Seymour J. Mandelbaum

A complete general theory of planning is impossible

The essay defines the domain of planning theory and proposes two criteria—brevity and neutrality — for a prime table displaying the basic propositions of a complete general theory. I argue—on sociological rather than on formal epistemological grounds—that these two criteria cannot be met simultaneously. Even the most aggressive development of the policy sciences is not likely, therefore, to culminate in a complete general theory of planning.

The Institutional Focus of Planning Theory

There is a good deal of talk these days about the ways in which planning theoreticians have neglected practice and practitioners. Some of the talk comes from practitioners, some from theoreticians themselves. This essay reflects on this talk, discerning a coherent theme in the varied chorus of complaints The conventional image that planning theory deals with the interaction between planners and clients no longer seems compelling. In the place of this dyadic image, theoreticians have focused attention on the planning processes embedded in the design of institutions This institutional focus powerfully illuminates the work of practitioners but also looks past them to groups and issues that were barely touched when planning theory dealt with the familiar dyad of planner and client. In the eyes of practitioners and academic colleagues, the community is likely to continue to seem both fragmented and neglectful — riddled with great rifts of incommensurable purposes, language, and analytic models

Cities and communication: The limits of community☆

The synthetic idea of an urban communication infrastructure and policy agenda has not entered deeply into political discussions or practice in the USA. It has been blocked by a reluctance to treat cities as deep communities of mutual obligation. This article discusses the role of communication as part of the technical infrastructure of urban life.

Making and breaking planning tools

Abstract This essay provides a preliminary sketch of the process of converting planning instruments into tools and then of breaking or at least reforming those tools. Lifting the lid on the (mythical) planners toolkit, I see instruments in one compartment that may (or may not) become tools; in another, tools that (tomorrow or the day after) may no longer command agreement as to their shape, performance or relevance. Read as a text, the kit is an account of countless arguments and layered symbolic adjustments. This stylized account of making and breaking is grounded in an account of the set of tools designed to represent hazards as risks and of the ways in which toolmakers are perforce drawn into the design of institutions.

Claiming Rights Warily

Planners concerned with cultivating the moral capacity of local commu nities should be wary of claiming rights that stem from deontological principles or from the norms of superordinate associations.

What is Philadelphia?: The city as polity☆

Abstract This article examines definitions of Philadelphia — and, by implication, of all cities. The author assesses definitions of the city as a set of persons, an economy and a community. He argues that these common definitions presuppose political assumptions and institutions. He proceeds to analyse the concept of Philadelphia as a polity within the US federal system and concludes by arguing that the most cogent definition treats the city as a coporate polity; as a political unit behaving as a firm.

The Design of the Designing Community

Some of us, like weekend gardeners, attend to the flowers and inevitable weeds of telecommunications evaluation and planning only in time squeezed from other activities. Others, make their living at these tasks. Weekend or weekday — all of our work is channeled by the processes of a community as palpable as those we seek to enhance through the application of telecommunication technologies. The purpose of this paper is to assess this “designing community” of which we are all members. I might be on sounder empirical grounds if I described the firms, agencies, professional associations and individuals engaged in telecommunications design as forming multiple communities. I’ve settled on the singular form in order to emphasize the political hope that they may be able to communicate more fully in the future.

Reviews : The American Planner: Biographies and Recollections Donald Krueckeberg, Editor Center for Urban Policy Research, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1994, 2nd edition.

The rhetoric of choice masks these systemic dynamics. Here, as in the use of race, Beauregard at times lets the discourse use him, reproducing the politics his analysis shows when he talks, for example, about people choosing to move to the suburbs, rather than emphasizing the contexts in which those choices were produced. There is a similar drawback in Beauregard’s concentration on Northeastern cities. Southern and Western cities