak. This critique led to the call for advoc;;a~ plannin~Davidoff, chapter 11, this volume).

~sault on comprehensive planning continued into the 19705 and 19805.

Strategic planning rejected comprehensive planning's impossibly general goals, and instead embraced the "lean and mean" strategies from the business and military sectors (Kaufman and Jacobs 1987; Swanstrom 1987). By contrast, equity planning emerged as a less combative form of advocacy planning that allowed planners to Serve the interests of the poor from within the system (Krumholz, chapter 12, this volume; Krumholz 1996).

There are problems with writing a tidy obituary for comprehensive planning, however. First, many planners continue to use the comprehensive approach as the model of their work, both because they continue to believe in it, and because they dislike the alternatives (Dalton 1986). The primary task for many planners continues to be the writing and revising of comprehensive plans for their communities.

If the death notice of comprehensive planning may thus be premature, it may also misunderstand the theory's actual rise and fall. Planning theoristS at times presume a dominance of comprehensive rational planning during the early postwar years that may never have actually existed. In retelling the history of planning, planners arguably are guilty of after-the-fact revisionism in their creation of a straw man out of compre-hensive planning. Commentators on the comprecompre-hensive model remember a once united field that never truly existed; rather, what did exist was a young, diverse field seeking to define itself during a turbulent era. Even in the early postwar days of urban renewal and public housing construction, there were voices of skepticism and dissent

in the planning community, long before Jane Jacobs's 1961 diatribe against modernist planning from her Greenwich Village stoop (chapter 2, this volume).

This is not to deny the importance of the comprehensive planning debate; but it should be seen as only one of several important debates that shaped the identity of the young field of planning theory. Unfortunately, much of this debate over comprehen-siveness took place in a theoretical vacuum. Planners otten argued about the proper role of planning based simply on the merits of the concepts themselves (e.g. large-versus small-scale; top-down large-versus bottom-up), while ignoring the vaster political and economic forces that shaped and constrained planning. The articulation and eventual challenge to comprehensive planning was thus part of a broader expansion of planning theory beyond land-use planning into social and economic policy.

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The Continuing Evolution of Planning Theory

This historical reyisi0~sm of comprehensive planning -whether seen as either a defining moment in planning theory or as a mythic straw man -reflects a new period of critical reexamination.- Planning theorists not only debate the relative merits of competing approaches to planning, but also question the selection of stories which the field, uses to define itself. Challenges to the accepted standard list of iconic planners (including Howard, Burnham, Mumford, Moses, and Le Cor busier) and their projects (Garden Cities, City Beautiful, regionalism, and so forth) have opened up planning history to new voices and new iconic places; we are in the midSt of a rethinking of the legitimate boundaries of planning history

Over a generation, the most significant advances in planning theory are a changing understanding of power (Brindley et al. and Flyvbjerg, chapters 16 and 17, this volume), of communicative action and the planner's role in mediating interactions among stakeholders (Healey, Baum, and Fischer, chapters 13, 15, and 23, this volume), of modernization/modernism (Beauregard and Scott, chapters 6 and 7, this volume), and of the complex links betWeen diversity, equity, and commu-nity (Young, Thomas, and Sandercock, chapters 18, 19, and 21, this volume).

Even since the publication of the first edition of this reader (in 1996), the field has continued to shift. Postmodernism remains an important theme for planning theory, although some of the initial excitement has waned. Its enduring power has been to provide the idea of a historical break with the past, allowing the planning field to distance itself from the more unsavory aspects of twentieth-century planning by deeming them as by-products of modernism: disruptive urban renewal, dysfunc-tional high-rise public housing, the rejection of rich historical forms of reference, and an excessive zeal towards a universal, norm of planning and design at the expense of local traditions and, conditions. This engagement with the broader ideas of postmodernism can be seen in the assumption that we are entering a new-historical period of post-industrialism, globalization, post-Fordism, and the "New, Economy."

Communicative pianning -the mediation of community discourse rather than the creation of a technically rational plan -has arguably also entered a new phase: it is simultaneously more accepted, differentiated, and Criticized. Perhaps some of its early thunder is gone; despite the best efforts of its advocates, communicative action has not gained mass appeal as a totalizing new planning paradigm. Paradox;ically, we have both internalized it as ~n accepted role for planning -"Haven't planners always communicated?" -but more clearly see its limitations as just one of many roles for planners. And despite th~ best intentions of communicative planners to-construct beautiful narratives of a community's envisioned future from the "stories" of local residents, the graphs and financial reports from the rational, technocratic engineers, accountants, and developers still typically trump community vision.

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A separate movement, called the "New Urbanism," promotes a revitalized vision of high-density, transit-and pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods as an antidote to

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use, design, real estate development, and environmentalism.2 Indeed, the revitalized interest in innovative land-use planning (once seen as a stalwart but somewhat

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quiescent area of planning) can in part be traced to a more sophisticated environ- "\ mentalism, vocal growth-containment movements, regional planning, and other "- ~ elements of the new urbanism.

Like communicative action, New Urbanism has both proponents of its paradigm-shifting potential and vocal critics. Often the debate is a battle between two extreme" camps: those who would run a narrow fence around New Urbanism and then proceed to criticize it for being too narrow, and those who would claim that any innovation in urban development (having to do with in-fill, preservation, transit orientation, neighborhood design, or ecology) is a victory for New Urbanism. Some planning theorists may have initially dismissed the movement as preoccupied with

architectural design, possessing both a Disney-like unreality and a narrow, rosecolored nostalgia for smalltown America. It also evokes an image of communitar -ianism that some find claustrophobic and intolerant (see, for example, Young, rchapter 18, this volume). However, if New Urbanism continues to head in the direction of being a big, tolerant movement that embraces ideas of regionalism,

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sustainable development, affordable housing, environmental justice, communitar-. ~ J. ianism, and anti-sprawl -and thus builds alliances with both environmental and ,.., community and social justice groups -then it could emerge as a flexible, dynamic planning idea of substance and endurance.

If we assume that planning theory will evolve in response to changes in planning practice, the development of cities, and the rise of social movements, then we can speculate on future directions for planning theory. Planners urgently need a larger conceptUal world view to understand the ramifications of the digital revolution of the Internet, massive data storage and retrieval, and geographic information systems (GIS). Theories of communicative action provide but an initial entree to the shift from old school statistics and mechanistic optimization modeling to multimedia, web-based, interactive, participatory visualization modeling built upon theories of complex systems. If communicative action theory envisions planners as the facilita-tors of community self-definition, then in the age of the Internet this places planners

not just at evening planning board meetings, but also as managers of local network-based interest groups, as webmasters, and as virtual chat-room monitors.

Theories of planning methodologies, once built upon the assumption of scarce, incomplete data, need to be revised to deal with the coming flood of data. The real-time tracking of flows in real-time-space coordinates (e.g. microchips and bar codes creating a world of geo-coded products, resources, and even people) creates new opportUnities for planners to understand dynamic spatial processes, such as time-space-based user fees, development impact fees, and. GIS-based performance zoning. But this data revolution will also thrust the field into the tricky ethical world of data privacy issues.

These prospects raise new dilemmas for planning: the field has traditionally focused on the design and management of physical, land-based networks (roads, sidewalks, rail, shipping routes) and nodes (zoning of residential, commercial, indnstrial, and public space). Does the rise of non-place-specific virtual networks threaten the trad-itional found~tion of planning by bypassing the old planning infrastructure? If plan-ning is traditi'onally tied to place, how might planplan-ning transform itself to remain relevant within the "space of flows" (Castells 2000)? Should planners claim "cyber-space" as a legitimate terrain for their tools of spatial analysis, coordination, and zoning?

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Increasing globalization will force planning theory to incorporate different types of cities into what had been Euro-American models .of urbanization: we will pay more attention to Shanghai, Tokyo, Mexico City, Mumbai, etc. in our theories. But this will likely -~ome with a growing tension between the preservation of local communities and the acceleration of global networks, and will sharpen the divide between the priorities of place-based versus flow-based planning. In a paradoxical world that is sin1ultaneously fragmenting and globalizing, local space is both so segregated, yet so highly penneable by the outside world, that traditional notions of an autonomous, self-detennined local community do not easily endure. Neverthe-less, we may cling to these notions for both good nonnative and empirical reasons (see, for example, Clavel and Kleniewski 1990; Shuman 1998). How might planning theory help us understand this hybrid global-local space?

All these examples suggest that the interaction between theory, urban change, and planning practice is symbiotic and often asynchronous. We would like to think that planning theory acts prin1arily as a kind of intellectual vanguard, pushing the professional field to rethink its outdated practices and the assumptions that underlie them. However, much of planning theory is instead an attempt to bring our thinking of planning up to date and in line with either urban phenomena (cyberspace, globaliza-tion, etc.) or social theories from other fields (such as postmod~rnism or critical theory). In addition, the theory-practice time lag may,run the other way round: the task of plaIUling theory is often to catch up with planning practice itself, codifying and restating approaches to planning that practitioners have long since used (such as disjointed incrementalism or dispute mediation). Planning theory can therefore alter-nately be a running commentary, parallel and at ann's length to the profession; a prescriptive avant-garde; or instead a trailing, reflective echo of planning practice.

If there is a persistent gap between grandiose theorizing and the modest accom-plishments of the practicing planner, it may also be overly simplistic to attribute it to the distance between theory and practice. It may instead reflect the discrepancy

between what the theorist rightfully envisions as the ideal social-spatial arrangement of the world (i.e. the good, just city) and the more modest contributions that planners can make towards this ideal (given the political-economic constraints posed on the profession). Planning scholars frequently conflate the two, imagining an ideal urban

society and then making all its characteristics the goals of the planning agenda. But shoUld the discipline be faulted for its loity(and overreaching) ambitions?

The Enduring Question of the Public Interest

A generation ago, the engaging debates of planning theory involved the conflicts betWeen comprehensive versus incremental planning, objectivity versus advocacy, centralization versus decentralization, toP-do:wn versus bottom-up leadership, and planning for people versus planning for place. These debates from the adolescence of planning theory now seem a bit tired and bypassed. It is not that they have been

conclusively resolved, but rather that the field is so broadly scattered that each pole lives on. This current eclecticism reflects the fragmentation of planning itself. Nevertlleless; these debates were arguably necessaryfortheintelle~tual development

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of the field, and the young planning theorist still needs to read and understand these

controversies. .

,What-has..endur;ed",is,-the"p_ersist~~1:- ..q~~~~i9I! ,.~f,m~,p~blic _interest._Planning, "

continue:s ,1:9 f~~~ ~l;1e central controversy of whether there is inde~d a single public

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Interest and of whether planners" recogniZe 'and 'serve it: Ihcr'e:mental"plannerS""

the planner from serving it directly, while advocate planners argued that what was portrayed as the public interest in fact represented merely the interests of the privileged. More recently, postmodemists have challenged the universal master narrative that gives voice to the public interest, seeing instead a heterogeneous public

with many voices and interests. Finally,' the persistence of fundamentalist thinking and community identity based on religious, rather than secular, municipal values undermines the ability to find a consensual public interest (Baum, Chapter 15, this volume).

Nevertheless, planners have not abandoned the idea of serving the public interest, and rightly so. Postmodernists provided planning with a needed break from its preoccupation with a monolithic "public" (epitomized by Le Corbusier's and Robert Moses' love of the public but disdain fot people); yet a rejection of

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without adequate methods for serving'a fragmented_2.?P~~tion. Some have touted

strategic ptiD-iilng and oth~rborrow'ea-prl~orapp~ as the practical

path for planning; but these approaches neglect the "public" in the public interest. A

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belief in the public interest is the foundation for;;aiJ[set;~of.!;~alue~;~1;~p~~~~rs,hold: 14:~~

,i~fii?;f:'f9~~J'}P~9,t~c~on, ande,!u.a! opportunity;.pu~licspace;'.anda sense of civic 07 -J

G;g~p.~ty:'ang soclal responsIbility. The challenge IS to reconcIle these elements of a, ~

<;~&:~2!!!{~~Q~<;;mte~e~t",:i~th~ diversi.ty"(post~odem and otherwise) 'tMt:,:C:6fues! elt'M("t 'f:1

~t~9JlJ;1;rJJany~commumtles living sIde by sIde. DaVld Harvey looked to generally held .

ideas of social justice and rationality as a bridge to overcome this dilemma (Harvey 2001); similarly, Susan Fainstein (chapter 9, this volume) presents the model of the just city. The recent interest in communi<;ative action -planners as <;ommunicators rather than as autonomous, systematic thinkers -also reflects an effort to renew the focus of planning theory on the public interest (Healey, chapter 13, this volume; Forester 1989; Innes 1998). Within this approach planners accept the multiplicity of interests, <;ombined with an enduring common interest in finding viable, politically legitimate solutions. Planners serve the public interest by negotiating a kind of multicultural, technically informed pluralism.

In the end, the question of the public interest is the leitmotiv that holds together the defining debates of planning theory. The central task of planners is serving the public interest in cities, suburbs, and th~ countryside. Questions of when, why, and how planners should intervene -and the constraints they face in the process -all lead back to defining and serving the public interest, even while it is not static or fixed. The restructured urban economy, the shifting boundaries between the public and private sectors, and the changing tools and available resources constantly force planners to rethink the public intere&. Planners have only begun to confront the challenge of defining the boundaries between public and private interests in

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The Readings

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We have selected the readings for this volume to represent what we think are the central issues in planning theory. In particular, they address the challenge and dilemma of planning as defined at the beginning of this introduction: What role can planning play in developing the good city and region within the constraints of a capitalist political economy and a democratic political system? We approach this question primarily through te.xts that address specific theoretical issues, However, we have also included several case studies that provide vivid and concrete illustra-tions of this question.

Planning theory is a relatively young field; yet one can already speak of "classic readings," Our guide has been to choose readings -both old and new -that still speak directly to contemporary issues. Most have been written in the past ten years, though some articles from the 1960s are still the best articulation of specific debates. Most draw upon experiences in the United States and the United Kingdom, though hopefully their relevance extends far beyond these boundaries.

This edition represents a substantial revision of the first edition of Readings in Planning Theory (1996). Over half the selections in this edition are new, reflecting more recent or more accessible statements of planning theories, or newly emerging themes. We have r~tained those readings from the first edition that students and teachers of planning theory continue to find useful and exciting.

We have organized the readings into six sections, each prefaced with a shQrt introduction to the main themes. We begin with the foundations of modern pl~-ning, including both traditional and critical views of pkruiing history. We then turn to two interrelated questions: What is the justification for planning intervention? and How should planners intervene? Addressing the political and economic justifi-cations for planning, we have selected readings that examine the neoclassical, insti-tutional, and Marxist arguments. They place planners in the larger context of the relationship between the private market and government (both local and national). Regarding the style of planning, the readjngs examine dominant planning ap-proaches: comprehensive, incremental, advocacy, equity, and communicative plan-ning. The case studies presented in the fourth section illustrate these opportunities for, and constraints on, planners in the United States and Europe.

Gender and racial politics have emerged as powerful, transformative forces in urban planning. The readings in the fifth section explore these themes of difference, discrimination, and inequality. These theories challenge planning to be

more"inclu-I

sive, t;0 accept the city as home to divergent populations with radically different experi~nces and needs, (0 see how the existing city fabric perpetuates antiquated social land gender relations; and to pursue social justice more aggressively.

We Iconclude with three readings on planning ethics, professionalism, communi-cation\ and the environment. Each addresses a shortcoming of the traditional, rationat-comprehensive model of planning, whether it is its simplistic conception

of the 'public interest, its lack of subtlety about ethical conflicts, its presumption of privileged expert knowledge, or its inability to handle the politically charged issue of environmental sustainability. The emerging stance for planners involves a greater savvy about political conflicts, a proactive role in the communication of choices and risks, and an understanding of complex social and ecological systems.