Critical Readings In Planning Theory

Urban and Regional Planning Series, Volume 27: Critical Readings in Planning Theory presents a critical perspective on urban and regional planning. This book provides an understanding of various theoretical perspectives on planning. Organized into five parts encompassing 19 chapters, this volume begins with an overview of the economic and social theory of planning. This text then examines the procedural planning theory, which deals with the making and implementing of plans. Other chapters consider the introduction of the systems approach to planning. This book discusses as well the theoretical respecification of the nature of town planning as it has developed under capitalism. The final chapter deals with the ideology of planning that is consistent with the view that town planning can be objectively useful. This book is a valuable resource for students of planning who want to understand planning as it is. Urban planners and engineers will also find this book useful.

Featuring updates and revisions to reflect rapid changes in an increasingly globalized world, Readings in Planning Theory remains the definitive resource for the latest theoretical and practical debates within the field of planning theory. Represents the newest edition of the leading text in planning theory that brings together the essential classic and cutting-edge readings Features 20 completely new readings (out of 28 total) for the fourth edition Introduces and defines key debates in planning theory with editorial materials and readings selected both for their accessibility and importance Systematically captures the breadth and diversity of planning theory and puts issues into wider social and political contexts without assuming prior knowledge of the field

What is this thing called planning? What is its domain? What do planners do? How do they talk? What are the limits and possibilities for planning imposed by power, politics, knowledge, technology, interpretation, ethics, and institutional design? In this comprehensive volume, the foremost voices in planning explore the foundational ideas and issues of the profession.Explorations in Planning Theory is an extended inquiry into the practice of the profession. As such, it is a landmark text that defines the field for today's planners and the next generation. As Seymour J. Mandelbaum notes in the introduction, ""the shared framework of these essays captures a pervasive interest in the behavior, values, character, and experience of professional planners at work.""All of the chapters in this volume are written to address arguments that are important in the community of planning theoreticians and are crafted in the language of that community. While many of the contributors included here differ in their styles, the editors note that students, experienced practitioners, and scholars of city and regional planning will find this work illuminating and helpful in their research.

Planning Theory has a history of common debates about ideas and practices and is rooted in a critical concern for the 'improvement' of human and environmental well-being, particularly as pursued through interventions which seek to shape environmental conditions and place qualities.. The first volume in this three volume series, Foundations of the Planning Enterprise, includes articles and papers which offer a unique general introduction to planning theory. The authors review the subject's development, its recurrent themes, its contemporary preoccupation as rational scientific management and its relations to other fields. The editors supplement the collection with an introductory overview as well as detailed introductions to each part. This will be an essential purchase for planning libraries around the world.

Discussing some of the most vexing criticism of communicative planning theory (CPT), this book goes on to suggest how theorists and planners can respond to it. Looking at issues of power, politics and ethics in relation to planning, this book is for both critics and advocates of CPT, with lessons for all. With severe criticisms being raised against CPT, the need has arisen to systematically think through what responsibilities planning theorists might have for the end-uses of their theoretical work. Offering inventive proposals for amending the shortcomings of this widely adhered planning method, this book reflects on what communicative planning theorists and practitioners can and should do differently.

Theory and practice in city planning have never been known for their compatibility. The planner, dealing with stresses such as the personalities at work in a board meeting and coping with the realities of fund raising, political realities, and the like, can find little guidance in the theory of the trade. The issues of poverty groups, whether rural or urban, the provision of services, and the packaging of them are seemingly insuperable. The sheer frustration in the inability to deliver, which so many planners feel, can result in considerable impatience and a questioning of the relevance of theory.The editors argue that this state of affairs, though understandable, is unacceptable. While short-range meliorismwithout sense of perspective may be good for the practitioner's individual psyche, the cost may be borne by the long-run best interests of the groups to be served. The risks of a lack of perspective and the experiences generated by this phenomenon are too serious in their implications to permit the process to continue.In this new age of anxiety it is essential for both planners and theorists to understand their roles as well as provide guidance in shaping them. Burchell and Sternlieb have thus gathered here a variety of individuals, all of whom in their separate and distinct fashions are seasoned, both in practice and in theory. The book is divided into five sections: Physical Planning in Change, Social Planning in Change, Public Policy Planning in Change, Economic Planning in Change, and a final section detailing the roles of planners and who they are. These shared puzzlements and insights will prove useful to all practitioners and theorists in the planning field.

At a time of potentially radical changes in the ways in which humans interact with their environments - through financial, environmental and/or social crises - the raison d'être of spatial planning faces significant conceptual and empirical challenges. This Companion presents a multidimensional collection of critical narratives of conceptual challenges for spatial planning. The authors draw on various disciplinary traditions and theoretical frames to explore different ways of conceptualising spatial planning and the challenges it faces. Through problematising planning itself, the values which underpin planning and theory-practice relations, contributions make visible the limits of established planning theories and illustrate how, by thinking about new issues, or about issues in new ways, spatial planning might be advanced both theoretically and practically. There cannot be definitive answers to the conceptual challenges posed, but the authors in this collection provoke critical questions and debates over important issues for spatial planning and its future. A key question is not so much what planning theory is, but what might planning theory do in times of uncertainty and complexity. An underlying rationale is that planning theory and practice are intrinsically connected. The Companion is presented in three linked parts: issues which arise from an interactive understanding of the relations between planning ideas and the political-institutional contexts in which such ideas are put to work; key concepts in current theorising from mainly poststructuralist perspectives and what discussion on complexity may offer planning theory and practice.