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Anglo-American town planning theory since 1945:

three signicant developments but no paradigm

shiftsN I G E L T AY L O R

School of Planning and Architecture, University of the West of England, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK

In recent times it has become fashionable to describe major changes in the history of ideas as paradigm

shifts, and some have described changes in town planning thought since the end of the Second WorldWar in these terms. In this article I offer an overview of the history of town planning thought since 1945,and suggest that there have been three outstanding changes in planning thought over this period. Theseare, rst, the shift in the 1960s from the view of town planning as an exercise in physical planning andurban design to the systems and rational process views of planning; second, the shift from the view oftown planning as an activity requiring some technical expertise to the view of planning as a politicalprocess of making value-judgements about environmental change in which the planner acts as amanager and facilitator of that process; and third, the shift from modernist to postmodernist planningtheory. I argue that none of these changes represents a paradigm change in anything like the strong senseof that term. Rather, they are better viewed as signicant developments which have lled out andenriched the rather primitive town planning theory which existed half a century ago.

Introduction

Over the fty-year period since the end of the Second World War there have been a numberof important shifts in town planning theory. But what have been the most signicantchanges, and how signicant have these changes been? In this paper I offer a retrospectiveoverview of the evolution of town planning thought since 1945, and an interpretation ofthe most signicant shifts in planning thought over this period. My geographical focus willbe on planning theory as it has developed in Britain and North America, though the

developments I describe here have been inuential elsewhere. My conceptual focus will beon those ideas or theories that have been concerned with clarifying what kind of an activitytown planning is (and hence what skills are appropriate to its practice). In other words, Ishall concentrate on changing conceptions of town planning itself over the last fty years.But I shall also examine the modernistpostmodernist debate and its bearing on changingviews about the purposes (and hence normative theory) of town planning.

Planning Perspectives, 14 (1999) 327345

Nigel Taylor is a Principal Lecturer in the School of Planning and Architecture in the Faculty of the Built

Environment at the University of the West of England. He teaches courses in the theory and philosophy of townplanning, and the aesthetics of urban design. He has published articles on these subjects in all the major planningjournals. His book Urban Planning Theory Since 1945 was published in 1998.

Planning PerspectivesISSN 0266-5433 print/ISSN 1466-4518 online # 1999 Taylor & Francis Ltd


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In studies of the history of ideas, it has become fashionable to describe signicant shiftsin thought as paradigm shifts, and some planning theorists have applied this concept tochanges in town planning thought since 1945 [1]. Therefore, in addition to offering anaccount of the main shifts in (Anglo-American) town planning theory since 1945, I shallalso assess whether it is appropriate to describe these changes as paradigm shifts. I begin, in

the next section, by describing the concept of paradigms as employed by the Americanhistorian of science, Thomas Kuhn. Following that, I offer, from a British perspective, anaccount of the three most signicant shifts in the way the activity of town planning hasbeen conceived since 1945. Though signicant, I argue that, in anything like a strong senseof the term as it is used by Kuhn, it is inappropriate to describe these changes in planningthought as paradigm shifts.

The idea of paradigms and paradigm shifts

The use of the term paradigm to describe major shifts in thought was rst coined byThomas Kuhn [2] in his account of the history of scientic thought. Before Kuhn, it waswidely assumed that scientic knowledge had grown steadily through history as more andmore empirical evidence of phenomena had been accumulated. Kuhns examination of thehistory of science led him to conclude that this gradualist, evolutionary view of the advanceof scientic knowledge was misleading. For, according to Kuhn, if we examine any branchof science, we nd that there are certain fundamental theories, conceptions orpresuppositions which hold steady for very long periods often for hundreds of years.These settled views of the world become so fundamental to peoples whole conceptual

scheme of reality that it is extremely difcult (and in some cases impossible) for mostpeople to think of reality as being different; that, indeed, is why such views arefundamental. Because these fundamental theories constitute peoples view of the world (or asignicant part of it), they are, literally, world views, and it is these enduring world viewswhich Kuhn describes as paradigms. Examples of paradigms in the history of sciencewould be the pre-Copernican view that the Earth was at and at the centre of the Universe,the pre-Darwinian view that human beings had somehow been created on this planetseparate from other species, and the Newtonian model of a mechanical Universe.

Kuhns account of the history of science allows that, through the period in which anygiven paradigm prevails, advances in scientic theory still occur as a result of empiricalresearch which uncovers fresh evidence about phenomena. Nevertheless, according toKuhn, at any time most scientic research and theoretical development operates within thepresuppositions of a prevailing, and more fundamental, world view or paradigm, and forthe most part this latter goes unquestioned. In this respect, most scientic research amountsto lling in some of the details of, and so further rening, a given paradigm. Because mostscientic research conforms to the norms of an established paradigm in this way, Kuhn alsodescribes it as normal science.

During the long periods of history in which a given paradigm prevails, scientists are oftenaware of empirical evidence which does not t the prevailing paradigm, which the

prevailing paradigm seems unable satisfactorily to explain. However, according to Kuhn,most scientists do not allow this contrary evidence to unseat their adherence to the

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paradigm on which they rely to explain phenomena in the world. Rather, they tend to turna blind eye to these puzzling phenomena, often in the belief that one day someone willsucceed in explaining the seemingly anomalous evidence within the framework of thegiven paradigm. The great scientists in history, however, have typically been curious aboutanomalous evidence which a prevailing paradigm is unable to explain and, as a result, have

created a radically new account of the world which succeeds in explaining the hithertopuzzling evidence as well as the evidence previously explained by the old paradigm. Thisnew fundamental theory amounts to a whole new conceptual scheme, world view, orparadigm. In Kuhns terms, then, a paradigm shift is a revolutionary shift in thought,because a whole way of perceiving some aspect of the world is overturned and replaced bya new theoretical perspective. Examples of such paradigm shifts noted by Kuhn were theshift from viewing the Earth as at and at the centre of the Universe to seeing it as roundand orbiting the Sun, the shift from a creationist to a Darwinian evolutionary model ofhuman origins and development, and the shift from a Newtonian to an Einsteinian view ofspace and time [3].

It should be clear from this account that, for Kuhn, paradigm shifts are fundamentaltheoretical changes. It is this which explains why paradigm shifts typically occurinfrequently in the history of science. Any given paradigm, once established, shapes thewhole way a scientic community (and beyond that, the general public) views some aspectof the world, and tends to endure for centuries, not just decades. If, then, we adopt thisstrong Kuhnian conception of paradigms, it would seem initially unlikely that there wouldbe several paradigm shifts in the eld of town planning theory over the short span of thelast fty years. Furthermore, Kuhn was describing changes in scientic thought that is,major changes in the way people have described and explained some aspect of reality as a

matter of fact and town planning is not a science. Rather, it is a form of social actiondirected at shaping the physical environment to accord with certain valued ideals. In otherwords, town planning is a normative practice (although in seeking to realize certain valuedends town planning, like any normative practice, draws on relevant scientic under-standing).

Of course, we are not compelled to adopt the strong, fundamentalist conception ofparadigms described above. It is possible to use the concept in a weaker, more generoussense to describe shifts of thought which are signicant, but not necessarily fundamental topeoples world view or conceptual scheme [4]. Moreover, although town planning is notstrictly a science, the Kuhnian notion of paradigm shifts can also be extended to describefundamental, or signicant, shifts in values and ethical thinking [5]. However, althoughthere is nothing to stop us using the concept of paradigm shifts in these more liberal ways,we need to be alert to the dangers of over-using the concept. If every twist and turn inplanning thought over the past fty years is described as another paradigm shift, the verynotion of a paradigm shift becomes superuous. I therefore favour the use of the term inits purer, more strict (and restricted) sense. Accordingly, it is in terms of this strongerconception of the term that I shall argue that, whilst there have been some signicantchanges in the way the activity of town planning has been conceived over the last half-century, none of these amounts to a paradigm shift.

My account of town planning theory since 1945 is organized as follows. In the nextsection I summarize what seems to me to be two signicant innovations in the way the

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activity or discipline of town planning has been conceived and dened, both of whichemerged in Britain and the USA in the 1960s. The rst was the shift from the urban designtradition of planning to the systems and rational process views of planning. The secondwas a shift from a substantive to a procedural conception of planning. This latter evolvedfurther through the 1970s and 1980s, and eventually crystallized around the idea of the

planner as a manager of the process of arriving at planning judgements, rather thansomeone who possesses a specialist expertise to make these judgements him- or herself.What is now termed communicative planning theory is the latest version of this view ofplanning, under which the planner is seen as a kind of facilitator, drawing in otherpeoples views and skills to the business of making planning judgements.

In the section that follows I examine a third signicant change in post-war planningthought which some writers have identied the alleged shift from modernist topostmodernist ways of thinking [6]. For Sandercock, this shift from modern to post-modern planning theory is so fundamental as to lead her to claim that we are . . . livingthrough a period of what Thomas Kuhn has called paradigm shift [7].

The concluding section points out some of the continuities which run through thechanges in town planning theory since 1945, and reiterates the thesis that none of thechanges in planning thought over the past fty years represents a paradigm shift inanything like the pure, or fundamental, Kuhnian sense.

Two signicant shifts in the way town planning has been conceived

FROM THE PLANNER AS A CREATIVE DESIGNER TO THE PLANNER AS A SCIENTIFIC ANALYST AND

RATIONAL DECISION-MAKER

For almost 20 years following the Second World War, town planning theory and practicewas dominated by a conception which saw town planning essentially as an exercise inphysical design. In fact, this view of town planning stretched back into history, arguably asfar as the European Renaissance, arguably even further back than that. Its long historicallineage is shown by the fact that, for as far back as we can see, what came to be seen anddescribed as town planning was assumed to be most appropriately carried out by architects[8]. Indeed, such was the intimate connection between architecture and town planning thatthe two were not distinguished throughout most of human history. Thus what we call townplanning was seen as architecture, its only distinctiveness being that it was architecture onthe larger scale of a whole town, or at least part of a town, as distinct from individualbuildings.

This conception of town planning as architecture writ large persisted down to the1960s, as was shown by the fact that most planners in the post-war years were architectsby training, or architectplanners [9]. Indeed, because of this, the established professionalbody for architects in Britain, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), resisted theestablishment of a separate professional body for town planning, arguing that townplanning as a practice was already covered by themselves [10]. The close link in the post-

war years between design and town planning, and hence between architecture and townplanning, also explains why at this time aesthetic considerations were regarded as central to

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town planning. Like architecture, town planning was viewed as an art, albeit (again likearchitecture) an applied or practical art in which utilitarian or functional requirementshad to be accommodated. That town planning was viewed as design is shown by the factthat a book titled Town Design, by the architect Frederick Gibberd [11], was once regardedwithout strain as a town planning textbook. Another book which summed up this

physicalist design-based conception of town planning, and which arguably was the bookmost widely recommended to planning students in the English-speaking world through the1950s and early 1960s, was Lewis Keebles Principles and Practice of Town and CountryPlanning [12].

Against this background, the bursting onto the scene in the 1960s of the systems andrational process views of planning represented a rupture with a centuries-old tradition, andso might well be viewed as a Kuhnian paradigm shift. This new paradigm was bestrepresented in Britain by Brian McLoughlins book Urban and Regional Planning: ASystems Approach, rst published in 1969 [13]. The contrast between the new systems andrational process views of town planning, and the physical design view which preceded it,

Figure 1. The front covers of (left) Keebles 1969 edition and (right) McLoughlins book.



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However, signicant though this shift in town planning thought undoubtably was, itremains open to question whether it should be likened to a Kuhnian paradigm shift.Although the shift in planning thought described above did have the effect of marginalizingconsiderations of design and aesthetics in planning theory for about 20 years, in Britishplanning practice (especially in the development control sections of planning authorities)

planners still continued to evaluate development proposals partly in terms of their designquality and aesthetic impact. Moreover, following the publication of the well-known EssexDesign Guide in 1973 [17], various local authorities sought to place their practice of designcontrol on a clearer theoretical footing by articulating principles of good design for theirareas of jurisdiction. In planning practice, therefore, the design-based conception of townplanning was not completely superseded by the change in theoretical perspective describedabove.

Admittedly, these observations are about planning practice, not planning theory. But thecontinuation of the physical design view of planning in planning practice was alsotheoretically signicant. For it drew attention to the fact that, at the level of local planning

at least, many planners continued to believe that the physical form and aestheticappearance of new development were important concerns of town planning. And althoughthere were lessons for small area local planning in systems and rational process thinking(e.g. in giving greater consideration to the social and economic effects of developmentproposals; in approaching local planning as a rational process; etc.), these lessons could beaccommodated within an essentially traditional design-based conception of planning. At thelevel of local planning, therefore, the shift in planning thought described above did notreplace the physical design view of planning; it was not a paradigmatic shift in that sense.Furthermore, the continuing relevance of the physical design-based conception of town

planning to town planning theory has been shown by the revival of theoretical interest inquestions of urban design in the 1980s and 1990s [18].

It was therefore primarily at the broader, more strategic level of planning that the design-based view of planning was supplanted by the changing conception of planning ushered inby the systems and rational process views of planning. In fact, the main shift in planningthought brought about by the systems and rational process views of planning was inclarifying a distinction between strategic and longer-term planning on the one hand, andlocal and more short-term planning on the other. And it was at the former, strategic levelof planning that the altered conception of town planning brought about by systems andrational process thinking was most relevant. In retrospect, then, the shift in town planningthought in the 1960s described above was not a wholescale revolution which completelyousted the incumbent design-based view of town planning; rather, the systems and rationalprocess views of planning added to the design-based view. The shift in planning thoughtdescribed above was not therefore a revolution in thought comparable to the paradigmshifts in scientic theory described by Thomas Kuhn.

FROM THE PLANNER AS TECHNICAL EXPERT TO THE PLANNER AS A MANAGER AND

COMMUNICATOR

Although there were marked differences between the traditional conception of townplanning as an exercise in physical planning and design, and the conception of town



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planning as a rational process of decision-making directed at the analysis and control ofurban systems, there was one thing that both these views had in common. Both presumedthat the town planner was someone who possessed, or should possess, some specialistknowledge and skill some substantive expertise which the layperson did not possess. Itwas this which qualied the planner to plan. And since a central condition of

professionalism is the possession of some specialist knowledge or skill, it was this, too,which justied any claim town planners might make to constitute a distinct profession.Clearly, views about the content of the specialist skill appropriate to town planning

varied according to which of the foregoing conceptions of planning were adopted. Underthe traditional design-based view of town planning, the relevant skills were seen to beprimarily those of aesthetic appreciation and urban design. Under the systems and rationalprocess views, the skills were those of scientic analysis and rational decision-making. Butstill under both conceptions, the town planner was conceived as someone with a specialistknowledge, understanding, and=or skill. However, this whole idea of the planner assomeone with some substantive expertise came in its turn to be challenged by an alternative

view of town planning.This challenge emerged again in the 1960s, when it came to be openly acknowledged

that town planning judgements were at root judgements of value (as distinct from purelyscientic judgements) about the kinds of environments it is desirable to create or conserve[19]. Once this view was taken, it naturally raised the question of whether town plannershad any greater specialist ability to make these judgements than the ordinary person in thestreet. Indeed, peoples experience of much of the planning of the 1960s such ascomprehensive housing redevelopment or urban road planning seemed to indicate not.The emergence of the view that town planning was a value-laden, political process

therefore raised not so much the question of what the town planners area of specialistexpertise should be, but, more fundamentally, the question of whether town planninginvolved any such expertise at all.

From this radical questioning of the town planners role, there developed a curiousbifurcation in planning theory which has persisted to this day. On the one hand, someplanning theorists have continued to believe that the practice of town planning requiressome specialist substantive knowledge or skills be it about urban design, systems analysis,urban regeneration, sustainable development, or whatever [20]. On the other hand, therehas developed a tradition of planning thought which openly acknowledges that townplanning judgements are value-laden and political. As noted above, one conclusion whichmight have been drawn from this would be to reject entirely the idea that town planninginvolves, or requires, some specialist expertise, and indeed, some radical planning theoristshave irted with this view [21]. However, most planning theorists who have openlyacknowledged the value-laden and political nature of planning have developed analternative line of thought. This rejects the idea that the town planner is someone who isspecially qualied to make better planning decisions or recommendations because what isbetter is a matter of value, and (so the argument goes) planners have no superior expertisein making value-judgements over environmental options. However, the view is still takenthat the town planner possesses (or should possess) some specialist skill, namely, a skill in

managing the process of arriving at planning decisions and facilitating action to realizepublicly agreed goals.

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Through the 1970s and 1980s, therefore, a tradition of planning theory emerged whichviewed the town planners role (and hence his or her professional expertise) as one ofidentifying and mediating between different interest groups involved in, or affected by, landdevelopment. In this way, the town planner was seen as someone who acts as a kind ofcypher for other peoples assessments of planning issues, rather than someone who is

specially qualied to assess these issues him- or herself. The town planner was viewed asnot so much a technical expert (i.e. as someone who possesses some superior skill to plantowns), but more as a facilitator of other peoples views about how a town, or part of atown, should be planned. To conceive of the town planner like this as a kind of manager ofthe process of making planning decisions could easily conjure up an image of the planneras a grey-suited chairperson of meetings. But tacked onto this view went a more particularideological commitment which made it more appealing and inspiring to idealists in theprofession, namely, a commitment to ensure that the process of planning was open anddemocratic, especially to disadvantaged or marginalized groups who tended to be ignoredor overridden in decisions about land development.

An early version of this theory of town planning, and of the planners role, was PaulDavidoffs advocacy view of planning in the 1960s [22]. The most recent version is thecommunicative planning theory inspired, particularly, by Habermass theory of commun-icative action [23]. In this, the skills of inter-personal communication and negotiation areseen as central to a non-coercive, facilitator model of town planning. Indeed, in relation toinvolving the public in planning, it has even been suggested that the kinds of inter-personalskills needed by the communicative town planner are those of the listener and thecounsellor:

Meaningful dialogue learning the language of the client is at the heart of effective counselling. Tocounsel is not to give advice or push the client down a particular path, but to let the client see himselfor herself fully and through this discovery achieve personal growth. As local government ofces lookfor ways of including citizens in decision-making, they must adopt many counselling skills activelistening, non-judgemental acceptance, and the ability to empathise. How can people play a part inthe decision-making process unless we enable them to do so [24].

This view of the knowledge and skills relevant to town planning is a far cry from the viewthat the specialist skill of the town planner resides in being either an urban designer or asystems analyst.

In relation to this view of the planner as a manager, communicator, and facilitator ofplanning decisions, it is also relevant to note here the emergence of a concern withimplementation during the 1970s and 1980s. Perhaps the rst planning theorist toarticulate this concern was John Friedmann at the end of the 1960s, when he presented acritique of the rational process model of planning because it tended to emphasize the taskof making decisions over that of taking action [25]. This, together with the seminal work ofPressman and Wildavsky [26], drew attention to the much overlooked fact that, frequently,the most carefully thought through public decisions and policies did not actually result inthe necessary action to realize their intentions. This was because, in attending primarily to

the business of making decisions about appropriate policies and plans, insufcient attentionwas given to the problems of how these policies and plans might get implented. A concern



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with implementation with what John Friedmann termed action planning [27] thusbecame a central preoccupation of some planning theorists in the 1970s and 1980s [28].

Although this concern with implementation had rather different roots from the view ofplanning as a political activity described above, it issued in much the same conception ofplanning and the skills appropriate for it. For the general conclusion of the implementation

theory of the 1970s and 1980s was that, to be an effective implementer of public policiesand plans, planners needed to become effective at networking, communicating andnegotiating with other agents involved in the development process. In short, theoreticalreection on the problem of implementation led also to a view of the planner as one whoshould be a capable manager, networker and communicator.

Nowadays, many planners do describe themselves as managers and facilitators of theprocess of planning rather than as people with a special expertise in planning towns. So theshift in town planning thought described here has undoubtably been signicant. Hence

Judith Inness [29] description of communicative action and interactive practice as thenew paradigm of planning theory. However, once again a word of caution is in order

before it is too readily assumed that this change in planning thought represents a Kuhnianparadigm shift. For it is possible to imagine some kind of rapprochement between the twoviews described here. Thus one could adopt a view of the town planner as one whose roleis primarily that of a communicator and negotiator, but where, in communicating andnegotiating with others, the planner also brings to bear some specialist knowledge which,for example, would enable him or her to point out the likely consequences of developmentproposals on the form and functioning of a town. Such a model of the town planner wouldbe akin to that of, say, civil servants who are experts in economic matters, and who imparttheir specialist economic understanding to those they advise who make decisions about

economic policy. To be effective as an adviser, such a town planner would have to be skilledin communicating and negotiating with others, but he or she would also have to possesssome specialist knowledge to bring to the communicating table to assist others in arrivingat planning decisions [30]. The alternative substantive and procedural conceptions oftown planning described in this section are therefore not as fundamentally at odds, orincommensurable, as the paradigm shifts in the history of science described by ThomasKuhn.

Modernist and postmodernist planning theory: a shift in normative planning thought

According to some commentators [31], since about the late 1960s there has been asignicant shift in Western thought and culture from modernism to postmodernism, andsome view this as so fundamental as to constitute a shift in world view, or a paradigm shift[32]. This alleged paradigm shift has a special bearing on town planning, because modernarchitecture and town planning have jointly provided one of the main sites where the shiftfrom modernism to postmodernism is supposed to have taken place. Indeed, according toCharles Jencks [33], the death-knell of modernism was sounded in July 1972, when thevandalized PruittIgoe high-rise housing estate in St Louis (USA) which had earlier won

an award as an exemplar of modern architecture and town planning was deemeduninhabitable and dynamited by the local city authority.

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At one level, postmodernism can be viewed as a movement opposed to the styles of artand design associated with the modern movement. Thus in architecture, postmodernistsrebelled against the aesthetic minimalism and anonymity of the plain geometrical buildings(and comprehensive planning schemes) of the modern movement, and against the modernistdogma of functionalism which had legitimized this stripped-down architecture. Postmodern

architects therefore sought to bring back style to contemporary buildings to enrich theiraesthetic content and give them meaning. Thus in what is arguably the rst text ofpostmodern architecture, Robert Venturi famously counterposed his preference for astylistically more complex architecture over plain functional modernism:

I like complexity and contradiction in architecture . . . . Architects can no longer afford to beintimidated by the puritanically moral language of orthodox Modern architecture. I like elementswhich are hybrid rather than pure, compromising rather than clean, distorted rather thanstraightforward, ambiguous rather than articulated, . . . inconsistent and equivocal rather thandirect and clear. I am for messy vitality over obvious unity . . . I am for richness of meaning ratherthan clarity of meaning . . . [34]

In relation to town planning, Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander [35] expressed asimilar preference for complexity in the city, in opposition to the simplied order whichmodern town planning theorists like Ebenezer Howard and Le Corbusier had advocated.

Jacobs [36] berated the simple-mindedness of single use zoning and comprehensiveredevelopment in urban areas, both of which showed little understanding of, or regard for,the delicate social and economic fabric and vitality of existing city areas. Instead, sheadvocated mixing land uses, and leaving many so-called slum areas alone to unslumthemselves. Alexander [37] similarly criticized modern town planning for seeking to impose

a simplied tree-like structure on urban areas (e.g. by planning for self-containedneighbourhoods), suggesting that successful cities contained within them complex andsubtle semi-lattice patterns of interrelationships.

These architectural and planning ideas certainly represented a departure from theprevailing modernist orthodoxy. But, according to some accounts, the shift frommodernism to postmodernism goes deeper than just a preference for greater complexityin architecture and town planning. For, it is said, underpinning and driving the modernmovement in architecture and town planning (and other developments in modern westernculture) has been a more fundamental intellectual orientation which has its roots in theEuropean Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. This Enlightenment world view hasbeen characterized as an optimistic belief in human progress based on analytical reason andscientic understanding. Quite apart from its machine aesthetic, modern town planningthought and practice has been seen as expressing this more general Enlightenment worldview or paradigm, and correspondingly, postmodern planning theory is seen by some asrepresenting a break with this intellectual tradition.

Such a view is advanced, for example, by Leonie Sandercock [38]. She emphasizes twoimportant contrasts, in particular, between the modernist paradigm of town planning whichshe rejects and a postmodern paradigm which she endorses: one concerning theepistemological basis of planning, and the other concerning the values or normative

theory of planning [39]. On the rst, Sandercock suggests that modernist planning has beenconcerned with making public=political decisions more rational, in the sense, especially, of



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relying on an instrumental rationality that carefully considers and evaluates options andalternatives [40]. As an adjunct to this, modernist planning has relied largely on a masteryof theory and methods in the social sciences, so that planning knowledge and expertise isgrounded in positive science, with its propensity for quantitative modelling and analysis.Second, this rationalist-cum-scientic (my expression) model of planning is also equated

with a top-down (Sandercocks expression) normative model of planned action, in whichthe state is seen as possessing progressive, reformist tendencies. Accordingly, the state isvested with the authority to undertake town planning. Associated with this, modernistplanning has sought to be comprehensive [41], and this is displayed, for example, in theidea that planning should aim to realize what is in the overall public interest [42].

Against each of these (epistemological and normative) features of modernist planning,Sandercock counterposes postmodern alternatives. First, in contrast to the rationalist modelof planning theory Sandercock urges that whilst Meansends rationality may still be auseful concept . . . we also need greater and more explicit reliance on practical wisdom[43]. In Sandercocks submission, such practical wisdom derives from more varied kinds of

knowledge and experience than just scientic knowledge; it can also include experiential,grounded, contextual, intuitive knowledges, which are manifested through speech, songs,stories, and various visual forms. Planners should therefore learn to access these otherways of knowing [44]. Second, against the top-down state-directed model of planning,Sandercock urges a move to community-based planning, from the ground up, geared tocommunity empowerment [45]. Part of this involves a recognition that planning is nolonger exclusively concerned with comprehensive, integrated, and coordinated action, . . .but more with negotiated, political and focused planning. This in turn makes it lessdocument oriented and more people-centred [46]. Part of it also involves an acknow-

ledgement that modern cities are increasingly inhabited by different ethnic and other socialgroups, with a diversity of cultures and interests. A postmodern community-basedplanning, which is sensitive to cultural differences, would therefore dispense with the ideaof an overarching public interest because this tends to exclude difference [47]. Instead,planning in this multicultural area requires a new kind of multicultural literacy [48].

The epistemological critique of modernism for its reliance on rationality and science hasbeen central to some versions of postmodernism [49]. However, many theorists havequestioned whether the postmodern critique is, or can be made, coherent in its own terms.Consider, for example, the following statement of postmodern epistemology by MichaelDear:

Postmodernisms principal target has been the rationality of the modern movement, especially itsfoundational character, its search for universal truth . . . . The postmodern position is that all meta-narratives are suspect; that the authority claimed by any single explanation is ill-founded, and henceshould be resisted. In essence, postmodernists assert that the relative merit of one meta-narrative overanother is ultimately undecideable; and by extension, that any such attempts to forge intellectualconsensus should be resisted [50].

Taken at face value (i.e. in terms of what it actually says), this statement implies arejection of rational discourse altogether. For if postmodernists believe, as Dear here

suggests, that there are literally no criteria against which we can judge the relative merits ofdifferent theoretical positions, then it would follow that there can be no reasoned debate

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about different theories at all. However, apart from the fact that such a position isintellectually hopeless (in the literal sense that there would be no point in hoping for greaterenlightenment through rational discourse with others), it also seems to be self-defeating.For if there are no rational criteria against which to judge the truth of a proposition, thenthere are no reasonable grounds for accepting as true Dears postmodern proposition that

the relative merit of one meta-narrative over another is ultimately undecidable. AsAnthony Giddens [51] has written: Were anyone to hold such a view (and indeed if it isnot inchoate in the rst place), they could scarcely write a book about it. The onlypossibility would be to repudiate intellectual activity altogether . . . The idea, then, thatthere are no criteria of rationality which we should aspire towards in engaging intheoretical work, or in assessing the relative merits of competing theories, is thereforedismissed by Giddens as unworthy of serious intellectual consideration [52].

If, as these arguments suggest, the postmodern epistemological critique of modernistrationality and science is itself incoherent, then the idea that postmodernism represents aparadigmatic break with Enlightenment reason turns out to be empty. This is not to deny

Sandercocks suggestion that there may be different ways of knowing which cansupplement, ll out, or otherwise complement the understandings gained by reason andscience. Certainly in relation to making practical planning judgements, the experience andknowledge of local communities, even if not strictly scientic, must be relevant to thosejudgements. However, if this is what the postmodern epistemological position comes downto, then for all its fruitfulness it does not represent an alternative to modernistEnlightenment epistemology, but rather a supplement to it.

What, then, of the alternative values or normative theory which postmodernistsadvance in opposition to the values of modernism? Do these represent a paradigm shift in

normative thinking?Broadly, postmodernists argue that the world and our experience of it is far more

complex and subtle than has typically been realized in the modern age. In relation to citiesand the environment, postmodernists claim that peoples experience of places, and from thisthe qualities of places, are much more diverse and open than was implicit in manymodernist schemes for improving the city and especially in the bombastic simplicities ofmodernist architectural schemes for the ideal future city, such as Le Corbusiers radiant city.In place of the modernist architects and planners emphasis on simplicity, order, uniformityand tidiness, postmodernists typically celebrate complexity, diversity, difference, andpluralism [53]. This echoes Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexanders celebration of urbancomplexity and diversity more than thirty years ago. Postmodernists therefore argue thatthere can be no one type of environment which is ideal for everyone, no singularconception of environmental quality. Thus whilst some may continue to hold as a planningideal Howards vision of garden cities [54], others will prefer the buzz and excitement ofwhat Elizabeth Wilson [55] calls the teeming metropolis. Hence, too, Sandercocks viewthat the ideal postmodern city is a multicultural city.

This postmodern emphasis on diversity, difference, pluralism and multiculturalism chimeswith the political ideals of liberalism. For liberals also celebrate the plural society in whichindividuals have the opportunity to determine and realize themselves in different ways

through the exercise of free choice [56]. From this point of view, the normative position ofpostmodernism might seem to accord with a liberal, market-sensitive system of planning in



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contrast to the statism of socialist and social democratic forms of planning (which havebeen associated with modernism).

But do these postmodern values amount to a paradigmatic break with the values of so-called modernist planning? Two points can be made to dispute this. First, in relation to thegeneral value stance of diversity and pluralism espoused by postmodernists, this can be

taken to an extreme where any difference is accepted or permitted; in other words, aposition of complete moral and political relativism. And such an extreme ethical relativismis open to criticisms similar to those raised earlier against postmodern epistemologicalrelativism. To be sure, we may endorse a more complex, variegated and multiculturalconception of environmental quality, but this need not exclude a commitment to someoverarching even universal normative principles of planning. For example, shouldnttown planning, wherever it is practised, do what it can to help bring about economicallyand environmentally sustainable development, development which is not socially divisive,and development which is experienced as an aesthetic delight? In fact, for all hercelebration of difference and multiculturalism, even Sandercock acknowledges that her ideal

cosmopolis would require some overarching normative principles, such as some overallprinciples of social justice, and a democratic polity which fosters dialogue and negotiationas the habit of political participation [57].

Second, with respect to the liberal inclinations of postmodernism, whilst the kind ofcentralized statist planning of Soviet-style socialism and even post-war social democracy inthe West may have been discredited, the idea that a liberal, market-supportive style ofplanning produces better environmental outcomes has by no means been universallyaccepted. Sandercock herself argues for a bottom-up community-based style of planningas being the required antidote to top-down statism. Yet even she insists that this

is not to argue for the rejection of state-directed planning. There are transformative and oppressivepossibilities in state planning, just as there are in community-based planning. Victories at thecommunity level almost always need to be consolidated in some way through the state, throughlegislation and=or through the allocation of resources [58].

The idea, then, that either a kind of postmodern liberalism or some version of communityplanning constitute a paradigmatic break with social democratic politics is, to say the least,premature (consider, in this regard, Giddenss recent argument for a renewal of socialdemocracy [59]).

Conclusion: change and continuity in town planning thought

Unquestionably, there have been signicant changes in town planning thought since the endof the Second World War, and (for all the talk of the gulf between planning theory andpractice), these changes have affected planning practice. Thus town planners now operatewith a very different conception of town planning, and bring to it quite different skills,from the architectplanners of fty years ago. The idea, for example, of town planning asan exercise in managing the process of arriving at planning decisions and negotiating

agreements for action, and hence of the town planner as someone who is primarily acommunicator and a facilitator, would not really have occurred to early British post-war

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planners like Thomas Sharp, Frederick Gibberd or Lewis Keeble. Contrariwise, the ideathat the prime task of town planners is to undertake surveys of the physical and aestheticcharacteristics of towns, and then sit in front of drawing boards drawing up master plans,would strike most present-day planners as hopelessly limited, naive, and outmoded.Similarly, the modernist idea that better cities can be created by drastic surgery and

comprehensive development has long been discredited.These are signicant changes in peoples conception of the activity of town and countryplanning, and the values which should inform it. And there is no harm in describing thesechanges as paradigm shifts, so long as we appreciate that we are employing this term in afairly loose or weak sense. However, in anything like the strong sense of the term as usedby Thomas Kuhn to describe revolutionary changes in thought in the history of science, it isdoubtful whether any of the changes in town planning thought since 1945 areappropriately described as paradigm shifts. For in the strong sense of the term, a paradigmshift is marked by a fundamental change in world view a kind of Gestalt switch inpeoples whole conceptual scheme. And whilst there have been signicant discontinuities in

planning thought since 1945, there have also been continuities across these changes.For example, whilst, on the face of it, the shift from the physical design view of town

planning to the systems and rational process views of planning might look like a change ofworld view (and hence a Kuhnian paradigm shift), the systems and rational process viewsof planning did not completely supersede the urban design conception of town planning.Thus, at least at the local level of small area or district planning and the control ofdevelopment, good urban design (and design control) is still regarded as central to goodtown planning; indeed, a concern with urban design within town planning has experiencedsomething of a revival since the mid-1980s. Arguably, a more likely candidate for a

Kuhnian paradigm shift has been the shift from a view of the town planner as an expert tothe planner as a manager and facilitator the shift, in other words, away from a view ofthe planner as the supplier of answers (in the form of master plans) to that of the planneras someone skilled at eliciting other peoples answers to urban problems and somehowmediating between these. But even this view of town planning as a species ofcommunicative action is compatible with the view that town planners should possess atleast some area of expertise, for example about the likely effects of proposed changes tourban environments. Similarly, the postmodern emphasis on complexity, difference andrelative values is not completely incompatible with a commitment to some overarching,universal principles of environmental quality, still less with a reliance on (sophisticated)reason and scientic understanding.

Looking back over the changes in town planning theory since the end of the SecondWorld War, some planning theorists have suggested that planning theory has fragmentedinto a plurality of diverse and even incompatible theoretical positions or paradigms [60].However, this article has expressed scepticism with this idea. Although there have beensignicant shifts in planning thought since 1945, there have also been signicantcontinuities. Indeed, the shifts in town planning thought over this period can be regardedas developmental rather than as ruptures between incompatible paradigms of planning. Inother words, the changes to town planning theory described here can equally well be

viewed as lling out, and thereby enriching, the rather primitive conception of planningwhich prevailed in the immediate post-war years. On this account, the story of town



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planning theory since 1945 has been one of developing sophistication as we have learntmore about the greater complexity of urban environments and the diverse values ofdifferent communities.

Notes and references

1. For example, T.G. Galloway and R.G. Mahayni, Planning theory in retrospect: the process ofparadigm change. Journal of the American Institute of Planners 43, 1 (1977) 6271. J. Innes,Planning theorys emerging paradigm: communicative action and interactive practice. Journal ofPlanning Education and Research 14, 3 (1995) 183 9. L. Sandercock, Towards Cosmopolis:

planning for multicultural cities. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, 1998.2. T. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientic Revolutions (2nd edition). Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1970.3. Ibid., chapter 7.

4. In this regard we should note that Kuhn himself used the concept of a paradigm in differentsenses, some more fundamental than others (see Kuhns 1969 postscript to his original essay,ibid., pp. 17491).

5. For example, we could describe the shift in moral thinking that was ushered in by the EuropeanEnlightenment of the eighteenth century in which all individual human beings came to beviewed as morally signicant and therefore as possessing certain human rights as afundamental change, or paradigm shift, in ethical thought. And, just as in science, an ethicalparadigm tends to endure for a long time; it constitutes an ethical world view, and is built intothe ethical consciousness of people reared in a culture where that world-view prevails. Shifts insuch ethical views are therefore as revolutionary (and psychologically unsettling) as are paradigm

shifts in science.6. See, for example, M. Dear, Postmodernism and planning. Environment and Planning D: Societyand Space 4 (1986) 36784. B. Goodchild, Planning and the modern=postmodern debate. TownPlanning Review 61, 2 (1990) 11937. L. Sandercock, op. cit. [1].

7. L. Sandercock, ibid., p. 2.8. Of course, there is a question here about when architecture was rst acknowledged as a distinct

practice. For if one goes back to the Renaissance, people who practised or contributed toarchitecture and urban design were often not just architects in the modern sense. Often theywere artists of a more general sort, and architecture was one of the things they practised. Forexample, both Bernini and Michelangelo were involved in the design of (respectively) thecollonaded approach to, and the dome of, St Peters in Rome, but both were more famous in theirtime for their work in sculpture and painting. Similarly, Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of StPauls Cathedral in London, was an astronomer by training.

9. Two other important recruiting groups for town planning during the post-war years were civilengineers and surveyors. During the period 1946 56, 45% of the Associate Members of theBritish Town Planning Institute were architects, 14% engineers and 9% surveyors. Only 9% heldsome other rst degree qualication such as geography, and 22% were direct entry planners(gures from G.F. Cherry, The Evolution of British Town Planning. London, Leonard Hill Books,1974, p. 210.

10. Ibid., chapters 6 and 7.11. F. Gibberd, Town Design. London: The Architectural Press, 1953.

12. L.B. Keeble, Principles and Practice of Town and Country Planning (4th edition). London: TheEstates Gazette, 1969. Two other standard texts of this time which advanced essentially the same

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design-based view of town planning were P. Abercrombie, Town and Country Planning (3rdedition). London: Oxford University Press, 1959 and T. Sharp, Town Planning. Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1940.

13. J.B. McLoughlin, Urban and Regional Planning: a systems approach. London: Faber and Faber,1969.

14. D. Harvey, Social Justice and the City. London: Edward Arnold, 1973, chapter 1.

15. This equation between rationality and science was, in fact, crude, for it implied that art wassomehow non-rational in comparison with science because, for example, it involved theimagination, creativity, the expression of feelings, etc., rather than rigorous empiricalinvestigation of objective facts. But this is misleading. For artistic activity involves rationalanalysis and, correspondingly, original scientic work involves creativity and imagination astwentieth century theoretical physics vividly illustrates.

16. This shift from art to science also implied that town planners should henceforth acquire thenecessary mathematical techniques to analyse complex urban systems. The present authorexperienced this transition himself as a planning student in the mid-1960s. When I arrived on my(two-year postgraduate) town planning course, I was required to purchase a drawing board, T-

square, drawing pens and pencils, etc., in readiness for doing design projects in studios, just likean architect. The rst project I and my fellow students were required to undertake was a designproject a residential layout. And so it went on. The academic aspects of the curriculummirrored this, with courses on the history of architecture and urban design. During our rst yearwe heard about the new idea of systems planning through two of Brian McLoughlins earlyarticles on the subject, and in our second year a visiting lecturer from the School of RegionalScience at the University of Pennsylvania was invited to lecture us on some of the newtechniques associated with the systems view of planning. Our visitor began his rst lecture bysaying: I take it we are all agreed that town planning is about optimising systems. No-onedemurred. From this premise our guest lecturer breezily proceeded to teach us some techniquesfor analysing and optimizing systems, concentrating on linear programming. Because we weregenerally so innumerate, he had to teach us some basic algebra rst. We sat through two terms ofthis, partly excited by these radically new ideas (for we were young), but also, if the truth weretold, utterly bemused and stunned.

17. Essex County Council Planning Department, A Design Guide for Residential Areas. Chelmsford:Essex County Council, 1973.

18. See, for example, J. Punter, Aesthetics in planning, in H. Thomas (ed) Values and Planning.Aldershot: Avebury, 1994, chapter 3, pp. 38 67. J. Punter and M. Carmona, The DesignDimension of Planning: theory, content and best practice for design policies . London: E & FNSpon, 1997.

19. See, for example, N.E. Long, Planning and Politics in Urban Development. Journal of the

American Institute of Planners 25, 6 (1959) 1679. P. Davidoff and T.A. Reiner, A choice theoryof planning. Journal of the American Institute of Planners 28 (1962) 10315, reprinted in A.Faludi (ed.) A Reader in Planning Theory. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1973, pp. 1139.

20. Amongst those who take this view are those who continue to take a highly technicalist view ofthe skills needed for planning, reminiscent, in fact, of the technicism of the early systemsplanning theorists. This tradition persists, for example, in many of the articles which appear inthe journal Planning and Environment B (Planning and Design). Many of these articles arehighly technical (even esoteric) investigations of planning techniques. In fact, they sometimes readas if they were written in the early 1960s, and as if the political upheavals about town planningin the 1960s had never happened.

21. For example, R. Goodman, After the Planners. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972. B. Evans,Experts and Environmental Planning. Aldershot: Avebury, 1995. And not just radical-Left



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planning theorists. In addition to these two references, one could add some of the literature of theneo-liberal New Right such as R. Jones, Town and Country Chaos: a critical analysis ofBritains planning system. London: The Adam Smith Institute, 1982 which argued that publicsector town planning did not achieve better outcomes than the free play of market forces. Fromthis point of view, the so-called expertise of town planners was really no expertise at all.

22. P. Davidoff, Advocacy and pluralism in planning. Journal of the American Institute of Planners

31, 4 (1965) 54455.23. See, for example, J. Forester, Planning in the Face of Power. Berkeley: University of California

Press, 1989. P. Healey, Planning through debate: the communicative turn in planning theory.

Town Planning Review 63, 2 (1992) 14362. F. Fischer and J. Forester, (eds) The ArgumentativeTurn in Policy Analysis and Planning. London: UCL Press, 1993. T. Sager, CommunicativePlanning Theory. Aldershot: Avebury, 1993.

24. P. Healey and R. Gilroy, Towards a people-sensitive planning. Planning Practice and Research 5,2 (1990) 219, p. 22.

25. J. Friedmann, Notes on societal action. Journal of the American Institute of Planners 35 (1969)311 18. Although, arguably, Charles Lindbloms theory of disjointed incremetalism which

predated Friedmanns action planning theory by a decade was prompted by a similar concernwith how action actually occurred in reality. See C.E. Lindblom, The science of muddlingthrough. Public Administration Review 19 (1959) 7988. Reprinted in A. Faludi, op. cit. [19],pp. 15169. See also A. Faludi, Planning Theory. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1973. pp. 15070.

26. J.L. Pressman and A. Wildavsky, Implementation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.27. J. Friedmann, op. cit. [25], p. 312.28. See, for example, S. Barrett and C. Fudge (eds) Policy and Action: essays on the implementation

of public policy. London: Methuen, 1981.29. J. Innes, op. cit. [1].30. It would also be compatible with this model of planning for different town planners to specialize

in different areas of knowledge and=

or skill relevant to different aspects of town planning, e.g.economic development; design and aesthetics; mineral extraction; environmentally sustainabledevelopment.

31. For example, J-F. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: a report on knowledge. Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press, 1984 (translation by G. Bennington and B. Massumi). F. Jameson,Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism. New Left Review 146 (1984) 5392. D.Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: an enquiry into the origins of cultural change. Oxford:Basil Blackwell, 1989.

32. L. Sandercock, op. cit. [1].33. C. Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture. London: Academy Editions, 1991, p. 23.34. R. Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (2nd edition). New York: Museum of

Modern Art, 1977, p. 16.35. J. Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961. C.

Alexander, A city is not a tree. Architectural Forum 122, 1 (1965). Reprinted in R.T. LeGates andF. Stout, (eds) The City Reader. London: Routledge, 1996, pp. 11831.

36. J. Jacobs, ibid., chapter 15.37. C. Alexander, op. cit. [35].38. L. Sandercock, op. cit. [1].39. In fact, Sandercock sets down ve basic beliefs or assumptions which are characteristic of

modernist planning theory and practice, and correspondingly, ve alternative principles ofpostmodern planning (L. Sandercock, op. cit. [1], chapter 1, pp. 27 and 30 respectively). My

reduction of these to two main contrasting principles is my own interpretative summary of heraccount.

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40. Ibid., chapter 1, p. 27.41. Ibid., p. 27.42. Ibid., p. 27.43. Ibid., p. 30.44. Ibid., p. 30.45. Ibid., p. 30.

46. Ibid., p. 30.47. Ibid., p. 30.48. Ibid., p. 30.49. For example, R. Rorty, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1989.50. M. Dear, Prolegomena to a postmodern urbanism, in P. Healey, S. Cameron, S. Graham and A.

Madani-Pour, (eds) Managing Cities: the new urban context. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons,1995, Part 1, chapter 1, p. 28.

51. A. Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity. Oxford: Polity Press, 1990, p. 47.52. Ibid., p. 46. This discussion also prompts the further question as to whether postmodernists are

themselves consistent in adhering to the epistemological relativism they espouse. Certainly, somewriters who advance postmodern epistemological relativism are not consistent in adhering to it.Thus Michael Dear, within a page of the statement quoted, moves on to write about what the cityof Los Angeles is really like on the assumption, presumably, that there are truths about the placewhich can be discovered.

53. cf. I. Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press,1990.

54. P. Hall and C. Ward, Sociable Cities: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard. Chichester: John Wileyand Sons, 1998.

55. E. Wilson, The Sphinx in the City. London: Virago, 1991, p. 101.56. See, for example, R. Nozick,

Anarchy, State and Utopia. Oxford: Blackwell, 1974, chapter 10.

57. L. Sandercock, op. cit. [1], p. 199.58. Ibid., pp. 2056.59. A. Giddens, The Third Way: the renewal of social democracy. Oxford: Polity Press, 1998.60. For example, P. Healey, G. McDougall and M.J. Thomas, Theoretical debates in planning:

towards a coherent dialogue, in P. Healey, G. McDougall and M.J. Thomas (eds) PlanningTheory: prospects for the 1980s. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1982, p. 5.


anglo-american town planning theory since 1945;

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