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Readings in Planning Theory Scott Campbell & Susan Fainstein (Eds) Oxford, Blackwell, 1996, L16.99 pb, ISBN 1-55786-613-9
Readings in Planning Theory is an edited collection of works which traces the development of modern planning from its early foundations to contemporary paradigms. A clear benefit for the non-initiated is its relatively concise (abridged) and balanced arrangement of chapters, promising a lack of turgidity which so many texts in the same genre fail to deliver.
The book begins with the acceptance that planning theory is an "elusive subject"(p. 1); the stated aims of the text are to define a frame of reference for the subject area and, within this frame, to establish the principal issues impacting upon planning practice and theory. Through these aims, the editors set themselves the task of defining a clearer role for planning by determining "the historical and contextual influences and strategic opportunities that shape the capacity of planners to affect the urban and regional environment" (p. 2).
Planning theory has, according to the editors, two locations; first (and theoretically) "at the intersection between political economy and intellectual history" and second (and pragmatically) at the intersection between "city as phenomenon and planning as human activity". In these locations, planning theory can be viewed as a logical series of debates. In the first part of the text (Chapters 2 to 5), theory is explored as 'identity' defined through the course of history with recognizable starting points (e.g. the turn-of-the-century urban Utopias of Howard and Le Corbusier). The coverage of material in these four chapters seeks to encourage a reflective and critical understanding of more current debates and demonstrates that...