Niraj Verma

Pragmatic Rationality and Planning Theory

Can rationality and pragmatism be integrated? By responding to some of the most compelling arguments against the rational paradigm, this paper uses the pragmatism of William James to construct a new notion of pragmatic rationality in planning. This rationality looks towards consequences rather than causes, integrates facts and values, and rejects the search for ultimate foundations.

Metaphor and Analogy as Elements of a Theory of Similarity for Planning

Making innovative relationships and generating creative ideas are important for planning. In this paper I examine metaphor and analogy as sources for creative ideas and examine the difficulties in instrumentalizing them as methods of planning. By tracing metaphor and analogy to their epistemological roots I show that these difficulties are overcome by using similarity as a framework for thinking about planning. An explicit idea of similarity legitimates the examination of key relationships and opens up issues in planning. The discussion suggests a teleologically driven search for similarities among different fields of inquiry and cautions against over reliance on Newtonian morphological thinking in planning. The argument is exemplified by the war on poverty metaphor in American public policy.

Communicative Action and the Network Society A Pragmatic Marriage

How might Castells’s theory of the network society influence planning? The authors argue that while there is much to learn from Castells, the idea of a network society does not warrant a fundamental revision of planning theory. Rather, it reinforces the scope and relevance of Habermasian communicative action and American pragmatism, ideas that are already recognized within planning.

What is Planning Practice? The Search for Suitable Categories

Lang, J. 1983. Teaching planning to city planning students. An argument for the studio/workshop approach. Journal of Planning Education and Research 2:122-129. Lauber, D. 1993. The more things change... Journal of the American Planning Association 59:486. Lusk, P., and M. Kantrowitz. 1990. Teaching students to become effective planners through communication: A planning communications studio. Journal of Planning Education and Research 10:55-59. Mier, R. 1986. Academe and the community: Some impediments of professional practice. Journal of Planning Education and Research 6:66-70. Orlick, S. C. 1993. Justifying the value of a formal planning education. Environment and Planning B 20:499-510. Rabinovitz, F. 1989. The role of negotiation in planning, management, and policy analysis. Journal of Planning Education and Research 8:87-95. Susskind, L. E., and C. Ozawa. 1984. Mediated negotiation in the public section. Journal of Planning Education and Research 4:5-15. Toulmin,S. 1992. Cosmopolis. The Hidden Agenda of Modernity . Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.

Got perspective? A theoretical view of fiscal impact analysis

In what has been described as a magisterial account of planning, John Friedmann (1987: 36) took the task of planning theory to solve ‘the meta-theoretical problem of how to make technical knowledge in planning effective in informing public actions’. Failure to do so, he argued, would mean that ‘planners will end up talking only to themselves and eventually will become irrelevant’. In this essay we want to argue that despite significant advances in planning theory since Friedmann threw down the gauntlet, a fundamental tension exists between technical knowledge and its role in public action and that this tension endures because of a lack of clarity of the relationship between the two. Allow us to explain. Planning knowledge is different from most other technical knowledge in that it cannot be first generated and then applied. As Donald Schon (1983) was teaching us, about the same time that Friedmann posed his challenge, rather than first reflect and then act, the epistemology of planning must cultivate the idea of reflection in action. In our view the lack of clarity is about the difference between the two positions: a) planning as connection between knowledge and action and b) planning as reflection in action (Verma, 1998a). The former accents the kind of public participation, outreach, consensus building, communication, and other approaches that have dominated the planning landscape. The latter demands, however, epistemological redress. It challenges us to bring concerns of the public at the level of knowledge generation. What does this mean when faced with fairly technical issues of models and methods? After all it is not prudent to expect the public to participate at that level and if broad outreach happens it is likely to be either by experts with technical knowledge or might include bystanders who would falsely legitimate the effort without contributing useful input. In our view, the solution to the problem lies at the level of planning research and pedagogy and we will argue that it warrants an Article

Open Moral Communities and the Myth of the Armchair Theorist

How can planning theory be simultaneously expansive and manageable? By adapting Mandelbaum’s Open Moral Communities, this article argues that myths like the armchair theorist help to enlarge the scope of planning by connecting diverse communities of scholars. The moral imperative ensures that myths remain myths.

Reviews : How To Think About Social Problems. American Pragmatism and the Idea of Planning Hilda Blanco Greenwood Press, Westport, Conneticut, 1994. 240 Pages.

concrete suggestions emanate from it? In what ways might philosophy improve professional practice? Hilda Blanco does not shy away from these questions. How to Think About Social Problems is an aggressive advocacy of Deweyinspired pragmatism. We need pragmatism, claims Blanco, because the alternative is to be contained within an empiricist philosophy which suggests a natural-science approach to planning. By asking, &dquo;which philosophy,&dquo; rather than &dquo;whether philosophy,&dquo; Blanco turns the tables on her would-be critics. She forces us to confront the thought that conventional planning practice is not without a philosophy; it may have tied itself to an unsophisticated philosophy. The argument runs something like this. Planning is distinguished because of the special nature of the difficulties encountered in its practice. These difficulties are distinctive because the philosophy of empiricism which dominates our thinking has not found ways to deal with them. Unlike empiricism, however, pragmatism is a philosophy of the everyday life-world. Its theory of meaning, for instance, makes the possibility of intervention and action the guiding principle for cognition. Pragmatism, Blanco concludes, recognizes the special difficulties that planners face and so it presents a viable philosophy for planning. Just what are these distinctive difficulties? The difficulties that Blanco focuses on are largely epistemological. Relying extensively on Rittel and Webber’s paper on &dquo;wicked problems,&dquo; Blanco interprets this as a challenge to the rational tradition that planners know well. Planning problems have