The Three Most Exciting Trends In Planning

I just completed a term as president of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP). One of the nice things about the job is that you get invited to annual meetings of chapters and to various universities that teach planning and want to know what's going on out in the field. As a result of all these invitations, I've spoken to many planners all over the country. The following are my observations about the ideas that now seem to be animating the profession. These observations and comments are my own, and may not reflect the views of the AICP.

The Environment

First, planners are now deeply concerned about the environment. In the 1960s and 1970s, environmental concerns led to national and state legislation on environmental protection that completely transformed planning. These laws lent legal status to groups that were formerly excluded from challenging planning and development decisions. The laws also required extensive data gathering and analysis to assess the environmental impacts of proposed developments. This "quiet revolution" in the environment has empowered citizen and organized environmental groups and created a very substantial new demand for planners, many of whom now spend much of their time writing Environmental Impact Reports. It is fair to say that much of the increase in APA's membership (from about 15,000 in 1985 to about 30,000 today) can be attributed to interest in the environment. "Green" is now part of every planner's vocabulary.

New Urbanism

Second, planners are deeply involved in the "New Urbanism" and are now much more interested in the smaller-scale than the monumental. Le Corbusier is out; Andres Duany and Peter Calthorpe are in. Journalist/polemicists like James H. Kunstler are being invited to planning and design meetings. This is somewhat awkward since planners write zoning ordinances and, in the lexicon of the "New Urbanism", Euclidian zoning is responsible for the decline of the central cities, suburban sprawl, traffic congestion and virtually every disaster in contemporary America. One writer in the NY Times, following the Littleton, Colorado school massacre, implied that teen-age problems of alienation and anomie could be traced to insensitive suburban design. No doubt the "New Urbanism" will be oversold and likely will do little for distressed central cities or poor neighborhoods, but the concept has already achieved a tremendous [opular response among planners, architects and developers and is likely to make a significant difference to future development patterns.

Urban Planning As A Business

Third, many planners seem to be fascinated with the current scientific business and management literature popularized in such books at Reinventing Government and In Search of Excellence. In this perspective, government should be run more like a business (which business? the steel business, the S&L business, the airline business??). Citizens are "customers" who are to be "empowered" and planners are "managers". Well, we all applaud the idea of empowerment and accountability and the idea of a citizen as a customer may improve the responsiveness of planning. All to the good. But governments do more than provide goods and services; they also enforce obligations and punish violators. Are jailed prisoners "customers" of the justice system? Are taxpayers "empowered" to choose whether to pay their taxes or not? And do planners simply provide goods and services to their "customers" or do they frequently have to tell their customers that they may not do some of the things that they really want to do like: build in the wetlands, cut down the redwoods, and racially discriminate.

But Are We Missing The Point?

All of these issues are important and interesting, but one thing that seems to be in short supply in our noble profession is a long-term vision of a better city or a better society, which is, after all, the purpose of planning. It seems to me that planning must recapture its reformist roots and its vision of a better future. Without such a vision, lots of what passes for planning today is not much more than an exercise in business administration, strengthening the already powerful hand of business and politics as usual. In my view, the overall objective of planning should be to assure that the basic requirements of life: adequate food, shelter, medical care, jobs and a healthful environment for all Americans should exist. Sure, we should work closely with business and politics, but we cannot lose sight in our work of the fundamental need for equity and respect for the broadest public interest.

What do you think?

Norman Krumholz is a 20-year planning practitioner and professor at Cleveland State University. He was formerly president of American Planning Association (1987) and the American Institute of Certified Planners (1999-2001).