Planning Profession Then and Now
Anne Krieg, AICP
Bridgton Director of Planning, Economic
& Community Development
Ancient Planning
• Top down approach (though philosophers and mathematicians could weigh in)
• Water supply • Military needs
Middle Ages
• Church or feudal authority
• Villages
• Footpaths
Renaissance
• Glorifying the ruler or the state
• Military
• Access
Early Planners
• 1682 William Penn – Philadelphia
• 1791 Pierre L Enfant – DC plan
• 1811 NYC Commissioner’s Plan
Industrial Revolution Planners
• James Silk Buckingham – National Evils and Practical Remedies 1849
• John Snow’s Cholera Map 1855 • Georges-Eugene Haussmann 1850-1870’s • Frederick Law Olmsted 1850’s-1880 • Edward Bellamy Looking Backwards 1888 • Camillo Sitte – City Planning According to
Artistic Principles 1889 • Societies of Architects and Landscape Architects
formed
The Progressive Movement
• Design • Recreation • Better Living • City Beautiful
People in the Progressive Movement
• Ebenezer Howard Garden Cities of Tomorrow 1902
• McMillan Plan – the best of the best in one room 1902
• Daniel Burnham – Chicago (1909) and San Francisco (1906)
• Walter Gropius - Bauhaus movement- 1919
• Patrick Geddes – regional planning
The profession takes hold
• National Conference on City Planning (DC) 1909
• Harvard starts courses in planning 1909 – planning program in 1923
• Massachusetts requires planning 1913
• American City Planning Institute 1917
• Regional Planning Association 1923
The Depression
• Economic Management
• Housing Programs
• Natural Resource Planning
• Planning Schools become more social science based
Thinkers in Urban Stagnation
• Frank Lloyd Wright The Disappearing City 1932
• National Planning Board 1933
• Lewis Mumford film The City 1939
• NY World’s Fair Futurama exhibit 1939
The Profession shifts to federal levels
• National Planning Board 1933
• US Resettlement Administration 1938
• US Housing Act 1937
• Farm Security Administration 1937
Other Professional society shifts
• American Institute of Planners 1938 • MIT – Masters of City Planning 1935 • Cornell – regional planning 1935 • The Green Bible is written 1941
Post WWII • People spilling from the city into planned
towns • Urban Renewal • Influenced by modernism • William Levitt 1950 • Brasilia
Robert Moses You can draw any kind of picture you want on a clean slate and indulge your every whim in the wilderness in laying out a New Delhi, Canberra, or Brasilia, but when you operate in an overbuilt metropolis, you have to hack your way with a meat ax.
Social Activism in Planning
• Jane Jacobs The Death and Life of Great American Cities 1961
• Rachel Carson Silent Spring 1962 • Martin Anderson The Federal
Bulldozer; a critical analysis of urban renewal 1964
• Ian McHarg Design with Nature 1969
More evolution in planning
• Adaptive Reuse – Lawrence Halprin 1962 • Edmund Bacon 1967 Philadelphia planner • Academics in Planning
– Kevin Lynch The Image of the City (when we started speaking planner-ese)
– Lewis Mumford The City in History… 1961 – TJ Kent 1964 The Urban General Plan
And more Federal
Planning
• Economic Development Administration 1965
• HUD 1965 • Model Cities
Program 1966
Next Gen Planning
• Environmental based planning • Marked guilt from urban renewal
loss of neighborhoods • Loathing of Suburban Life/Layout
People
• Horst, Webber Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning 1973
• Robert Caro The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of NY 1974
• Norman Krumholz – work on equity planning 1982
• Bluestone, Harrison The Deindustrialization of America 1982
• Robert Fishman Bourgeois Utopias: the rise and fall of suburbs 1987
• John Forester Planning in the Face of Power 1989
Profession changes
• American Planning Association 1978 • Environmental Systems Research
Institute (ESRI) – GIS • National Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) established • “star planners” Andre Duany
Millenial Years
• Transportation planning
• Congress of New Urbanism
• Smart Growth
• Form Based Codes
• Collaborative Planning
Planning Today what hasn’t
changed
• Built environment – architecture, landscape architecture
• Public Health
• Social Work
• Natural Environment
• International Planning (nothing to worry about)
Jack of all trades • Designers • Economists • Environmental
managers • Decision
theorists • Negotiation
experts
•Political scientists
•Public administration professionals
• Lawyers •Engineers
Planning Profession
• Not one unifying theory but share basic principles
• Advise, not decide
• See results 5 to 20 years later
• Broadly defined “clients”
• Diverse interests
Problem Solving in Planning
• As you look at possible solution, the questions change
• Not linear decisions, but often options with repercussions
• Can only predict outcomes
• Can’t test a theory • A problem may be
a symptom of another problem
What we sometimes do
Crisis mitigation
emerge out of series of crises and people’s responses to them
health crises (epidemics)
social crises (riots, strikes)
other crises (fire, flood, etc.)
Post 9/11 Post Katrina & Sandy
Me? Community Planning
– Transparency
– Clarify the interests
– Inclusiveness
– Truth-seeking
– Never forget it’s your community
Top Related