Mitchell Silver's passionate defense of planning has earned admirers in England, where "a deflated planning profession is on the defensive". Peter Hetherington looks at Silver's advice for how English planners can show their value to skeptics.
"Last month, at a centenary congress of the International Federation of Housing and Planning in London, Silver effectively called for a reborn planning system with people at its heart and equity as the watchword," writes Hetherington. Planning in England is currently "on the back foot" due to a combination of top-down control, drastic budget cuts, and a reputation as being "unadventurous and obstructive".
"Why, then, has planning got such a bad name in England? Everyone, he says, is looking for a villain. 'But what I understand is that there are tens of thousands of [planning] permissions out there yet to be developed. First question: why are they still on the books? Is it the planners or the lending institutions? Second, planners have to show their value, talk very differently about how they create jobs, the economy, and not just focus on the regulations.'"
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