Journal of the American Institute of Planners

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What Makes Planners Plan?

John W. Dyckman

To cite this article: John W. Dyckman (1961) What Makes Planners Plan?, Journal of the
American Institute of Planners, 27:2, 164-167, DOI: 10.1080/01944366108978449

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Published online: 18 Dec 2007.

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INTERPRETATIONS
What Makes Planners Plan?
By JOHN 1%‘.DYCKMAN
HAT PROGRAM FOR ACTION in the
T GO’S, the report of the Presidents
Commission on N a t i o n a l Goals, tells
us that the number of classroom teach-
ers will have to expand by almost one-
third during the 19GO’s to take care of
population growth. I n round numbers,
this would mean some 200,000 new
teachers every year for ten years, to
which must be added almost a half-
million new college teachers in the
same period.
Because the clients of city planning
are communities, and not mere num-
bers of people, the demand for plan-
ners does not bear so close a relation
to the expected population growth as
does that for elementary school teach-
ers. Nonetheless, the same influences
which are swelling the ranks of govern-
ment personnel, and accelerating
changes in population distribution and
urban forms, can be expected to ap-
preciably expand demand for commu-
nity planners. T h e recruitment of
these new professionals (most of whom,
presumably, will seek entry i n the 41P)
is worthy of our present consideration.
w h o is predisposed to become a
planner? Perhaps in attempting to an-
swer this question, the profession may
This is thesecond i n a series of quarterly
colurnns in which John TY. Dyckman 7c‘ill
be interpreting some of the current events
and some of the current research findings
in related fields for their potential contri-
hutions to city, regional, and national plan-
ning.
Professor Dyckman is on the faculty of
the Department of City Planning at the
Uniriersity of Pennsylvania.
not only locate major sources of re-
cruits, but may in the process uncover
some partially obscured aspects in its
own bundle of motivations. Most plan-
ners are aware that there have been
changes in the sources of recruitment
in their profession. Many observers
have marked the transition from the
City Beautiful era of planning, in
which the profession was dominated
by the consultant architect or land-
scape architect, into the period of large
municipal governmental staffs, manned
by specialists of many kinds. There is,
however, little empirical or analytical
evidence on the composition of Amer-
ican city planning, o r on its tasks.
One of the few empirical works, a
student project conducted at the Uni-
versity of California by Paul Zucker,
tends to confirm certain impressionistic
views of the planning profession.
Zucker obtained survey responses from
159 Bay ,4rea planners, or about three-
fourths of the total professionals in that
region. His study finds a marked
change in the training of planners over
time, as represented by the under-
graduate degree. T h e older respond-
ents show a predominance of architec-
ture and landscape architecture plus
a category called “other” which in-
cludes the law, while the younger pro-
fessionals show a strong pattern of ma-
jors in political science, economics, and
sociology along with the traditional
majors. T h e change in the percentage
of the whole represented by these ma-
jors within age groups is marked.
I n addition to confirming the rising
role of the social sciences and political
science in preparation for planning
~ 4 1
careers, Zucker’s study also adds sup-
port to the prevailing impressions of
the class biases of planners by char-
acterizing most Bay Area planners as
coming from “middle social-economic
backgrounds.” About three-fifths of the
respondents gave the occupational sta-
tus of fathers as “professional, propri-
etor, manager, or salesman.” Holding
age constant, Zucker found the occupa-
tional structure of the respondents’
fathers to be very similar to that of a
markedly middle-class community in
the Bay Area.
T h e planning profession has been
slow to digest the import of changes in
its own body. Where city planning
once shared the ethos of business and
a rising professional aristocracy, it now
finds itself sharing the outlook of the
more crystallized professions, and even
of the generic bureaucracies. Rfargy
Rfeyerson has characterized the profes-
sional planning role as “predominantly
universalistic, affectively neutral, col-
lectivity-oriented and functionally spe-
cific, as well as achievement oriented.”
I n nonsociological language, this means
that the planner is a full-time profes-
sional in a field marked by technical
standards of achievement for the eval-
uation of performance; operates in the
absence of conventional profit motives,
with the presumption that he will be
sparing in the intrusion of his own
values and will venerate “objectivity”;
and is first and foremost a community
servant who will put the common good
above self-interest. Moreover, with the
great growth of planning education in
DYCKMMAN’S I N T E R P R E T A T I O N S
the university, a deepening role-so-
phisticdtion has developed. As E.
Hughes notes, professional education
usually involves the replacement of
stereotype images by more subtle, com-
plex, and even ambiguous perceptions
of tlie professional roles. T h a t is, pro-
fessional education reduces the dra-
matic oversimplication of role which
exists in the popular image-the very
image, in fact, which may have at-
tracted the postulant in the first place.
IC university-trained plmners of the
present generation arc increasingly
self-conscious about the practice of
their profession, what do they see in
that profession that attracts them? In
the earlier days of American city plan-
ning, the existence of a challenging
problem-the problem of growing ur-
banimtion, the despoiliation of the
landscape, and the absorption of the
imniigrants-was motive enough for
those who perceived it. And the prob-
lem was self-selecting of its workers;
only those imbued with civic concern,
sensitive to the environment, and
equipped with the awareness that
something could be done about it,
took upon themselves the task of city
planning. T h e field can no longer
hope to recruit enough people on this
basis; and, besides, the tasks themselves
are changed. I t is no longer a field in
which brave knights ride forward to
slay the dragon of urban ugliness.
W h a t roles do tlie new young grad-
uates see for themselves in city plan-
ning? Nothing is really known about
this, ancl city planning might provide
an interesting profession for the kind
of sociological study of occupation
which has been so successful in the
fields of medicine and law. Until then,
however, we can only speculate on this
score.
T h e challenge of charismatic leader-
ship, the old urge to lead a strayed
socic,ty out of the wilderness, is still
strong in some young people, though
it is undoubtedly less common than it
was in a generation which experienced
depression and war first hand. T h e op-
portunity to concretely “remake” the
world is still present in city plan-
ning in a highly acceptable form.
There is a great consensus in our so-
ciety at the moment on the need for
ciLy planning, though the actual im-
plementation of plans will undoubt-
edly lead to great value conflicts.
There is also opportunity for pro-
fessional leadership in local govern-
ment. City planning is one of the more
attractive forms of government service
-offering, as it does, an option to
move in and out of government with-
out loss of professional continuity and
prestige. For those who want it, there
appears to be substantial security. In-
deed, as planning moves towards
greater codification, licensing, etc.,
there is a distinct possibility that a
higher proportion of entrants into the
field will elect it on grounds that it
ofkrs a comfortable job sinecure. T h e
old-time crusading planners will
reckon this a real danger. Finally,
there will no doubt be some young
people who, like Fabians before them
in England, will attempt to combine
these two concerns?
I n fact, the distinction between the
planner-crusader and the planner-pub-
lic official may be overdrawn. As Den-
nis Brogan has pointed out, there is a
strong current of the evangelical tra-
dition in American politics. I n the
past, however, there has been a very
sharp distinction between the practice
of city planning whose evangelism is,
aEter all, distinctly middle-class, civic-
club salvation and the politics of
American city government, which is
dominated by working-class realists
with a low regard for missionaries.
In this light, though the civic-beau-
tification movement was challenge
enough for the “doers” of its time,
modern comprehensive planning in its
more sophisticated professional form
is likely to be a frustrating prospect.
Banfield says “American cities. . . sel-
dom make and nevrr carry out com-
prehensive plans. Plan making is with
us an idle exercise, for we neither
agree upon the content of a ‘public
interest’ that ought to override private
ones nor permit the centralization of
authority needed to carry a plan into
effect if one were made.”* If Banfield’s
appraisal were correct, city planning
would scarcely be a field in which
young men would march forth from
165
school with real expectations of creat-
a world of their own making.
T h e expansion of planning budgets
and staff, the abundance of federal
aids, the growth and demand for and
uses of information about the physical
layout and land uses in the city, and
the acceptability of “limited purpose”
planning experts outside of govern-
ment have all tended to obscure the
great difficulties in making compre-
hensive plans for metropolitan areas
reported by Banfield. Young men can
find a place in the planning profession
without fear of being stranded when
tlie tides of compreliensive planning
programs go out. I t is very likely that
as many graduates as planning schools
now produce annually could be ab-
sorbed indefinitely in one or another
field of urban research, even if all gen-
eral planning powers of city planning
commissions were suspended a t once.
B u t most professional planners did
not enter the field for the purpose
of studying the city. If they had such
intentions, they would have been bet-
ter served in many cases by matricula-
tion in some program other than plan-
ning. Urban sociology, government
and political science, economics, or
history might have been better prep-
aration. T h e planners, presumably,
have been trained to practice the art
of planning.
By temperament as well as training,
moreover, the planners are for the
lThough tlie Fabians have been called
“prophets” they were i n some respects more
nearly evangelisticsocial engineers. For ex-
ample, Sidney Webb had prepared a com-
plete scheme for a “responsible” elected
civil service, operating at a local govern-
mental level. The Fabians were so preoc-
cupied with the political importance of
local government, of the role of the “ex-
pert” in civil service, that it is surprising
that they had no theory of planning’s role
in running an economy or a society.
2”There is much talk of the need for
metropolitan-area planning, but the talk
can lead to nothing practical because there
is no possibility of agreement on what the
“general interest” of such an area requires
concretely (whether, for example, it re-
quires keeping the Negroes concentrated in
the central city or spreading them out in
the suburbs) and because, a-\yway, there
does not exist in any area a government
rhat could carry such plans into effect.”

most part not scientists. T h e practice
of scientific pursuits requires a patient
acceptance of the ordering of the uni-
verse which is far removed from the in-
sistent urge to restructure a n d reshape.
Newton is reported to have stated that
i n the course of his work “he felt like
a child playing a t the seashore, happy
whenever h e found a smoother pebble
or a more beautiful sea shell than
usual, while the great ocean of truth
lay unexplored before him.” Few plan-
ners have the disposition for this pa-
tient sifting of evidence, a n d even
fewer have modern research tech-
niques, with their elaborate opera-
tional procedures a n d mathematical
language.
Neither scientist nor political-mover,
the city planner is still n o ornamental
appendage of government. His forte
is command over a commodity which,
though rough a n d home-made, is still
not accessible to most citizens. T h a t
comniodity is a view of the future; not
the future of a single enterprise, but
of a whole complex system like the
urban community. T h e planner is thus
a purveyor of vital advice.
T h e occupational hazards of this
role should be well known to would-be
professionals. T h e advisor depends
upon his acceptance as a n expert by
a n audience. His very wlnerability o n
this side may keep him from the fullest
exercise of a n appropriate art of ad-
vice. A longtime student of public ad-
ministration, Fritz Morstein Marx, re-
cently published a n article o n “ T h e
Mind of the Career Man” i n which he
observed:
All this is not entirely unnatural
when the reputation of being an ex-
pert-rather than what he actually can
do-is seen by the career man as his
principal stock in trade. From such an
angle, it will become emotionally nec-
essary for him to spend more time
showing himself right than exploring
alternatives that may be more helpful
in moving toward the government’s
goals. Policy-makcrs who come to him
with fresh ideas or administrative sug-
gestions will find him resentful and
defcnsive. Is it not he to whom all
worthwhile insights would occur first?
If pressure develops toward new ap-
proaches in meeting emerging admin-
istrative needs, the one thing policy-
JOURNAL OF T H E AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF- PLANNERS
makers can be sure to hear from him
is a story of obstacles and difficulties.
T h e planner, who i n his earlier ca-
reer history had to combat the image
of the blue-sky dreamer, must also
fight the tendency to slide into the de-
fensive role of the critic. I t is a difficult
wire to walk.
Those who choose this profession in
the face of these many disabilities, and
who still elect to try for the greater
role of helping communities to shape
their future by sketching out alterna-
tives a n d advising o n realistic oppor-
tunities, are powerfully motivated men.
If, as a recent biographer of Frank
Lloyd Wright has claimed, it takes a
certain arrogance to tackle the prob-
lems of space in all their grandeur, i t
can fairly be said that i t takes a nieas-
ure of determination no less fierce t o
tackle the problems of the future use
of space by communities.
To sum up, the recruitment of plan-
ners, a n d the expectations of the be-
ginning professionals, have shifted
markedly over time with the matura-
tion of the profession, a n d the altera-
tion of opportunities for affecting the
total form of communities. Once mes-
sianic, the planner has become bureau-
cratic and conservative. Not politically
powerful i n most cases, the planner
takes his rewards i n professional pres-
tige, for respect for his profession
grows even as its threat to established
forms diminishes.
Indeed, the prestige of the city plan-
ner may hinge o n the remoteness of
promised results, as with the clergy. Sim-
ilar sources of strength are drawn upon
by the “utopian” planners. But the pres-
tige must be defended o n occasion by
walling-off the special operational role
of the planner from the world of prac-
tical affairs. T h i s segregation of opera-
tions is sometimes glorified as a rejec-
tion of “politics.” (There is a n analogy
between the early civic reformer city
planners a n d the disgruntled Athenian
patricians who, i n Aristophanes’ Biyds,
wanted to escape from the demos-ruled
city machine a n d go off to found a n
ideal city-“Cloud-cuckoo-town”-on
Peisthetaerus’ advice, “at the pole of
the heavens above.”) Furthermore, the
obscurantism of some planning, so
close to the priestly crafts of the an-
cient5, is part of the common pact of
the expert to refrain from telling “how
he does it.”
Though evidence o n the origins of
planners is slow i n coming in, the
California planners a t least seem to
have been drawn from higher-income
groups than one would expect to find
i n a corresponding group of clergy-
men. Still, the city planner has much
of the sense of “mission” of the clergy,
and often much of the fundamental-
ism. 01er time, this calling has become
more a n d more protected, and more
and more sustained by the approval of
the group. I n some states, legislation is
called upon to legitimatize the craft.
W h e n the “high motives” of plan-
ning haTe been institutionalized, the
rationalization of the profession will
be complete. Appropriate, and safe,
outlets will be prescribed for the en-
thusiasms of the neophyte planners.
O n e wonders what misguided messi-
anism might have been channelled into
safe directions if professions like city
planning had been established and
institutionalized earlier. Erik Erikson,
recalling the Kubizek account of T h e
Young Hitlei Z Knew, tells us that
Hitler wanted desperately to be a
city planner; he walked around for
days (and as if in a daze) rebuilding
his home town of Linz. T o rebuild, of
course, he had to imagine the city de-
stroyed, but no doubt he tried to be
“constructive” on a vast, if almost
delusional, scale. When he finally sent
his plans for the opera house in Linz
to a committee which paid no atten-
tion to them, he really broke with so-
ciety. And would you believe it, in his
very last days, after having destroyed
Europe, having been cornered in his
bunker, and having planned his self-
liquidation, he put the last touches on
his plans for the opera house in Linz,
which he almost came to build.
PLANNING TODAY coulcl use a
counter-cyclical dose of “constructil ist”
aspirations to offset its bureaucratic
hardening. For, whatever the risk of its
abuse, planning cannot d o without this
sense of mission. Without the deep per-
sonal conviction a n d commitment, the
DYCKMAN’S INTERPRETATIONS
planner will be used as generations of
civil servants have been used, and, as
Julien Benda long ago warned that the
intellectual “clercs” were prone to be
used, as convenient tools of the power-
ful.
T h e planners might be stayed from
the error of inflicting ill-conceived en-
thusiasms on the public by adopting
some of the traditional virtues of the
scientist-his humility, tentativeness,
BANFIELD, EDWARD C. “The Political
Implications of hletropolitan
Growth,” Daedallls, Winter 1961.
BROGAN,DENNIS.Citizenship Today . Work. Glencoe, Ill: Free Press, 1958.
Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1960.
BROWN, J. DOUGLAS. “Education for a
Learned Profession,” T h e American
Scientist, September 1960.
ERIKSON, ERIK.in N e w Perspectives for
Research in Juvenile Delinquency,
Helen L. Witnier (ed.). Washington:
self-criticism, and a sprinkling of his
doubts. There is no need for planning
to reduce all observation to calculation
and to oppose reason to imagination;
science itself is no longer so nai’ve. When
the planner can clearly see that the con-
sequencer of a development will violate
the goals of a community, it is his pro-
fessional responsibility to point out this
divergence, much as the atomic scien-
tist may point out the consequences of
REFERENCES
Department of Health, Education,
and Welfare, 1956.
HUGHES, EVERETTC. iZIen nncl Their
R ~ A R XFRITZ
, MORSTEIN.“The Mind of
the Career Man,” Public Adrninistra-
tion Review, September 16, 1960.
~ I E Y E R S OMARGY.
N, “Characteristics of
the Community Planner.” Unpub-
lished paper, Department of Sociol-
ogy, Bryn Rlawr College, 1954.
President’s Commission on National
Gerald Roeder
167
a bomb. C. P. Snow has warned the lat-
ter that “It is the plain duty of scientists
to explain this ‘either or.’ I t is a duty
which seems to me to come from the
moral nature of the scientific activity
itself.” If planning cannot stake a claim
as an equally “moral” activity it will
fall increasingly short of attracting the
critical Joung people it needs, for the
critic is above a11 else a moralist.
Goals. Goals f o r Ameizcans. New
York: Prentice-Hall, 1960.
SNOW,C. P. “The hloral Un-Neutrality
of Science.” Address to the American
Association for the Ad\ ancement of
Science, New York, December 27,
1960.
ZUCKER,PAUL.“The Characteristics of
Ray ires Planners.” Unpublished
student paper, University of Califor-
nia, Spring 1960.