Seminar 6: Anglo-American Town Planning Theory since 1945: Three Significant Developments but no Paradigm Shifts

Both the reading and the seminar for this week were very interesting. One of the main ideas that the presenters put forward was four major shifts in planning. These were; planners looked less at the physical and actually looked at towns or cities in the perspective that they are always in flux. The second shift was that planners look more deeply at social and economic activity of a built environment. Thirdly that plans should be a live process not an end of state blue print. Cities and towns must be planned for continuing change. Lastly there should be much stronger look at people and not just the physical environment. Planners must always remember that people are the fundamental entity of what you are planning for. The presenters and the reading also looked at normative and scientific theory. Normative theory is all about value and is subjective. The phrase “what should be” comes to mind when using normative theory. On the other hand scientific theory is all about being objective, the phrase “what is” comes to mind when using scientific theory.

The seminar also had a guest speaker who discussed social policy planning. Three interesting words came up in the seminar which were co-production, co-implementation and co-evaluation. All of these words recognise the need for the involvement of the public when making plans for something. The guest speaker also gave us a structure on the process of developing a plan. This involved six steps that were discover, interpret, vision, prototype, design and implement. Each of these steps were interesting showing a process of planning. I thought that both the guest speaker and the other presenters of this seminar were really interesting and intriguing.