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Essay

Copyright © 2003 SAGE Publications

(London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
Vol 2(2): 91–100
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MORE OR LESS MEANINGFUL

CONCEPTS IN PLANNING THEORY
(AND HOW TO MAKE THEM MORE
MEANINGFUL):A PLEA FOR
CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS
AND PRECISION
An essay in memory of Eric Reade: 1931–2002

Nigel Taylor
University of the West of England, UK

(1) Sustainable development is a very simple idea. It is about ensuring a better

quality of life for everyone, now and for generations to come . . . To achieve
this, sustainable development is concerned with achieving economic growth, in
the form of higher living standards, while protecting and where possible
enhancing the environment . . . Building sustainable communities involves
considering how to encourage employment, decent housing, good health, and
access to services and recreation, in ways which make good use of natural
resources, protect the environment, promote social cohesion, and contribute to
local, regional and national prosperity. (Department of the Environment,
Transport and the Regions [DETR], 1998: 11)

(2) [T]he principle of sustainable development . . . means living on the earth’s

income rather than eroding its capital. It means keeping the consumption of
renewable natural resources within the limits of their replenishment. It means
handing down to successive generations not only man-made wealth (such as

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92 Planning Theory 2(2)

buildings, roads and railways) but also natural wealth, such as clean and
adequate water supplies, good arable land, a wealth of wildlife and ample
forests . . . To achieve sustainable development requires the full integration of
environmental considerations into economic policy decisions. (Department of
the Environment [DoE], 1990: 47)

It is not new to point out that many of the central concepts in urban
planning theory and practice are imprecise, vague, ambiguous, and opaque.
As the late Eric Reade repeatedly pointed out, the careful investigation of
the effects of town planning policies has been hampered by the ubiquitous
practice that emerged in Britain (and elsewhere) of stating planning policies
in such generalized ‘holistic’ terms that it is difficult, if not impossible, to
attribute observed ‘effects’ to particular planning policies (Reade, 1987:
84–5). And this is no mere ‘academic’ matter; it renders the monitoring of
implemented planning policies (and hence the evaluation of the effective-
ness of planning) impossible. Reade railed (with little effect) against this
woolly thinking in town planning, arguing for what Karl Popper (1957:
64–70) termed ‘piecemeal’, as distinct from ‘holistic’ or ‘utopian’ social engi-
neering.
In this essay, I argue for similar precision and clarity in the use of key
concepts – particularly key normative concepts – employed in urban
planning theory and practice, and for much the same reasons as Reade
would have done. For many of the key normative concepts in planning –
that is, those concepts that specify what town planning is (or should be)
trying to aim at – are stated and used in imprecise, vague, ambiguous, and
opaque terms.1 As the philosopher Harry Frankfurt observed: ‘One of the
most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit’
(Frankfurt, 1986; see also Cohen, 2002). I shall come to illustrate my
argument with reference to the concept of ‘sustainable development’; hence
the two quotations at the head of this essay, to which I shall make reference
later.2 But first I shall lay out my general argument, step by step. It is
composed of six points.

1. There are certain normative concepts in urban planning that specify some
desired quality that planning is, by its actions, seeking to realize, or at
least (given the limited powers and scope of statutory town and country
planning) seeking to further. Such concepts include the following (in
italics): planning to protect and enhance the amenity, or the aesthetic
quality of places; planning to encourage the economic development, or
regeneration, of certain localities; planning to achieve a more just
distribution of environmental goods, and (related to this) to further social
equity or social inclusion; planning for (or in) the public interest; planning
collaboratively or democratically; and (of course) planning for sustainable
development. Note, incidentally, that some of these concepts specify
states or qualities of the environment that town planning is trying to
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Taylor Conceptual analysis and precision 93

realize (for example, environments that are aesthetically pleasing,

localities that are economically healthy, socially inclusive, etc.), some
specify how these environmental qualities are to be distributed (for
example, planning that aims at a just distribution of environmental goods,
or which is in the public interest), and some specify some desired quality
of the process of planning itself (for example, making planning decisions
democratically, collaboratively, etc.).3
2. The italicized concepts stated above are fundamentally important in the
theory and practice of planning, for they summarize what planning is
aiming to achieve, and – given that the only justification for the institution
of town and country planning is that it makes the world in various ways a
better place than it would otherwise be without it – the accomplishment
(or, more modestly, the furtherance) of these aims constitutes the
rationale, the justification, for planning itself. This shows, too, why these
concepts are fundamental to planning practice (just because they are
‘concepts’ they are not ‘just theoretical’, or only of interest to ‘planning
theorists’). For they specify what, in its actions, town planning is trying to
do, what states of affairs it is seeking to realize.
3. As stated in 1 above, the central normative concepts are very generalized
and, to this extent, abstract. This does not mean that they are meaningless
in this form (this would be a mistake). For example, to say that planning
decisions should be made ‘democratically’ is to say something about how
the process of planning should be conducted. And likewise, to say that
planning should aim to maintain or improve the aesthetic quality or the
economic health of localities is to specify some distinguishable quality of
the environment that planning is seeking to protect or improve; it is not
to say nothing, or (literally) anything. However, being stated in such
broad, generalized terms, these concepts (these words) are less clear and
meaningful than they would be if they could be, and were, stated in more
precise terms. Which leads me to my fourth point.
4. Given the broadness of the concepts described in point 1 above, if these
concepts are to be both theoretically and practically useful – if, that is,
they are going to do some theoretical and practical work for us – they
stand in need of further analysis, directed at explicating more clearly what
the terms (the words) employed to describe these concepts mean.
Furthermore, the more precisely we can state the meaning of a concept,
the clearer will be that specification of the concept. And this, in turn, will
enable users of that definition of the concept (even users who disagree
with that definition of the concept – see point 5 below) to apply the
concept to real phenomena, or to pick out real or possible instances of
phenomena or states of affairs (etc.) that exemplify that concept. There
is an analogy here with Karl Popper’s observation that a scientific
hypothesis or theory stated in as empirically precise terms as possible is
not only an empirically richer hypothesis or theory, but also – because of
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94 Planning Theory 2(2)

its greater precision – more readily testable (and for Popper that an
hypothesis or theory was empirically testable, and thus also potentially
falsifiable, was a necessary condition of it being a scientific hypothesis or
theory at all; see Popper, 1963: Chapters 1, 10). This fourth point about
clarity and precision has a particular bearing on a practical activity like
town planning, as we can see by making a simple logical point. Suppose
it is an aim of town planning to maintain or encourage X. Obviously, the
more clearly we can specify X (or, more formally, specify the conditions
for X obtaining), then the more correspondingly clear we shall be about
what it is that town planning should be aiming at. Indeed, were a planning
authority to have X as an aim, and were X to be very clearly and precisely
stated, then that planning authority would be able to point to actual
examples of forms of development that instantiate or illustrate X; and,
further, it could more effectively control new development proposals in
terms of their furthering, or detracting from, the quality X that they are
seeking to advance. There is a corollary of this. If we, or some planning
authority, were to say that we are seeking to achieve X, and yet were
unable to specify clearly what we mean by X, then we would be
correspondingly unclear whether or not some action would further (or
alternatively detract from) X, and we would therefore be similarly
unclear whether or not some proposed development or environmental
change was or was not an instance of (or something contributing to) X.
In fact, if we really were in this position, we could not even say why we
should be aiming at X, for it would be quite irrational to want to aim at
something when we did not know, or could not say, what that something
was! Hence the practical (as well as the theoretical) necessity of
undertaking a thoroughgoing analysis of complex planning concepts in
order to (try to) make them clearer.
5. The foregoing recommendation for the careful analysis of key normative
concepts of planning does not have to presume (and I do not presume)
that universal agreement can or will be necessarily reached about the
meaning of any given concept. Indeed, the fact that all these important
normative concepts are relatively complex (as compared with concepts
of, say, buildings, bridges, roads, etc.) should already incline us to the
expectation that complete conceptual agreement may often elude us in
this area. Thus, for example, interpretations of what constitutes the
‘aesthetic’ component of our environmental experience (and hence what
might constitute an improvement in ‘aesthetic quality’) vary, as do
interpretations of what constitutes ‘social inclusion’, a ‘just distribution’,
the ‘public interest’, ‘democratic’ decision-making, even ‘economic
development’ (in spite of the apparently greater ‘firmness’ of this term).
Indeed, such is the complexity of many of these terms that whole books
have been written advancing different interpretations of these concepts.
Thus, there is a whole literature (and whole shelves of libraries) devoted
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Taylor Conceptual analysis and precision 95

to trying to explain what constitutes the public interest, or democracy, or

distributive justice, etc.4 In short, there are – to put it formally – different
conceptions of complex concepts. And where such conceptual differences
obtain, there is also debate over which of various conceptions are most
appropriate, plausible or true; alternative conceptions are also rival
conceptions.5 However, that there can be (and over complex concepts
usually is) conceptual disagreement is actually a further argument for the
kind of conceptual analysis recommended here, and this is for (at least)
two reasons. First, if we are properly to engage in a rational (that is,
reasoned) debate over which of a number of rival conceptions of some
given concept C is or might be preferable – and ‘preferable’ because most
fitting, most accurate, most true, etc. – then it helps (indeed, it is
necessary) to have some clear analysis and statement of the rival
conceptions in dispute, and the clearer that analysis can be, the better
(because clearer) the debate. Second, if someone is to argue rationally
(that is, give reasons) for us adopting their preferred conception of some
concept C (call that conception C1), then they must (or should) be able
to spell out their reasons, and hence their justification, for preferring C1
to rival conceptions C2, C3, etc. And this, in turn, requires them first to
analyse the meaning of C, and then to explain their (preferred) analysis
of it. Of course, if one is not interested in having a rational (that is, a
reasoned) debate, or in offering rational (that is, reasoned) justifications
for one’s preferred interpretations of certain key concepts, or if one
thinks that rational discussion of these kinds of matters is in any case
impossible, then none of the foregoing applies (though it would then be
incumbent on anyone who thinks this to say what, then, the point of
‘theory’, including their own ‘theorizing’, is). To be sure, to call for such
carefully studied and rigorous analysis of concepts is not, again, to
presume that such conceptual debate will be conclusively resolved. To
cite a further example, there is still debate over whether some kind of
‘utilitarian’ conception of the public interest is preferable to a
‘Rousseauian’ ‘common interest’ conception of the public interest (for an
account of both these conceptions, together with an argument in favour
of the latter, see Taylor, 1994).6
6. Finally, and to sum up – although, over some concepts, debate will
continue to rage over which of two or more rival conceptions of that
concept is most sound (so that different theorists will persist in arguing
for, and using, their favoured conception) – it will be a virtue of any
conception that it is formulated as clearly, and hence as precisely, as
possible, so that its meaning is as transparent as possible. Apart from
anything else, this helps opponents of a given conception to be clear what
it is that they contest; indeed, if a given conception is unclear, then
opponents could not properly contest it (except on the grounds of its lack
of clarity, which would itself be a damning criticism).
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96 Planning Theory 2(2)

This last point brings me to the last part of this essay, in which I shall
illustrate the foregoing argument with reference to the concept of ‘sustain-
able development’ in urban planning. The need to ensure that human
development is ‘sustainable’ has come to be widely seen as a matter of the
utmost importance and urgency. Indeed, it may come to be a matter of life
and death, and not just for some individuals, but for the human species. It
is therefore no merely academic matter to establish a clear and workable
conception of this concept. Of course, whether or not we actually succeed
in making development sustainable is going to depend on a lot more than
sorting out the most appropriate conception of ‘sustainable development’.
Yet doing this is nonetheless important, for if we adopt, and operate with,
a confused or incoherent conception of sustainable development, this will
hamper our chances of achieving this desired end.
At the head of this essay I have quoted two statements from two recent
British Government publications defining sustainable development. The
first of these, henceforth (1), puts forward a broad ‘all-encompassing’
conception of sustainable development. As (1) says, sustainable develop-
ment is about ensuring ‘a better quality of life’, encompassing economic
growth, employment, decent housing, good health, access to services and
recreation, and all these things in ways that make good use of natural
resources and protect the environment at the same time as promoting social
cohesion, and contributing to local, regional and national prosperity. (1), we
might say, is a conception that encompasses ‘social and economic’ as well
as ‘environmental’ aspects of sustainable development. As such, it contrasts
with the conception put forward in statement (2), which suggests that, to
qualify as sustainable, development must not diminish the stock of the
earth’s non-renewable natural resources or ‘capital’, or – if development
does use up renewable natural resources – it must not do so to the extent of
endangering their replenishment. (2), we might say, is a more strictly
‘environmental’ conception of sustainable development, and is in this
respect a more restricted conception than (1). It is also, I suggest, a clearer
conception than (1), and hence – in the light of my earlier six-point
argument – preferable.
The problem with (1) is that it licenses all manner of things (all manner
of things ‘count’) as sustainable development: economic growth and
employment, decent housing, access to recreational facilities, and so on.
Under (1), therefore, the protection of the earth’s natural environment – of
the quality of the atmosphere, for example, or of rivers and seas, soils and
biodiversity, etc. – is more likely to get lost in pleas to attain these other
objectives. To be sure, (1) insists that all the stated aspirations are to be
sought ‘while protecting and where possible enhancing the environment’,
but this does not appear in (1) to be a severely limiting condition, as it does
in (2).
Defenders of (1) would no doubt reply that sustainable development is,
or should be, about ‘more than just the environment’ – that it should
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Taylor Conceptual analysis and precision 97

encompass such matters as people’s material standards of living and

employment, access to homes, health care and recreational facilities, greater
social equity and distributive justice, and so on. Defenders of (1) might
further add that, unless attention is given to all these (and other) matters,
social unrest and division (including, crucially, divisions between the econ-
omically developing and developed world) will thwart the attainment of
environmental objectives. This last point may be true, but why should all
these other important matters be contained by, and wrapped up in, the
single concept of sustainable development? One may readily agree that, in
urban planning as in other areas of social action, we generally seek to
achieve a number of objectives, such as improved economic development
and employment opportunities, an aesthetically richer environment, a more
just distribution of environmental goods, democratic decision-making, and
so on. But these are all conceptually distinct aspirations, as is indicated by
our use of different concepts to describe them (‘economic’ development,
‘aesthetic’ enrichment, ‘just’ distribution, ‘democratic’ decision-making,
etc.). It would thus be conceptually muddled, as well as disingenuous, to
pretend that all these things amount to one thing, or that they can be
brought under the umbrella of a single concept such as ‘sustainability’.
Indeed, that these are different aspirations is shown by the fact that, in
practice, they can come into conflict. Sometimes, for example, economic
growth leads to development that destroys aesthetically cherished environ-
ments. Sometimes, economic development conflicts with what, environ-
mentally, is sustainable. Indeed, it is precisely this latter kind of conflict that
environmentalists wish to expose in order to draw attention to the dangers
of persisting with forms of economic development that endanger the natural
world on which we all ultimately depend. Clarifying these different aspir-
ations and potential conflicts is thus itself a precondition of trying to find
ways of resolving, or of finding compromises between, these different objec-
tives. To distinguish more clearly between the concepts we use is therefore
not just ‘a conceptual matter’; it is a precondition of clarifying alternative
courses of action, of clarifying alternative practices.
There are two further arguments that advocates of a broad conception
of sustainable development, such as (1), may advance against the arguments
I have put here.
They may (first) still insist that there are different aspects of sustainabil-
ity – such as ‘social’, ‘economic’, and ‘political’, as well as ‘environmental’
– and hence that the concept of sustainable development must properly
encompass this spectrum.7 But to this I would make two replies. First, I
question whether the term ‘sustainability’ is an appropriate term to describe
the social, economic, and political (and other) aspects of the improved
quality of life we are all aiming at; indeed, there are many aspects of current
human social, economic, and political arrangements that we may not want to
sustain! Second, even if we agree that, in a broad sense, we wish to sustain
certain kinds of social arrangements, economic activities, and/or political
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98 Planning Theory 2(2)

practices, then, as the employment of the various adjectives here implies, we

would need to distinguish these different aspects of sustainability by attach-
ing the appropriate prefix and speaking of ‘social sustainability’, ‘economi-
cally sustainable development’, etc. If we do that, this reduces to the position
I am advocating, which insists on making clearer analytical distinctions
between different concepts we employ to describe our aspirations.
As a second argument, some advocates of a broad, ‘all-encompassing’
conception of sustainable development like (1) may say (and some have
actually said to me) that a broader conception of sustainability is in fact
more practical in the real world, because it says different things that
different people (including politicians) with different interests can agree to.
A political consensus is thus more likely to be built around a broader
conception. In other words (so this argument goes), whatever the intellec-
tual and theoretical arguments against the woolly use of concepts, broader,
woollier concepts turn out to be politically more practical.
This last argument may well be empirically true (it was one of Eric
Reade’s arguments that it was precisely the woolliness of town planning
aims and policies that had commanded a consensus that ‘legitimized’ the
activity). But even if true, I would again make two replies to it. First, we
need to be clear what any advocate of this particular argument is actually
saying (I am sorry to insist on clarity once again!). In effect, he or she is
saying this: ‘A very broad conception of “sustainable development” is intel-
lectually misleading because it encompasses several quite different aspir-
ations, and hence different concepts describing these aspirations, which are
concealed under the umbrella of one concept: “sustainability”. However, it
has been found that this very quality of obfuscation is, in practice, more
effective, because different people and institutions, with quite different and
sometimes conflicting aspirations, can pick out from the concept something
to suit their interests, and thereby agree to it. Therefore we should persist
in using an intellectually misleading conception of sustainable development.
In other words, in our use of important concepts, we should be prepared to
be intellectually dishonest, even deliberately to deceive, because we have
found that this is more effective at getting the results we want.’ Second, I
would question, anyway, whether this conceptual strategy is likely to be
‘more effective’. Even if it were the case that all manner of different (and
conflicting) interests can agree to a broad conception of sustainable
development, because it means whatever they want it to mean, it does not
follow that these agents will then act in ways that protect and (where
possible) enhance the environment. Suppose, for example, that some agent
A has agreed to a view of ‘sustainable development’ which, because it is so
broad (and vague), contains some wording (such as fostering ‘economic
growth’) that satisfies A’s interests. If, later on, A’s pursuit of their interests
conflicts with the aspects of the broad conception of sustainable develop-
ment that concern environmental protection, A can always appeal to that
aspect of the broad conception that accords with their interests and claim
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Taylor Conceptual analysis and precision 99

that, in pursuing this, they are pursuing sustainable development. Upshot 1:

A is likely to pursue their interests anyway, even at the expense of environ-
mental protection. Upshot 2: the claimed ‘effectiveness’ of adopting a broad
conception of sustainability collapses.
So for all these reasons, I favour conception (2) at the head of this article,
which confines the concept of sustainable development to development that
protects (various crucially important aspects of) the natural environment.
If others insist, we could (in the interests of clarity) add the prefix ‘environ-
mental’ to this conception of sustainability. We can also acknowledge that
there are other aspects of the quality of life we may wish to pursue, and that
we have other concepts (other words) to describe these aspirations.

Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Sarah Hills for her helpful comments on an earlier version
of this article, and G.A. Cohen for the inspiration I have gained from his
work, and for e-mailing me a copy of his article ‘Deeper into Bullshit’.

Notes
1. Here we might note part of the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of one of
these terms: opaque, ‘Not transmitting light, not transparent; impenetrable to
sight; not lucid, obscure; obtuse, dull-witted’.
2. Because of this focus, I thought of titling this essay ‘Sustainable Development:
A Concept in Need of (More Precise) Treatment’. I adopted the chosen title
because the use of this concept is simply one instance of a more general malaise
in the use of concepts in planning, and of a more general thesis I wish to
advance to address this malaise.
3. On this basis we could therefore distinguish between ‘environmental’,
‘distributive’ and ‘procedural’ aims of urban planning.
4. Consider, for a start, the large literature generated by the publication, in 1971,
of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice.
5. An example: Robert Nozick’s advocacy of an ‘entitlement’ conception of
distributive justice, in opposition to Rawls’s egalitarian and (for Nozick)
allegedly ‘end-state’ view of distributive justice (see Nozick, 1974: Chapter 7).
6. Some writers even question whether the concept of the ‘public interest’ has, or
can reasonably be given, any meaning (e.g. Sandercock, 1998: 196–9). For an
argument against this completely destructive (of the concept) view, see Taylor
(1994: 88–90).
7. Like Selman (1996: 10), in this essay I do not distinguish the notions
‘sustainable development’ and ‘sustainability’, although I recognize that some
would insist that ‘sustainability’ is not quite the same as (because a broader
notion than) ‘sustainable development’. Incidentally, anyone insisting on this
distinction would thereby show support for the general thesis I am making,
namely, that different concepts should be carefully distinguished and analysed.
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100 Planning Theory 2(2)

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