The incongruity of theory and practice

He has authored or edited over twenty books on urban planning, primarily in the areas of housing, land use, and municipal finance. His latest book, Planning Theory in the 1990s,will be published in spring 1989.     

The role of expectations and promises in land use decisionmaking

Land use disputes are often at their center disagreements about the expectations of different parties, public and private, concerning permissible land uses and activities. Expectations are influenced by numerous factors, from broad economic and social trends to specific public planning policies and decisions. One source of land use expectations are promises issued by public planning and decisionmaking bodies. Two types of promises arise: explicit promises (e.g. statements of intention found in an officially-adopted comprehensive plan, publicly issued resolutions, etc.) and tacit promises (e.g. created by a series or pattern of public decisions, or by the clear unwillingness of the public to take actions in the past where opportunities existed to do so). It is argued that public officials and planners should be concerned with promises and that they should be given some degree of moral consideration when debating and resolving land use conflicts. Other things being equal, public planning agencies and decisionmaking bodies ought to acknowledge that the expectations of individuals are influenced by such promises and seek to respect them. Private land use expectations based on public promises are not sacred, however, as many situations arise where land use officials are confronted with conflicting moral demands. Situations where public land use promises may need to be overruled or qualified are considered. At a minimum, public land use officials have an obligation to clarify expressions of land use policy so that the formation of false private land use expectations is minimized.     

Cities and people: Towards a gender-aware urban planning process?

Recognition of the deficiencies of traditional ‘blueprint’ approaches to land use and infrastructure planning has led to increased emphasis on management of the process of urban development. Such management should recognize the distributional impacts of decision-making and be responsive to the needs of residents. However, much urban planning activity has been and continues to be gender-blind. In order to redress this deficiency, it is argued that increased understanding is needed of women's economic and social roles in urban society, their exclusion from economic opportunities and decision-making processes, and the discriminatory nature of much legislation. Urban residents’ experience is shaped both by household strategies and by the way in which they are affected by or can affect planning, investment and management decisions made at the neighbourhood or city level. Differing experiences may be related to class and ethnicity, but are also likely to be gender-specific. The potential impact of policy and investment in a variety of sectors of urban development on residents, especially women, is explored. Recommendations are made for a more gender-aware approach to planning for economic activity, land and shelter, public transport and infrastructural and social services, and for specific actions to be taken by both planners and residents.     

Planning Models in Sweden and Norway: Nuancing the Picture

This article nuances the picture given in current research of Swedish policy implementation and planning as consistent and predictable, and Norwegian policy implementation and planning as more unpredictable and fragmented. It does so by adding a discussion of the sources of legitimacy in each of the two national settings, arguing that each system has its distinct pros and cons. The Swedish planning system and local plan practices rest more firmly on a hierarchical mode of governance which is strong on operational efficiency, but suffers from a weaker sense of ownership to the plan outcome among private and civil society actors. In the Norwegian planning system and local plan practices, a combination of hierarchical and interactive governance measures, boasts a broader anchorage and resource division among public, private and civil society actors. However, this system experiences a lower operational efficiency due to the willingness to reconsider former decisions in order to find a viable compromise among different stakeholders in local plan processes, as well as stronger fragmentation due to the privatization of Norwegian detail planning. The empirical basis of the article is: a comparison of the two countries' plan legislation in terms of the inclusion of non‐public actors in plan provision and plan formulation; and four case studies of planning processes concerning the future use of an urban green area.     

RESPONSES TO GROWTH IN THE SUN-BELT STATE: PLANNING AND COORDINATING POLICY INITIATIVES IN QUEENSLAND

Abstract: Queensland's population growth phenomenon has demanded responses from the state government for greater intervention in planning land use and resources utilisation. Planning, especially regional planning, represents an area of traditional policy neglect in Queensland, explained in part by the division of powers such that local authorities, rather than the state, have the major responsibility for land-use development and physical services. Local government jurisdiction in planning poses a challenge for the state government in how best to strategically manage regional growth, while at the same time respecting local authority autonomy in planning decision-making.
Over the last three years, the Goss government has undertaken both administrative reforms and a comprehensive and innovative planning exercise to shape urban development in south-east Queensland, the area of greatest population density and growth. In particular, it has adopted a model of corporate government as a framework for the planning process. The corporate model promotes a "whole of government" approach to strategic planning, emphasising efficient and effective outcomes for clients. The model's client orientation has elevated and formalised the role of community input in decision-making, and provided a process for negotiation between the players in planning policy development. In an intergovernmental environment, consultation with local authorities is important but the managerialist aspects of corporate government are likely to encourage central control of the planning policy agenda. Both are necessary for improved urban outcomes, yet it remains to be seen how these potentially conflicting processes can be reconciled in practice.     

AGAINST THE SPIRIT OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT: THE MAKING OF TASMANIAN TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING LEGISLATION

Abstract: Town planning as part of a wider program of postwar reconstruction gained support in Tasmania in the 1940s. This support resulted in the passage of the Town and Country Planning Act 1944, the first major major piece of town planning legislation in Tasmania. This article examines the background to this statute, focusing on the deliberations of a joint committee of parliament appointed to hear the views of interested parties on town planning. Particular attention is devoted to the dispute over whether municipal councils or a town planning board with wide powers should regulate town planning. The land use planning reforms introduced in 1993 are also assessed.     

NEW DIRECTIONS IN AUSTRALIAN ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING: SOME POINTERS FROM THE UK STRUCTURE PLANNING EXPERIENCE

Abstract: Environmental planning legislation in Australia has been primarily concerned with the formulation of detailed land-use allocation plans. Changing circumstances are leading to a more broadly-based view of the planning process centred around the delineation of development principles and the broad structure of land uses. The United Kingdom's experience with structure plans during the past decade is of value in reshaping environmental planning in Australia. Within the United Kingdom both the slow speed of structure plan preparation and its very broad scope have posed problems. By merging land-use issues with the development plans of other government instrumentalities structure plans have exceeded the responsibility of the central planning agency. Simultaneously they have been seized upon by the public as the only formal means of dissent against governmental decisions in such areas as social service and housing. Reactions have been twofold. In Scotland regional reports have imposed an additional corporate plan which provides guidelines for subsequent control of land use. In England and Wales structure plans have become increasingly general, long-term and land-use orientated, thereby side-stepping the problems their introduction created. To be effective in Australia, structure plans must achieve corporate liaison with other government departments and statutory undertakings. This will be achieved not by copying the English structure planning model, but by working towards regional reports prepared by a combination of State government agencies and reconciled through decisions at parliamentary level. Local, detailed land-use plans, based upon written reports as in the United Kingdom, can fit readily into such a framework, supplemented where necessary by State-wide guidelines pertaining to critical land-use considerations. The coordination of development will be facilitated by the liberalization and increased availability of professionally recognized qualifications.     

The control of urban growth in Mexico City. Suppositions regarding poor planning

It is argued that mechanisms for planning land use and controlling urban expansion in Mexico City have failed to achieve their aims. Although in theory Mexico's urban planning process has recently attempted to go beyond purely physical aspects to include socioeconomic dimensions, it has in fact been inflexible and oriented to exclusively to technical and administrative aspects, to the detriment of social distribution goals. Planning instruments have not included important aspects such as specific mechanisms for altering employment structures or income levels or mechanisms for providing access to land or housing to the most disadvantaged groups. The urban planning process in Mexico City, instead of assuming a socially compensatory role in favor of disadvantaged groups, has maintained the status quo or discriminated in favor of the already advantaged. The spatial and technical orientation or urban planning in Mexico City does not leave room for a well-defined social policy. The population of the Mexico City metropolitan Zone increased from 3 million in 1950 to 18 million in 1985, while its total area increased from 11,750 hectares in 1940 to 125,000 in 1985. Transfer of population from the Federal District to the conurban municipios of the state of Mexico has been very significant since the 1970s. Around 20% of the total area of metropolitan Mexico City has been settled through illegal means, with communal and ejido lands accounting for a large share. Settlements on some 60% of lands in metroplitan Mexico City were illegal or irregular at some time. Low income housing is the cheapest form for the government because the frequently illegal status of settlers prevents them from making any demands for services or equipment for the 1st several years. Construction is undertaken and financed almost entirely by the settlers themselves, freeing the government of responsibility in regard to the constitutionally mandated right of all Mexicans to housing. The Urban Development Plan of the state of Mexico published in 1986 proposed 2 important programs for controlling urban growth. The territorial reserves program aimed to anticipate the need and make available through purchase, expropriation, or other means sufficient lands for housing to which the lowest income groups would share access. The "Paint Your Line" program establiished physical limits for urban expansion in each of the 17 conurban municipios in the State of Mexico. To date, however, few lands have been set aside for legal acquisition and the Paint Your Line program has been slow in delimiting the areas to be settled. Data from a 1989 study in the municipios of Chalco and Ixtapaluca demonstrate the shortcomings of the programs, which do not address the true processes and agents that control new settlements and especially illegal occupations and which fail to satisfy the needs of low-income population sectors.     

Can We Plan Too Much? – The Case of the 2010 Metropolitan Strategy for Adelaide

With a Labor government in power in South Australia since 2002, a series of interlocking plans for the state have been developed of which the most important are the strategic plan for the state, the strategic infrastructure plan for the state and the metropolitan strategy for Greater Adelaide. The metropolitan strategy of 2010 reflected the ambitious population and employment targets of the state strategic plan and provided a liberal supply of residential land for urban expansion together with ambitions for a more compact city with higher densities. There are inconsistencies in these objectives which have not been resolved and reflect the optimistic forecasts of the state strategic plan and the nature of the metropolitan planning process with strong input from the development industry. Preliminary evidence is that the plan is not tracking as proposed and more attention needs to be paid to short‐ and medium‐term prospects, and community involvement particularly in strategic localities.     

After rationality

where he teaches planning theory. His research explores decision making, plan implementation, and organizations. His books include Evaluating Plan Implementationand Approaches to Planning.     

Myths and the definition of policy problems

In this paper we argue that behind widely accepted problem definitions are myths, stories which draw on tradition and taken for granted knowledge. These myths, which may or may not be true in a factual sense, are important to the definition of problems because they link public issues to widely accepted ways of understanding the world and to shared moral evaluations of conditions, events, and possible solutions to problems. Such myths perform a double-edged function in a policy or planning process. On the one hand, they can provide creative inspiration for policies, a way of translating community values into action proposals, and a powerful means to communicate to a broad public and rally support. They can mediate social and economic change by allowing new policies to carry familiar meaning. On the other hand, a myth can conceal crucial contradictions and realities, legitimize policies that benefit the powerful, and support anachronistic perceptions of policy problems. These ideas are explored in case histories of two areas of urban policy. In one we trace the support for home ownership to a transformation of the Jeffersonian myth of the independent yeoman farmer as the ideal citizen. This use of myth made home ownership the cornerstone of US housing policies and helped suppress alternatives. Though debate over home ownership occurs in the context of housing policy, the tacit purpose is to maintain a myth which is central to our identity as a nation. In the second example, public officials and analysts engaged in an explicit myth-making process to garner support for public-private partnerships as a central tool in urban redevelopment. The myths, which drew on familiar themes, made socially beneficial cooperation seem easy to achieve and legitimized new political and institutional arrangements though it also concealed implementation difficulties. Though myths complicate the effort to use rational, systematic analysis, they are an inevitable part of policy making and planning processes. Planning professionals must openly confront myths and make creative, responsible, use of them rather than allow policies and plans to be subject to their unexamined influence.     

Organising Strategic Spatial Planning: Experiences from Italian Cities

Strategic urban and regional planning, which emerged in Europe in the 1980s, has become an instrument to establish sustainable development of previously successful industrial areas today affected by the crisis caused mostly by the globalisation of the 1990s. Strategic urban planning concerns organisational land use which in turn regulates resource protection, sustainable development, regeneration and infrastructural investments and multilevel governance. Careful planning is imperative to reach goals such as enhancing local competitiveness and life quality. These dimensions represent the two focal points of the majority of city planning strategies. Their implementation depends not only on planning effectiveness, but also on the organisation and the management of the implementation process by the planning agency or the equivalent local promoter. This paper looks at the experience of Italian cities, in order to derive implications for theory and for future planning processes. More specifically, it analyses the extent to which Italian cities follow similar or divergent paths at the stage of the design process; the Italian case study is then compared with the guidelines proposed by the planning literature and with other European cities.     

Environmental planning,administration and management in Nigerian Cities: The example of Benin City,Bendel State

Third World cities are characterized by weak administrative and managerial capacity for environmental planning. Benin City, Nigeria, is no exception. Benin's environmental problems result largely from its unplanned land use and weak development control. These problems include lack of open space, substandard housing and an increasing volume of refuse. The administrative arrangements to handle environmental problems include the Town Planning Division, which enforces building and housing codes and land use regulations; and the Task Force on Environmental Sanitation, responsible for solid waste management. However, these arrangements have not produced satisfactory results. Failure has been due partly to the ad hoc organization of environmental administration; the overlapping perception of environmental problems; the alienation of the public; dispersal of authority; and the scale of jurisdictional units. Effective environmental planning administration must adopt a holistic approach, which recognizes the need for a comprehensive environmental planning and a concentration of environmental authority. This is based on the premise that environmental issues are the responsibility of one agency but an obligation for all. Structurally, the concentration of environmental authority hinges on the principle of cooperative leadership by the Federal Government. This calls urgently for the establishment of a Federal Environmental Protection Agency at the centre, and Environmental Management Boards at state levels. The Boards would provide an administrative umbrella under which the management of various aspects of the environment are coordinated. In order to maximize the cooperation of the public, the traditional power structure of the Oba (paramount chiefs and community leaders) must be involved in the conception and implementation of environmental planning. Citizen participation would in turn be maximized if the neighbourhood is adopted as the jurisdictional unit, upon which environmental administration and management are systematically built.     

Urban construction,professions, and immigration at the origin of urban studies in Venezuela, 1870-1957

The individuals and circumstances involved in the creation of the first graduate urban studies program in Venezuela are recalled, beginning with the odernization of Caracas under the impulse of President Antonio Guzman Blanco, elected in 1870. Guzman Blanco converted himself into Venezuela's first urbanist with the establishment of organizational frameworks and completion of massive public works projects, which were based largely on the urban models of the US and Europe. Engineering and public health were consolidated as the two most influential sources of professional competence for guiding urban development. By the mid-1930s, growth fueled by petroleum revenues was causing rapid urbanization, and it became apparent that trained professionals able to manage the increasingly complex tasks of urban planning were in short supply. A new surge of modernizing construction began in 1936 and led to a cooperative arrangement with a French firm, whose personnel were to be required to train Venezuelan engineers for future service in urban planning. An influx of refugees from the Spanish Civil War and the increasing influence of urban planning processes in the US were also observed. The National Commission on Urbanism was created in 1946 as a dependency of the Ministry of Planning to facilitate public administration of the development and control of cities. Throughout the period, a debate was underway on the need for a multidisciplinary approach to urban planning versus a primarily architectural or engineering approach. In 1957, some consensus was reached on the need for urban planning to be viewed as more than a speciality of architecture. A framework was developed for a graduate program in 1969 in the Central University of Venezuela. The National Commission on Urbanism was disbanded in 1957, largely because of its excessive focus on architecture to the exclusion of other disciplines relevant to the urbanization process.     

论中国社会主义市场经济制度下的发展计划

“用市场经济手段来提高效率,用社会主义制度来保障公平”是社会主义市场经济这一概念的实质。由此可见,社会主义市场经济制度下的计划在相当长的时期内还会起着重要的作用,应当认真研究改进计划的制定及管理方法。着重分析了长期计划、中期计划、专项计划及年度计划四种发展计划的主要内容、制定方法与关键技术,强调了POSMEP法在编制发展计划时的重要作用。最后,建议设立负责全面策划和统筹协调的总体计划部门以便更好地促进建设中国特色社会主义事业的发展。     

An innovative approach to metropolitan management in the philippines

The paper describes the historical development of metropolitan planning and administration in Metro Manila, and identifies five major problems: the sectoral isolation of planning; the inadequate involvement of local government; inadequacies in planning methods; weaknesses in the system of resource management; and institutional fragmentation. The development of the Capital Investment Folio process, its institutional framework and the main characteristics and results of applying the approach are described. The benefits and lessons which have emerged are then set out and their possible application elsewhere discussed. The main achievements of CIF are progress towards a rational system of urban planning; the generation of consensus within government about Manila's investment strategy; a more widespread appreciation of opportunity costs; and a new understanding of how to plan under conditions of uncertainty. It remains for CIF to be integrated into the national resource allocation process, and to be fully accepted by national government agencies. Local government still needs to be positively involved in the planning process.     

Capital Gains and Spatial Inequalities: Developing Fairer Suburbs

One of the longest‐running debates in urban development, enshrined within the evolution of the British planning system, is how best to capture the increased value of land arising from development. This article outlines the historic and contemporary context before proposing an approach towards ‘land value capture’, based on practice in continental Europe but adapted to Britain's specific circumstances. In doing so, it also sets out why new approaches are needed as part of the search for better ways of funding local infrastructure, developing mixed communities and improving Britain's suburbs for the benefit of all.     

The housing system of the former Soviet Union: Why do the soviets need housing markets?

Abstract

The administrative‐command system that had been in full force in the Soviet Union between 1927 and 1990 had its own logic and internal consistency. It is now common knowledge that this economic system has flaws that led to a deepening secular decline over the past three decades. Because of ideological reasons, and an inadequate economic understanding of the capacity of their system to be liberalized, many reformers sought a third way between central planning and markets. The consensus today is that there is no third way. Among the former Soviet republics, Russia has just embarked on market‐oriented reforms and is facing a difficult and unstable transition because central planning mechanisms have ceased to function, but markets are not yet in place. This transition is particularly problematic for housing, which is a very severely distorted economic sector.

The international evidence on market economies that has accumulated over the past 20 years shows that, when housing sector distortions exist, they are predominantly found on the supply side. In socialist economies, however, housing is part of the compensation provided by enterprises and other employers. As a result housing suffers from demand‐side distortions in addition to the supply‐side problems caused by the absence of land markets, vague property rights, and burdensome urban regulations. The housing sector is already so large and distorted in these highly urban economies that overall economic reforms cannot succeed without housing reforms. In addition to presenting an overview of Soviet housing, this paper provides comparative evidence indicating that, among all the distorted socialist housing systems, Russia's probably is the most impaired. The basic elements of a market‐oriented strategy to improve housing are briefly presented.     

我国城市土地出让制度的缺陷分析及其完善

目前我国的城市土地出让制度存在法律法规不健全、四种出让方式均易引发诸多弊端、土地出让过程缺乏有效监管以及出让金制度不完善四大缺陷。反映到具体实践中,则突出表现为城市土地出让过程中的权力寻租、"土地财政"、不公平竞争等一系列问题。必须从健全法律法规体系、完善土地产权制度、规范土地出让行为、改革土地出让金制度、加强土地领域廉政建设等方面,进一步改进和完善城市土地出让制度,使之更加适应城市化发展和经济结构调整的需要。     

Least-Cost Planning and Electricity Industry Reform in Australia

Least-Cost Planning played a key role in the development of the energy efficiency and renewable energy industries in the USA. It has not been widely used elsewhere, largely due to differences in other nations' regulatory environments and the emergence of competitive markets as the dominant paradigm for electricity planning. Least-Cost Planning, however, may offer valuable insights for creating regulatory frameworks for competitive electricity markets. This paper examines some lessons which may be extracted from an analysis of the Least-Cost Planning experience in the USA and suggests how these lessons might prove beneficial in guiding Australia's electricity industry reform. This analysis demonstrates how market-based reforms may be flawed if they ignore the history of previous reform processes.