| Author | Andreas Faludi |
| Publisher | Pergamon |
| language | English |
| Book Type | Paperback |
| ISBN | 0-08-017066-8 |
| Pages | 399 |
Andreas Faludi wrote many papers and books, including A Reader in Planning Theory. Andreas Faludi was born in 1940, Budapest, Hungary. A professor emeritus of Spatial Policy Systems in Europe. He graduated from Vienna University of Technology after studying architecture, urban planning, and Phd degree.
The author worked in many fields, like research centers, Municipalities, the Ministry of Finance, and planning services agencies. Provided consultant advice to councils in the EU and the USA. In the academic field, he supervised 25 PhDs. A practitioner and academic in the field of urban planning, gained an Australian-European Fellowship (1984), a Fulbright Scholar (1984-5 and 2000).
Recognized locally and internationally for his publications in planning policy. His books are best-selling books like: Cohesion, Coherence, co-operation_ European spatial planning coming of age_ -Routledge (2010), The Making of the European Spatial Development Perspective_ No Masterplan, Rule and Order Dutch Planning Doctrine in the Twentieth Century-Springer Netherlands (1994), Evaluating Theory-Practice and Urban-Rural Interplay in Planning-Spring, Flexibility and Commitment in Planning.
From the book title, I could conclude that the author targeted audience and readers mainly from the planning field, whether academics or practitioners. But going through the book and reading it carefully, I see it could serve several audiences. A list of readers could include architect- planners. The author shows how the planning officials in various contexts EU and, USA deal with resource allocation. And how they divert resources towards urban development. Adding to that, the architect-planner benefits from going deep into the application process and approvals of project planning applications and decision-making. Planners, though, Andreas shows a lot of debate about the definition of planner, benefit from the study and analysis of the UK, USA planning systems from practitioner and academic views. And the detailed plan making, process, methods, and decision making related to the public sector and its employees. Adding to that, how to overcome the failures and defects in planning practice. Social science individuals also benefit from the studies about the involvement of data collection and analysis concerning various planning methods and political orientations. Individuals from law and political science could find deep knowledge about the public policy building, creation, and approval process. Methods that assist in building public policy according to various political systems. Any individual from the public involved directly in the planning process, a member of the community who participates in building a community development plan, could find the book beneficial.
Andreas divided his book to focus on several dimensions related to planning, specifically in the UK, USA, and Germany.
First, defining planning and the difference between the theory of planning and the theory in planning. He presents three points of distinction between them, evidence of the generality of the phenomenon of planning. Planning policy relation to the planning process and decision-making. Planner’s utilization of the planning process to change the human environment.
Second, theories of planning (UK, USA, Germany) and the propositions of planning theory. They include the subject matter of planning, the purpose of planning, elements of planning interaction and the composition of the planning act. The effect of the theory application in terms of how decisions are made, distribution of benefit and cost, priorities of investment, and public resources directed to high social payoff. He focused on comprehensive planning theory in general and the relation of theory to politics.
Third, the process of planning and how planners build ends and means in planning. The decision-making process in the presence of a conflict of ends. The problems in organizations in terms of work and their effect on the planning process. For example, organizations do not specify a course of action. Organizations do not consider fundamental alternatives.
Fourth, methods and approaches of planning the incrementalist approach, the muddling through approach, and the mixed scanning approach. Showing each of these approaches’ characteristics and their effect on the decision-making process and plan-making within the planning process. And why some of these approaches are rejected in the planning practice.
Fifth, in various areas of the book, Andreas focused on the analysis and discussion of the failures and defects of the UK planning and political systems. He presents the failures and defects of the three types of plans: the long-range, the middle-range, and the short-range. He provides a solution for the success of the long-range plan.
Sixth, education in the UK and its failures and defects, and its effect on the planning system. Comparison study and analysis of the city planning in America and its minor defects. He provides a solution to the education system in the UK.
Seventh, who are the planners from different perspectives? What is their weakness? And presents and analyzes the planner in practice as bureaucrats, advocates, innovators, and politicians.
Finally, a reader will recognize the destruction and the contradiction not only in planning education, planning research, and planning practice but the planning system and the results achieved. A planner is defined in thousands of ways. Planning is related to most professions like economics, environment, politics, geography, psychology, management, human behavior, medical science, architecture, and engineering fields, which makes planning impossible to judge, gauge, measure, analyze, evaluate, and predict for the future is like infinity.
In every part of the planning theory and methods, there exists a huge amount of research. For example, theory of planning and the theory in planning, here the proposition IN and OF researchers, because of them, give a huge amount of meaning depending on their perspective and how they interpret the words surrounding them. That makes planning education, planning work, and related activities almost impossible to achieve the targeted results and goals.
The political system, specifically in the UK and the democratic system of presenting views and criticism, makes planning extremely hard and more complex when considering public participation, where a specialty does not exist. Thousands of views and opinions presented by the public need to be studied and discussed within the planning process. Here, the political system in the UK has led to the destruction and a wide range of contradictions in the planning practice, where the built plans do not reach their goals and achieve nothing.
Here I present questions about the facets of planning: which one of the primary or secondary facets is non-predictable? Where does uncertainty lie in the equation of planning? If there is uncertainty, why are we planning?
Andreas, in his introduction, informs the reader that he wants to draw the reader’s attention to the distinction between the theory of planning and theory in planning. He will focus on presenting the normative and positive or behavioral theory of planning. The author will present and review many essays related to the question of what is planning theory.
The book combines the main subjects of planning theory with the planning systems in the UK, USA, and Germany. He reviews the application of theories, methods, and approaches in decision making of plan making and the planning process. The author shows the failures and defects of applying theory in the planning systems and identifies the problem that led to failure. Andreas, in deep review based on his experience as a practitioner and professor, provides solutions to the defects pointed out in the book. In this way, he raises the practitioner’s knowledge and experience about practice problems to serve him in his career.
In part one, the author reviews what is planning theory. He discusses all the planning process and how related individuals and professionals build a plan and conduct planning. Part two, the idea of planning, defines the idea of planning and jumps to review and analyse of the UK planning system and its failures and defects. He presents the main problem of evaluation and the problem of decision-making in the UK planning system. The third part is reserved by Andreas for comprehensive planning and the comparison to the USA planning system. Part four focuses on the planner position, role, and work in practice and from different political and theoretical orientations, like advocate or bureaucrat. The last part focuses on positive theories in planning and dives into the whole process of planning concerning positive theories. The ideas of the book in all the parts are not connected together directly in a coherent way, but every part has its distinct content, and the author presents deep knowledge about every part.
The book parts and content presented relevant ideas of planning in modern days. The ideas cycled in planning research and practice include Planning theory, planning, and planners. These ideas, to this day, a huge amount of research and publication exists for interested readers. The presented ideas by Andrea’s lack in discussion and analysis statistics, and numbers that make them more convincing, but its rich in studies and graphs. The book’s content reflects the book title, and the author tailored it properly.
The author articulated that he would review many essays related to the subject of the book. Within the review, discussion, he referred to many research papers in the field and mainly papers but not references. The research he presented relates to paper research from academic and research organizations. In some cases, he pointed to publications of officials of the public sector, like the Barlow Report and others related to practice. He provided in many areas guidelines for building a plan, procedures for decision making, the appropriate organization charts for public sector staff, and guiding steps to solve organizational work defects to reach desired goals.
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