In these terms developers, conservationists and planners are gatekeepers and
stakeholders positioned to influence community outcomes. To wield power they
must be on their guard against tautology, fabrication, meaninglessness and dis-
tortion, showing a willingness to fashion what Schneekloth and Shibley (1995: 7)
depict as a dialogic space ‘focussing attention on what is part of the dialogue and
what stands outside’.
Aside from the attainment of social goals in the fishbowl of public interests,
faith has to be also placed in both ‘new technology’ and ‘old market’ principles
side by side. This is rather like decreeing that the solution to fiscal woes is bothto
raise internal interest rates with a view to attracting outside investment, andto
lower interest rates with a view to encouraging local investment! Both are desir-
able, but neither can be brought into line with the other at the same time. With
sustainable urban planning, there cannot be absolution by further technological
advances coupled to the free market. Nor of course can technology and the market
be expected to work together, unfettered, for a balanced future. The required path
implicates the empowerment of a neomodern style of planning in the public
domain, performing a social service for the common good in the public interest.
In those terms it is mission-directed, and in a sense this passage is a mission state-
ment, setting out to identify capabilities for mediating the connection between an
empowered humankind and a mostly unprotected ecology. In accordance with
democratic beliefs, it reasons through rules for enabling the emergence of a new
enlightenment. This calls into being a multi-lineal discourse which meets social
needs, is in harmony with nature, and is neomodern in that it exhibits ‘con-
nectability’, ‘sustainability’ and ‘cyclicity’.
Planners, either or both as conservationist or development
specialists, have drawn on the theories of others in commercial,
military, academic and industrial disciplines to underpin their
philosophical attitude and theoretical approach. So much so
that there now exists a confusion of received theories, meanings
and processes, of which only a token few can be identified as
having helpful operational influence for practising urban
and regional planners. Figure 2.2, given as The planning
franchise: a listing, is a dual categorization of most of the
development-led and socially focused approaches. Some other
theory listings are appended as fringe oddities difficult to
categorize.
Adding to the confusion of a world embroiled in technological change is the
number of confusing theories on development and conservation. That is not all,
for the world also experienced an anti-planning lurch during the 1980s (with a
1990s counter-check); and the OECD hegemony has seen off the communist
ideology and created a discourse which now includes environmentalism and
sustainability. Thus the matter of operational principle begs a major question – in
accordance with what theory-logic? Certainly not by means of a review of the 40-
odd units of theory knowledge listed in figure 2.2! A sort-out of understanding is
called for.
Knowledge Power Outcomes 45For an overview there is
Barclay Hudson’s (1979)
scoping of American
normative planning
theories under the
SITAR rubric ‘Synoptic,
Incremental, Transactive,
Advocacy and Radical’;
refer also to Susan
Fainstein and Scott
Campbell’s Readings in
Urban Theory(1996).