Difference between revisions of "Anarchy 83/Planners and protesters"
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Their stock-in-trade is abstract planning technique, theoretically applicable in any city (justifying the trek from city to city in search of higher pay and prestige) but of proven usefulness in none. According to a leader in the profession, Prof. Lloyd Rodwin of M.I.T., in a pamphlet, ''The Roles of the City Planner in the Community'', {{qq|The city planner is the professional advisor and diagnostician on the physical environment of the city—especially on the problems and on the methods of making and of establishing a framework for public and private decisions affecting the physical environment.}} | Their stock-in-trade is abstract planning technique, theoretically applicable in any city (justifying the trek from city to city in search of higher pay and prestige) but of proven usefulness in none. According to a leader in the profession, Prof. Lloyd Rodwin of M.I.T., in a pamphlet, ''The Roles of the City Planner in the Community'', {{qq|The city planner is the professional advisor and diagnostician on the physical environment of the city—especially on the problems and on the methods of making and of establishing a framework for public and private decisions affecting the physical environment.}} | ||
| − | Turgid as this may seem, it is a comparatively straightforward statement from a group obsessed with defining itself professionally. But what sort of special education and skills (other than those of lawyers, architects, economists—who Rodwin assures us city planners definitely are ''not'') are required for this {{qq|professional advisor}}? The planning fraternity’s criteria, although displayed as profoundly technical, are actually equal to general education and general skills, accompanied by a willingness to accept jargon in place of meaning and to spend tedious days using an adding machine or coloring maps. The graduate curriculum in city planning is a miscellany of economics, sociology, architecture and map-making, in too many instances taught at freshman level. Two years of it plus some familiarity with the latest gadgetry<!-- 'gadgetary' in original --> of computerdom may crush any idealistic notions a student has about planning cities, but it will get him a Master of City Planning (M.C.P.) degree. The academic requirements and the output of the graduates of courses in city and regional planning (the full title preferred in graduate schools) suggest that planning is a pseudo-profession, without specialized skills or a unique discipline. | + | Turgid as this may seem, it is a comparatively straightforward statement from a group obsessed with defining itself professionally. But what sort of special education and skills (other than those of lawyers, architects, economists—who Rodwin assures us city planners definitely are ''not'') are required for this {{qq|professional advisor}}? The planning fraternity’s criteria, although displayed as profoundly technical, are actually equal to general education and general skills, accompanied by a willingness to accept jargon in place of meaning and to spend tedious days using an adding machine or coloring maps. The graduate curriculum in city planning is a miscellany of economics, sociology, architecture and map-making, in too many instances taught at freshman level. Two years of it plus some familiarity with the latest gadgetry<!-/- 'gadgetary' in original -/-> of computerdom may crush any idealistic notions a student has about planning cities, but it will get him a Master of City Planning (M.C.P.) degree. The academic requirements and the output of the graduates of courses in city and regional planning (the full title preferred in graduate schools) suggest that planning is a pseudo-profession, without specialized skills or a unique discipline. |
Richard May, Jr., a member of the Board of Governors of the American Institute of Planners (A.I.P.), told a public meeting in January 1966 that {{qq|we at the A.I.P. are trying to decide what it is that planners do, and what we do that others don’t}}. (They have been trying since the A.I.P. was founded in 1917.) May was dismayed that {{qq|our profession has failed to give to the press and to the public at large the idea that we have a way of analyzing and dealing with the problems of the city}}. The failure, however, is not in press or public relations, but in the fantasy of a planners’ special {{qq|way}}. | Richard May, Jr., a member of the Board of Governors of the American Institute of Planners (A.I.P.), told a public meeting in January 1966 that {{qq|we at the A.I.P. are trying to decide what it is that planners do, and what we do that others don’t}}. (They have been trying since the A.I.P. was founded in 1917.) May was dismayed that {{qq|our profession has failed to give to the press and to the public at large the idea that we have a way of analyzing and dealing with the problems of the city}}. The failure, however, is not in press or public relations, but in the fantasy of a planners’ special {{qq|way}}. | ||
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This kind of bombast is the specialty of the planners’ professional quarterly, the ''A.I.P. Journal''. Representative is an article by Prof. Melvin Webber (City Planning faculty, University of California, Berkeley), {{qq|The Roles of Intelligence Systems in Urban Systems Planning}}, in the November 1965 issue. Webber predicts {{qq|a new injection of scientific morality}} into urban affairs when computerized {{qq|data banks}} or {{qq|intelligence centers}} are set up. In his wonderful world {{qq|academic types find themselves shuttling back and forth, with increasing frequency, between classroom and White House, state house, city hall, and corporation executive suite. Once admitted to these high councils, it is unavoidable that they identify to new sets of peers. …}} Penetrate Webber’s gibberish (e.g. {{qq|increased understanding of urban processes is depreciating product-perception of cityness}}) and find steadfast acceptance of the myth of easy-going pluralism in existing local government and a roseate view of the future—if only we allow a {{qq|saturation of scientific talent into urban affairs}}. | This kind of bombast is the specialty of the planners’ professional quarterly, the ''A.I.P. Journal''. Representative is an article by Prof. Melvin Webber (City Planning faculty, University of California, Berkeley), {{qq|The Roles of Intelligence Systems in Urban Systems Planning}}, in the November 1965 issue. Webber predicts {{qq|a new injection of scientific morality}} into urban affairs when computerized {{qq|data banks}} or {{qq|intelligence centers}} are set up. In his wonderful world {{qq|academic types find themselves shuttling back and forth, with increasing frequency, between classroom and White House, state house, city hall, and corporation executive suite. Once admitted to these high councils, it is unavoidable that they identify to new sets of peers. …}} Penetrate Webber’s gibberish (e.g. {{qq|increased understanding of urban processes is depreciating product-perception of cityness}}) and find steadfast acceptance of the myth of easy-going pluralism in existing local government and a roseate view of the future—if only we allow a {{qq|saturation of scientific talent into urban affairs}}. | ||
| − | Another article in the same ''A.I.P. Journal'' is {{qq|Urban Policy in the Rationalized Society}} by Donald Michael. He foresees<!-- 'forsees' in original --> (and seem to favor) government by {{qq|top-flight professionals and managers}} rather than any increase in participatory democracy as the fruit of automation. Planners seem to approve the old spoils system, so long as professionals are the new victors; they look forward with Michael to {{qq|fewer jobs for the untrained and unskilled political appointees as their jobs are eliminated through rationalization and as remaining jobs become increasingly meshed with apolitical special purpose agencies and authorities}}. But some of the most skilled men in government today are political appointees. And agencies and authorities, as well as city planning boards and commissions, are ''never'' apolitical; their politics, unfortunately, are hidden by the complications of revenue bond financing and by the decisions of {{qq|eminent citizens}}, rather than open to public debate and legislative action. | + | Another article in the same ''A.I.P. Journal'' is {{qq|Urban Policy in the Rationalized Society}} by Donald Michael. He foresees<!-/- 'forsees' in original -/-> (and seem to favor) government by {{qq|top-flight professionals and managers}} rather than any increase in participatory democracy as the fruit of automation. Planners seem to approve the old spoils system, so long as professionals are the new victors; they look forward with Michael to {{qq|fewer jobs for the untrained and unskilled political appointees as their jobs are eliminated through rationalization and as remaining jobs become increasingly meshed with apolitical special purpose agencies and authorities}}. But some of the most skilled men in government today are political appointees. And agencies and authorities, as well as city planning boards and commissions, are ''never'' apolitical; their politics, unfortunately, are hidden by the complications of revenue bond financing and by the decisions of {{qq|eminent citizens}}, rather than open to public debate and legislative action. |
Once power is abdicated to these agencies they fight its return to popularly elected officials as fiercely as police departments resist civilian review boards. Mayor Lindsay is discovering this in New York in his efforts to merge Robert Moses’ Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority with the New York City Transit Authority into a single Transportation Administration in which the Mayor would be influential. The semi-autonomous New York City Planning Commission, as yet unable to produce the master plan assigned to it in 1938, would also benefit from Mayoral domination. Elected mayors and city councils of any city would not be infallible as city planners of their constituencies, but are preferable to an aristocracy of professionals like the one anticipated in Michael’s planned new world where: {{qq|the top-level decision-making professional will have to seek intensively for wisdom all his life}}; but elsewhere {{qq|apathy will be a typical response, and so will large and small protest actions based on an appealing to the emotions}}. With this kind of Big-Brother-Knows-Best vision (endemic among planners) it is no wonder that in Michael’s cool calculus of the acceptable future {{qq|Viet-Nam type wars likely will be a continuing drain on resources}}. | Once power is abdicated to these agencies they fight its return to popularly elected officials as fiercely as police departments resist civilian review boards. Mayor Lindsay is discovering this in New York in his efforts to merge Robert Moses’ Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority with the New York City Transit Authority into a single Transportation Administration in which the Mayor would be influential. The semi-autonomous New York City Planning Commission, as yet unable to produce the master plan assigned to it in 1938, would also benefit from Mayoral domination. Elected mayors and city councils of any city would not be infallible as city planners of their constituencies, but are preferable to an aristocracy of professionals like the one anticipated in Michael’s planned new world where: {{qq|the top-level decision-making professional will have to seek intensively for wisdom all his life}}; but elsewhere {{qq|apathy will be a typical response, and so will large and small protest actions based on an appealing to the emotions}}. With this kind of Big-Brother-Knows-Best vision (endemic among planners) it is no wonder that in Michael’s cool calculus of the acceptable future {{qq|Viet-Nam type wars likely will be a continuing drain on resources}}. | ||
Revision as of 11:03, 13 April 2016
As with housing, so with town planning. The ordinary citizen has hardly any control over the urban environment, and is not expected to want any. It is a matter for the authorities, working in secrecy and presenting the citizens with a fait accompli. The problem, and the possibility of action were discussed in anarchy 41 by Robert Swann in a remarkable article “Direct Action and the Urban Environment”. Here David Gurin examines it, again in an American context.
Planners and protesters
DAVID GURIN’s paper was read to the Conference on Radicals in the Professions at Ann Arbor, Michigan, in July last year. He is a New Yorker with a master’s degree in City Planning from Harvard.
