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-Topic-
Politics of Planning

By :
Desy Rosnita Sari
P28017016

NCKU
Urban Planning Department
1st Presentation
Seminar 4th course
March 28th 2014
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ARTICLES :
Looking back; Making city planning work
-- Allan B. Jacobs --
Published in : Making city planning work (1980)
– Classic Reading In Urban Planning 1995. p;426
Keywords : Politic of planning, Planning profession, Planning process, and San Francisco

Planning in the Face of Power

-- John Forester --
Published in : Planning in the Face of Power (1989)
-- Classic Reading In Urban Planning 1995. p;437
Keywords : Information, Power, Planning, and Political communication

To be professionally effective, be politically articulate

-- Norman Khrumholz and John Forester --
Published in : Making Equity Planning Work (1978)
– Classic Reading In Urban Planning 1995. p;456
Keywords : Politic planning, Planning practice, Planning profession, and Cleveland
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Motives for choosing the Topic and Articles

1. Classic readings in urban planning

2. Intercourse between previous topics (last semester)

Ethics in profession, the environment,
and conflicting priorities/planning goals

scope of Ethics in Challenge in

the profession the profession the profession

Allan B. Jacobs : Looking back; Making city planning work

John Forester : Planning in the face of power
Norman Khrumholz : To be professionally effective, be politically articulate
John Forester

“Planning is political”
Planning profession certainly operate within the web of political relationship
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Looking back;
Making city planning work
Making city planning work (1980)
Classic Reading In Urban Planning 1995. p;426
Keywords: Politic of planning, Planning profession, Planning
process, San Francisco

(A city and regional planner, urban designer, architect)

Present; Professor emeritus of city and regional planning.
Berkeley University (1975 – 2001), twice served as chairman Allan B. Jacobs
December 29, 1928 (age 85)
Prior; • Bachelor of Architecture, Miami University
Taught; Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania • Master of City Planning, University of
Worked; The Pittsburgh City Planning projects, Ford Foundation in Pennsylvania in 1954
Calcutta. India • Graduate School of Design, Harvard.
8 years as Director of the San Francisco Department of City Planning • Study City Planning as a Fulbright Scholar at
University College London (1954 – 1955)
(1967 – 1974)

BOOKS
The Boulevard Book (2003), Great Streets (1995), Looking at Cities (1985), Making City Planning Work (1980), The
Urban Design Element of the San Francisco General Plan, Toward an Urban Design Manifesto (well-known paper
describes how cities should be laid out)
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Looking Back.
Jacobs’ reflection on his experiences as a planner
----- mostly during his duty as San Francisco’s planning director (1967 - 1974).

• Pictured the flavor of doing planning under governmental setting (win/fail the
battle)

• Conveying clear sense of the alternate moods of

excitement, disappointment, challenge and frustration

• Revealing some strategies and tactics used by Jacobs and his agency in trying to
influence various policy decisions in San Francisco.

• Both explicitly and implicitly informed that planning can indeed work if
skilled, dedicated and committed people are willing to devote sufficient energy
into it.
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San Francisco
X Comprehensive plan

√ Master plan
Based on large-measure on an assessment of the social
and economic needs
Accompanied by a set of recommendation for programs
and actions, which is all separate plan elements related

**Program that could be achieved via legislative action and directly under
planning department of SF Government , is more likely to be successful
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Long-range
development goal
Policy documents, statistic picture of
future, Dictated plan, inefficient planning
process (too vague, too biased, too
subjective, etc)

A frame work of plan that could

lead planner to be easier to
explain their idea and proposal
that are preferable to the people
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The post of city planning division

Planning as Legitimate product

decentralization Semi-autonomy

Executive in local government Planning commission

• Mayor’s short range-plan

(practical an visible goal)
• Planning director limited by
administrative set-up
• Comprehensive planning with long-range action
• More likely understand people needs
• Planning proposal can be propose before election
• Another option for people to connect with
government
• Legitimate action / top-down plan (dictated plan /
copy from favorite type) but tends to success
• Inefficient planning process (too many programs)
• Commission as buffer from private’s demand
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Jacobs’ stressed points:

• Qualified, trained, dedicated planner

• Bottom-up planning with qualified planner (responsiveness

than efficient)

• Planner limitation may substitute by consultant (cooperation)

• Planner have strong argument upon their utopia

prediction/vision

• Best plan is planed locally, developed locally, and used local

resource (advocacy planning)
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Quotations
“Victory today, over the wrong thing in the wrong place, does not ensure
that the same battle will not have to be fought tomorrow or the next day,
.....................,city planners may have a hard time knowing when they have
been successful, it is hard to know what constituted a good batting
average......in many cities, success is measured by what happens, by what
gets done, by what is accomplished..... we are accustom to think that way,
BUT sometimes it is better to measure success by measure what does not
happen"..............Allan B. Jacobs - Making city planning work (1978)

Aceh Comprehensive planning

(social economic relationship and strategic)
• HRD VS quality of urban environment (scholarship VS Museum)
• Women empowering VS physical project (skill raining VS Elegant Mall)
• Conservation VS Urban artifact (forest protection VS city park)
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Planning in the face of power

Published in : Planning in the Face of Power (1989)
-- Classic Reading In Urban Planning 1995. p;437
Keywords : information, power, planning, and political
communication

Graduate from University of California, Berkeley

**City Planning
English Town Planner, Urbanist, Geographer
Professor and Director of Graduate Studies -
Department of City and Regional Planning
John F. Forester
Cornell University.

BOOKS (emphasis on participatory planning)

Critical Theory and Public Life (1987), Planning in the Face of Power (1989), The Deliberative Practitioner
(1999), Dealing with Differences: Dramas of Mediating Public Disputes (2009).
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Vulnerability of democracy
Professional responsibility inequality

Political action Ideology

domination Democratizing practices

Resistance Illegitimate authority

1. How planners work to fulfill their legal mandate

for foster a genuinely democratic planning
process?
2. What power can planner have?
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Forester’s argument
• Information is an important source of
planner’s power in the planning process
• requests planners to be progressive
practitioners

5 perspectives of how planner use information:

1. The technician
2. The incremental pragmatist
3. The liberal advocate
4. The structuralist
5. The progressive
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Type of misinformation / distortion
Incidental / Ad Hoc Systematic structural
cognitive limits of
inevitable division of labor distortion
communication
structural
unnecessary interpersonal manipulation
legitimization

Managing Misinformation:
• Comprehension (distorted by problem framing)
• Sincerity or trust (distorted by false assurance)
• Legitimacy (distorted by lack of consent)
• Knowledge (distorted by misrepresentation)
 To be professionally effective,
be politically articulate John Forester
Published in : Making Equity Planning Work (1978)
Keywords : politic planning, planning practice, planning
profession, Cleveland

Norman Khrumholz
Norman Khrumholz
M.C.R.P., Planning, Cornell University, 1965
Professor in Levin College of Urban Affairs
President of the American Planning Association (1986-1987)
President of the American Institute of Certified Planners (1999)
Planning Director of the City of Cleveland from 1969-1979 (10 years)
Planning practitioner in Ithaca, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland

*Legacy : Center for Neighborhood Development. Cleveland State University.

President Jimmy Carter asked him to serve on the National Commission on Neighborhoods, whose members
traveled around the country and held hearings on neighborhoods’ needs.

BOOKS
Making Equity Planning Work (1978)
Revitalizing Urban Neighborhoods (1999)
Reinventing Cities: Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (1994)
To be professionally effective, be politically articulate
• A review of Cleveland political experience in the practice of equity
planning during his duty (Planning Director; 1969-1979)

• In the time of equality and racial justice issues emerged in the nation

• Progressively program and policies that resulted;

*changes in Ohio’s property law
*improvement in public-service delivery
*protection in transit services for the most transit-dependent
*rescue of city parklands and beach

Question : How was this successes accomplished ?

“To play an effective role in the messy world of
urban politic, planner have to be professional able,
organizationally astute, and, most of all, politically
articulate.”
6 aspect planner should has for being politically articulate :
1. Anticipating problems and organizing support
2. Shaping the new agenda
3. Building a reputation for practical equity-oriented analysis
4. Practical rhetoric and publicity
5. Relation with the media
6. Strengthening planning analyses by using outside expertise
 Xie Xie Ni
Thank You
Terima Kasih