PART | WHAT IS PLANNING THEORY? Introduction In TuIs introductory section, I shall set out to demonstrate that there is a useful distinction to be drawn between theory im planning and theory of planning, and why this reader concentrates on the latter. Also, I make a further distinction between normative and positive or behavioural theory of planning, and how this affects the material included. Finally, as an introduction to an important paper devoted to this topic, I shall review essays considering the question of what is planning theory. THEORY IN PLANNING VERSUS THEORY OF PLANNING Planning is the application of scientific method—however crude—to policy-making.! What this means is that conscious efforts are made to increase the validity of policies in terms of the present and anticipated future of the environment. What it does not mean is that planners take over in the field of politics. Validity is an attribute of the process by which decisions are made. This process involves advisers, as the suppliers of scientific intelligence, and decision-makers. Advisers and decision-makers interact, thus forming a planning agency. Planning is what planning agencies do, i.e. bring scien- Definitions given for systems analysis (Quade, 1968) and operational research (Beer, 1966) are the same as that of planning given above. This underlines one of the points to be made about planning theory, i.e. the generality of the phenomenon planning, and hence its wide applicability. 110 A Reader in Planning Theory [Part | Stivester, M. (1972) “The contribution of the systems approach to planning”, The Systems View of Planning (Authors: Dimitriov, B., Favupr, A., McDoveatt, G., Sitvesrer, M.), Oxford Working Papers in Planning Education and Research, No. 9. Wizson, A. G. (1969) Forecasting Planning, Centre for Environmental Studies, London.2 A Reader in Planning Theory [Part I tific advice to bear on decisions concerning policies during an interactive process involving the roles of advisers and decision-makers. The relationship between decision-makers and their advisers is often presented as that between master and servant: managers employ operational researchers (Beer, 1966), military staffs employ systems analysts (Quad& 1968), planning committees employ planners. The assumption, each time, is quite clearly that of the adviser coming into the game at the pleasure of the decision-maker. ‘There is nothing inherently wrong with being employed to help. The question for the adviser is only whether the process by which he and his decision-making master arrive at decisions is valid, or whether their relationship distorts this process. He might ask questions like: Does he pay regard to the evidence which I submit? Does the decision-maker provide me with adequate guidafce on the problems which he wants solved ? Are the reasons for his making a decision valid in their own terms? These are reasonable questions to ask for somebody concerned with the validity of the process which he is engaged in. The point is that decision-makers, like other people, do not like their actions and their motives being questioned, and certainly not by their advisers, who are supposed to help them. Advisers in many fields have therefore had occasion to complain about their masters. Having trained minds, they have gone beyond grumbling and asked that simple question which is at the heart of all scientific investigation: Why? Upon which they have concluded that their own relationship with their masters (in short, the planning agency) must become the object of reflection, theoretical understanding and, ultimately, transformation so that planning shall become more valid. They have moved from considering the role of their own type of scientific theory in planning to the theory of planning. Rather than talking specifically about plannerg and politicians, I have couched this argument in general terms. This is because there is evidence for the generality of this phenomenon of advisers becoming interested in the way in which their advice reaches fruition. That town planners are concerning themselves with the theory of planning in these terms will be documented in this reader. But social workers are doing the same, especially now that they are reorganizing their departments (Kogan and Terry, 1971; Foren and Brown, 1971). Similarly, operational researchers have taken a look at planning in private enterprise (e.g. Beer, 1966; Ackoff, 1969) and