This article in the Journal of Planning Education and Research (free for the month of February only apparently) is a nice review of planning theory. It amazes me that the profession of planning seems to be so unsure of itself, and yet has so many important theories and tools to offer to other disciplines. There is a lot of planning going on outside the small field of academically trained urban and regional planning. I like to think of planning as similar to mathematics – it’s a profession for a few, but its theories and tools are used every day by professionals across many fields. Many of us can do moderately complex math by ourselves, and we know we can call on the mathematicians and statisticians for help with the really complex stuff. Similarly, a lot of professionals like engineers and economists are entrusted with the keys to the planning machine. But often, we do it badly because we are not well trained in the theory and tools of planning.

Almost all professionals – planners, engineers, and economists at a minimum – would benefit from better education in general systems theory – what the building blocks of systems are, how they interact with their boundaries, and how their behavior over time is driven by their structure and interaction with boundary conditions, and how they can be manipulated to achieve desired outcomes. Among the professions, engineers and economists probably have the best understanding of systems today, but we tend to define the system boundaries, and the range of desired outcomes that can be achieved, much too narrowly. That is one place planners can come in – facilitating the interaction between technocratic problem solving being done by engineers and economists with the larger socio-economic and environmental context.

What I call “technocratic problem solving” here is essentially what the planners call “rational-comprehensive” planning. In my view, it works very well for the elements of systems that we understand well (managing water resources, food production, and employment, for example). Where it has come under criticism (for example, the failed “urban renewal” programs in the U.S.), I believe the problem is not in the approach, but rather applying the approach to systems we do not understand well has given us a false sense of precision and a false confidence, which has led to failure. A hybrid approach that works very well, in my experience with water resource and environmental planning, is to apply the rational-comprehensive approach to the parts of the system we understand well, and then feed the results into a stakeholder or political process that can deal with the social aspects of the system we understand much less well. Planners can play the critical role in making this process reach a functional outcome. This is how I like to think of the planning profession – as the critical glue that can hold together a coalition of engineers, economists, bureaucrats, businesspeople, interest groups, and members of the public into a coherent whole that can set a direction for our society, then continue to guide it with incremental course adjustments as we go forward.