Urban Planning - Theories of Planning

Theories of Planning

Planning theory is generally called procedural because it generally concerns itself with the process through which planning occurs and whether or not that process is valid. Lane (2005) traces the intellectual history through its different procedural approaches, especially as they relate to public participation. He calls the first type of blueprint planning. What Lane calls blueprint planning is that which is associated with the early planning thinkers like Ebenezer Howard and Patrick Geddes. Basically, it involved planning for outcomes. The planner has an end-state in mind (i.e., Howard’s garden city) and seeks to achieve that end-state through high levels of codification and control. This model provides essentially no outlet for public participation, except possibly voting against those implementing this planning strategy when they come up for election. This type of planning has left two important legacies on contemporary practice: the idea that planning is an apolitical activity and the idea that there is a single, unified public interest.

After, the “fall” of blueprint planning in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the synoptic model began to emerge as a dominant force in planning. Lane (2005) describes synoptic planning as having four central elements:

"(1) an enhanced emphasis on the specification of goals and targets; (2) an emphasis on quantitative analysis and predication of the environment; (3) a concern to identify and evaluate alternative policy options; and (4) the evaluation of means against ends (page 289)."

Public participation was first introduced into this model and it was generally integrated into the system process described above. However, the problem was that the idea of a single public interest still dominated attitudes, effectively devaluing the importance of participation because it suggests the idea that the public interest is relatively easy to find and only requires the most minimal form of participation.

Blueprint and synoptic planning both employ what is called the rational paradigm of planning. The rational model is perhaps the most widely accepted model among planning practitioners and scholars, and is considered by many to be the orthodox view of planning. As its name clearly suggests, the goal of the rational model is make planning as rational and systematic as possible. Proponents of this paradigm would generally come up with a list of steps that the planning process can be at least relatively neatly sorted out into and that planning practitioners should go through in order when setting out to plan in virtually any area. As noted above, this paradigm has clear implications for public involvement in planning decisions.

Beginning in the late 1950s and early1960s, critiques of the rational paradigm began to emerge and formed into several different schools of planning thought. The first of these schools is Linblom’s incrementalism. Lindblom describes planning as “muddling through” and thought that practical planning required decisions to be made incrementally. This incremental approach meant choosing from small number of policy approaches that can only have a small number consequences and are firmly bounded by reality, constantly adjusting the objectives of the planning process and using multiple analyses and evaluations. Lane (2005) explains the public involvement implications of this philosophy. Though this perspective of planning could be considered a large step forward in that it recognizes that there are number of “public interests” and because it provides room for the planning process to de less centralized and incorporate the voices other than those of planners, it in practice would only allow for the public to involved in a minimal, more reactive rather than proactive way.

The mixed scanning model, developed by Etzioni, takes a similar, but slightly different approach. Etzioni (1968) suggested that organizations plan on two different levels: the tactical and the strategic. He posited that organizations could accomplish this by essentially scanning the environment on multiple levels and then choose different strategies and tactics to address what they found there. While Lindblom’s approach only operated on the functional level Etzioni argued, the mixed scanning approach would allow planning organizations to work on both the functional and more big-picture oriented levels. Lane explains though, that this model does not do much more at improving public involvement since the planner or planning organization is still at its focus and since its goal is not necessarily to achieve consensus or reconcile differing points of view on a particular subject.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, planners began to look for new approaches because as happened nearly a decade before, it was realized that the current models were not necessarily sufficient. As had happened before, a number of different models emerged. Lane (2005) notes that it is most useful to think of these model as emerging from a social transformation planning tradition as opposed to a social guidance one, so the emphasis is more bottom-up in nature than it is top-down.

Transactive planning was a radical break from previous models. Instead of considering public participation as method that would be used in addition to the normal training planning process, participation was a central goal. For the first time, the public was encouraged to take an active role in the policy setting process, while the planner took on the role of the as a distributor of information and a feedback source. Transactive planning focuses on interpersonal dialogue that develops ideas, which will be turned into action. One of the central goals is mutual learning where the planner gets more information on the community and citizens become more educated about planning issues.

Advocacy planning is another radical departure from past theoretical models. This model takes the perspective that there are large inequalities in the political system and in the bargaining process between groups that result in large numbers of people unorganized and unrepresented in the process. It concerns itself with ensuring that all people are equally represented in the planning process by advocating for the interests of the underprivileged and seeking social change. Again, public participation is a central tenet of this model. A plurality of public interests is assumed, and the role of planner is essentially as facilitator who either advocates directly for underrepresented groups directly or encourages them to become part of the process.

The bargaining model views planning as the result of give and take on the part of a number of interests who are all involved in the process. It argues that this bargaining is the best way to conduct planning within the bounds of legal and political institutions. Like the advocacy model, this model recognizes that there are inherent inequalities in society, but it asserts that each group or individual in our unequal society has a chance to influence planning decisions, even if they are unable to dominate it or win the benefits that they are seeking. The most interesting part of this theory of planning is that makes public participation the central dynamic in the decision-making process. Decisions are made first and foremost by the public, and the planner plays a more minor role.

The communicative approach to planning is perhaps the most difficult to explain. It focuses on using communication to help different interests in the process understand each other. The idea is that each individual will approach a conversation with his or her own subjective experience in mind and that from that conservation shared goals and possibilities will emerge. Again, participation plays a central role under this model. The model seeks to include as a broad range of voice to enhance the debate and negotiation that is supposed to form the core of actual plan making. In this model, participation is actually fundamental to the planning process happening. Without the involvement of concerned interests there is no planning.

Looking at each of these models it becomes clear that participation is not only shaped by the public in a given area or by the attitude of the planning organization or planners that work for it. In fact, public participation is largely influences by how planning is defined, how planning problems are defined, the kinds of knowledge that planners choose to employ and how the planning context is set. Though some might argue that is too difficult to involve the public through transactive, advocacy, bargaining and communicative models because transportation is some ways more technical than other fields, it is important to note that transportation is perhaps unique among planning fields in that its systems depend on the interaction of a number of individuals and organizations.