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2/05 a/CIRC/Dateouejndd-ms

 

 

- THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL CHANGE UPON PLANNING

Laurence Jay Bloom
Plan B -- Dr. Goldschmidt
Spring 1975

 

ITY

MKNMGAN STATELNMVERS

EAST LANSING, MrCHrGAN 48823

I»

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . O C C. O O O Q Q . . Q C O

HISTORICAL'OVERVIEW OF PLANNING‘S ROLE .

TYPES OF PLANNING ORGANIZATION AND ROLE
ALTERNATIVES

A CRITIQUE OF PAST PLANNING PROGRAMS AND
ALTERNATIVES FOR THE FUTURE

C ONCLUS ION O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

BIBLIOGRAPHY

11

19

29

32

.anv

 

 

 

Introduction

 

Urban planning is a process, it is an organized way of
approaching problems and finding solutions to them.1 Urban
planning has increased in importance as the percentage of
population within urban areas has increased. Due to the influx
into cities the whole scope and scale of problems occurring
within them has grown.

Poverty, racial strife, congestion, pollution,

inadequate housing and other ills cry out for

solutions. Americans who have not had a fair

share in the general prosperity are demanding

jobs, housing, education, and other services

they have lacked, as well as the power to

influence the decisions of government. The need

for new solutions has never been greater, and

much of society is looking to the urban planner

to invent the means to a better future.

Our present day cities are the result of many small
scale, uncoordinated planning projects carried out by urban
entrepreneurs over a long period of time. Their products were

legally Woven into Ibcal ordinances by special commissions

and municipal committees--the fore-runners of present day city

 

1Frederick H. Bair, Jr., "The Place of Planning in the
General Scheme of Things,” in The Place of Planning, Auburn
University--Lectures in Urban and Regional Planning, (Auburn,
Alabama: Auburn University Printing Service, 1973), p. 3.

2Ralph HirsCh, The Challenge of Urban Planning,
(Washington, D.C.: The American Institute of Planners, 1970),

p. 3.

planning departments.3 'An odious mess of land use was produced
with factories, furnaces, and warehouses jumbled across a
tangle of streets, alleys, canals, and railroads. For example
the "lack of comprehensive planning for urban railroad net-
works resulted in enormous economic waste and environmental
damage in the years after 1830."4

In the small cities of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth
Centuries comprehensive land use plans were unnecessary.
Private enterprise had carried out many city services (e.g.,
transportation, trash collection, etc.) which ceased to be
profitable, thus forcing city governments to begin providing
these services. Planning had also been the domain of private
enterprise and was usually not done, but as the size of cities

grew a need for more coordinated growth was felt. Therefore,

according to Francine Rabinovitz in City Politics and Planning,

 

city government has become "the instrument for planning,

building, and insuring the future growth of the city toward a

more advanced and effective state. That is, urban government
. . n5

is the instrument for community development. Thus, urban

planning was created as a city function.

 

3Joseph L. Arnold, "City Planning in America," in The

Urban Experience, Ed. by Raymond A. Mohl and James F. Richardson,

 

(Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1973). P- 14.

4
Ibid., p. 21.

5Francine F. Rabinovitz, Citngolitics and Planning,
(New York: Aldine-Atherton, 1969), p. 2.

 

é

 

 

-!

Historical Overview of Planningfs Role

 

As part of the social reform fervor of the Progressive
Era the City Beautiful Movement developed. This movement was
an attempt to copy the park systems of European cities, it
was encouraged by the romantic notion of the time that city
dwellers needed easy access to a rural environment.

Progressive reformers shared the perhaps naive

but exhilarating assumption that the tools of

the new social and physical sciences, once placed

in the hands of the virtuous middle classes, and

enlightened businessmen, would soon produce a

rational and just society crogned by beautiful,

prosperous, and happy cities.
This is the utopian origin of urban planning. It was felt that
physical environment affected the other areas of life and that
by improving the cities physically they would be better in
other aspects as well. This is the theory of environmental
determinism. Sir Ebenezflr Howard in 1898 devised a plan to
create garden cities ringing London that is typical of this
way of thinking. This plan involved dividing up the new
towns into neighborhoods of about 5,000, with each neighborhood
located around an elementary school.

It was often expected that single-family and row

housing, open green space, and pleasantly designed

buildings would help to remedy the social problems

of the urban poor who were to be moved into sections

of such towns, and would encourage the7development
of solidary relations among neighbors.

 

6Arnold, op. cit., p. 23.

7Marcia Pelly Effrat, "Approaches to Community: Conflicts
and Complementaries," Sociological Inquiry, Vol. 43, Nos. 3-4,
(1973), p. 27- .

 

This physical orientation has been predominant in urban

planning, and as the cities grew in the early Nineteenth Century

 

planning developed a new physical tool to deal with this growthm-

zoning. Zoning was viewed as a method of organizing land uses
by function. The two major innovations in city planning

during the 1920's, regional planning and zoning, were to a
large degree responses to the new scale of the city emerging
under the impact of the automobile.Planning's "emphasis was

on transportation, zoning, parks, and utility systems. Housing
received a low priority because planners saw little hope of
influencing the private housing market."

It is within the context of urban government that
planning had to take place, and grow over the years. The
original planning role, the physical technician or expert, had
to deal primarily with urban government, which was usually
controlled by power elites. Thus a system.was developed
where for planners to stay in eXistence they had to deal with
the political realities of the situation and represent the
power elites. This had created a gap between the planner and
the general public. It wasn't until the 1930's that the
planning profession underwent a significant change.

The experience of the Great Depression and the

intellectual currents of the decade resulted for

the first time in the realization that the

profession had focused too narrowly on physical

planning and had ignored the social, economic, and-
political realities of urban life.

 

8
Arnold, op. cit., p. 8.

9
Ibid., p. 33.

 

£333. _

.It was in this era that comprehensive, in terms of both subject

matter and area, became the new thrust of planning. It was
realized that planning was useless unless it was followed by
action, therefore necessitating some legal planning power
(zoning and more). It was also realized that physical planning
did not meet the entire needs of the profession. Many unfor-
seen economic and social consequences came out of the purely
physical orientation that planners had.

Beginning with so-called 'comprehensive' planning

to solve physical problems, we (urban planners)

found that in practice we unintentionally created

or worsened social or economic problems by some

of our solutions, so we enlarged our scope.

Not much happened in the field of urban planning until the end
of World War II. Most planning and construction had ceased
during the war, and the great changes and the real coming of
age of urban planning lay in the quarter century following

11
the war.

A vast majority of Americans were urbanized and many
city problems ceased to be local or regional in scope and
began to have national significance after the war. The movement
of southern blacks to the cities for jobs, the traffic problems
created by the automobile, the abandonment of the central
cities and the flight to the suburbs by the white middle-class,

the deterioration and crowding of the central cities, the

rise in all types of pollution, crime, and most of all the

 

10 . .
Bair, op. c1t., p. 3.

11Arnold, op. cit., p. 34

declining tax base of the major cities required some federal
action. In the mid-50's, local planning received powerful
federal stimulus. In order to encourage planning in cities
the federal government provided matching funds for planning
projects, and states were to set up technical planning staffs
to serve cities not able to hire their own staffs. Before a
city could qualify for the growing number of federal grants
or loans, it was required to have, or be working actively
toward, a comprehensive plan, a community facilities plan,
zoning, subdivision regulations and construction codes, and a
citizens advisory committee to advise the planning commission,
in other words cities were required to have a Workable Program
(official title). The federal requirements became more and
more elaborate as new programs with new directions with more
and more money became available to help the cities.

Up to this point, the main idea had been to achieve”

needed community improvements in an orderly way.

Now the main idea was to satisfy federal require-

ments to qualify for federal funds, and many

workable program documents were rushed through

with tongues in cheeks and fingers crossed to

meet federal deadlines--and then filed.
At this time planning was easy to define, it was whatever had
federal funds available.

An overriding theme in urban planning of this time was
that the urban complex cannot remain healthy and grow unless

its core areas are strong and vibrant. Robert C. Weaver, an

ex-administrator of H.H.F.A., aptly states that the goals of

 

12 . .
Bair, Op. Cit., pp. 6-7.

‘,I
t

.41:

 

the period, and the reasons for the development df urban renewal
and redevelopment were to maximize choices in an adequate
inventory of housing, in both the central city and the suburb
13

regardless of ones ethnic origins. Therefore many well
intentioned projects were begun as part of urban renewal's
attempt at revitalizing our cities. It was felt that private
developers would not, by themselves, undertake projects within
core areas, the profit margin had gotten too small, there were
too many difficulties.

For many architects and planners, the government's

urban renewal programs promised the beginning of

the millenium. . .With the coming of urban renewal

whole sections of cities could be torn down and

replaced by towers of brick and glass. While

some cities. . .saw great hopi in using the

program to get rid of slums.
It was hOped by many, including urban planners that people
could be brought back to the city that culture, ”an elegant and

. . . . 15
urban c1V1lization,"

could take place within American cities.
In order to get the private developers back into the central
citx,urban renewal legislation allowed the sale price of a
piece of property to be much less than what the city actually

paid for it. The federal government reimbursed the city for

two thirds of the cost of the land, and the site preparation

 

13Robert C. Weaver, The Urban Complex, (Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday and Co., 1966), p. xii.

l4Robert Goodman, After the Planners, (New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1971), p. 61.

15Moody's Stock Survey, Vol. 61, No. 45 (November 10,
1969): p. 375.

 

 

 

costs. The developer was also given special financing by the
federal government to be lured to the central city sites.16
Usually large tracts of land were gathered and cleared within
the central areas of our cities with no regard for the previous
residents. Some form of urban renewal was needed, but not
necessarily the form that we got, most projects are still
incomplete after 15-20 years and their social and economic
consequences may have placed the cities in worse positions
than prior to these grand physical projects. Urban renewal
legislation was significant yet further refinement was still
needed. As President Kennedy said to Congress in a speech
about housing and urban renewal:

Urban renewal laws to date have been too narrow

to cope effectively with the basic problems

facing old cities. we must do more than concern

ourselves with bad_housing--we must reshape our

cities into effective nerve centers for expanding

metropolitan areas. Our urban renewal efforts

must be substantially reorganized from slum

clearance and slum prevention into positive

programs for economic and social regeneration.

This program if it is to be effective, must help

local communities to go beyond the project and

project approach.1
This is the way urban renewal should have gone, forcing the
planner out of a physical and expert orientation into a more
humane and comprehensive (economic, physical, and social)

role. The result of urban renewal has been in most cases that,

"small individualized development.is. . . replaced by so-called

 

16Goodman, op. cit., p. 65.

17Victor Gruen, The Heart of Our Cities, (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1964), p. 344.

. project development, which, though providing new structures in

place of old ones, is not necessarily superior in working

18
pattern and human values to what existed before."

It is only since the early sixties that planners have
‘begun to be held responsible for a much wider scope of problems.
As a reprecussion of the mistakes of urban renewal planners
were forced to realize that a mere physical plan would not be
enough. In the mind of the general public

'The Planner' has become a monster, a threat to
society, one of the most guilty of the earth-
rapers. Suddenly, he has become a breaker of
communities, a divider of families, a promoter
of neuroses, a feller of trees and a bringer of
doom by noise visual intrusion and pollution, a
destroyer of our national heritage, a callous
technocrat razing to the ground a large portion
of (our cities). 9

Thus planning began to be considered subversive and evoked fear
among city residents because of the power the field was seen

to hold over their lives.20 A gap had been created between

the general public and the planner. The gap needs to be
narrowed planning must become both effective (implementable)
and representative of the welfare of the public.

'5

Planning is going to have to play a more humble,
useful role in the future, becoming more

concerned about the utility of its results than

the mystique of its thaumaturgic rituals. The
manner of its exercise will have to be more broadly

 

181bid., p. 344.

19David Eversley, The Planner In Society, (London:
Faber and Faber, 1973), p. 14.

 

0Vincent J. Moore, "The Structure of Planning and
Regional Development", in A.I.P. Government Relations and
Planning Conference, (Wash., D.C.: A.I.P., 1965) p. 5.

 

10

varied than at present, and adapted to the level
and size of the government or governments involved.

21
Along with effectiveness and representativeness, planning
must meet the challenge of social change. The advent of tech-

nology has increased the pace of change to a tremendous degree.

Alvin Toffler in his book, Future Shock, discusses how tenuous

 

our relationships have become due to change. Not only has

the number of relationships increased that a person has by
living in a large urban concentration, but there are more
institutions with which one has to deal. The problem isn't
merely the increasing number or complexity of relationships,
but the accelerating pace of change that is occurring. Our
society has developed a quick change or temporary mentality.
Jobs, neighbors, and lifestyles have all become transient
things.22 This has affected planning by not only increasing
its sphere, but also its urgency by increasing the demand and
need for planning. This has led to the creation of a semi-
technocrat role in urban planning, a technical expert dealing
with reform and problem solving. Plans also must be able to
cope with changes as they occur, but they cannot be so weak as
to have little or no effect on the development of a region.
The planner's role must therefore be that of change-agent. As

change-agent the planner attempts to achieve improvements for

 

Bair, op. cit., p. 8.

22Alvin Toffler, Future Shock, (N.Y.: Bantam Books,
1971) PP. 472-4.

 

11

city residents. The change can be either physical, social, or
economic, but the emphasis is on change. The planner must
attempt to improve upon the past, the question in a field as

new and developing as planning is how.

Types of Planning Organization and Role Alternatives

 

In her book of the late 60's Ms. Rabinovitz claims that
in order for the planner to be effective the following areas
must be considered; the organization, the role, and the
political system of planning in the city. Organization is
the system the cities have set up for their planning process;
role is the part the planner must plan within this system;
and the political system is the pattern of decision-making by
elected city officials or influential private parties.

She claims that "appropriate organization is the
appropriate remedy for ineffective planning."23 .In other
words the organization of city planning must be geared to the
needs of planning. Government is the major agent of change
in this democracy and planning is one of the main tools govern-
ment has in molding-and implementing this change. But, government,
the federal in particular, has only organized or controlled
planning through lack of funds. As it stands now, planning
has few controls allowing it to successfully implement plans.
The federal government's urban goals go unmet due to the
inability of planning to govern its own domain. An example

of the federal government's wants Opposed to what it is willing

 

23Rabinovitz, op. cit., p. 31.

12

to give is contained in Robert C. Weaver's statement at the
1965 AIP conference in St. Louis. He said that the federal
strategy for the cities would be along these lines: 1) raise
the quality of life in American neighborhoods, 2) achieve
maximum flexibility to serve a wide range of cities, and 3)
utilize the most comprehensive development possible.24 A

few moments later he added that "to be effective, planning
obviously must be part of the total urban development process
--p1anning without active, fully funded development programs
is little more than an intellectual exercise.“25 Yet little
or no money has gone to planning directly, it goes to bureau-
cratic programs that may be stifling planners. Therefore, at
present it's difficult to concieve of an apprOpriate organiza-
tion for planning on a federal level. The city is the most
common level of planning organization, with the region and

the community increasing in importance. The types of organiza-
tion for planning on a city-wide basis are typically the
semi-independent or dependent planning commission, composed of
laymen, which was designed to separate politics from planning
and grew out of the reform movement. Another type of organiza-
tion is a regular municipal planning department responsible

to the executive or city council. According to Ms. Rabinovitz
the latter is the most efficient mode of organization for

getting plans implemented. Lately, a combination of the above

 

24Moore, 0p. cit., p. 3.

251bid., p. 3.

13

two, a planning commission and a municipal department responsible
to either the executive or the city council, is the organiza-
tion commonly found in American cities. "It seems that there
is no single planning organization that can best meet the
needs of every city. It was found that organizations responsible
for effective planning vary with differing local circumstances.“26
Ms. Rabinovitz sees the planner as an advisor to any of
the above forms of organization. She claims that there are
three roles the planners may take on. These are the roles of
technician, broker, and mobilizer. The technician advises
the community leaders and offers advice only when asked, but
this role only will work in a city where the decisiOn-makers
are favorable to planning. The technician out of necessity
must hold the same values as the decision-makers to be able
to exist in this role, and this would work best in a planning
organization that is responsible to the executive. The
broker role would be used in competitive communities, those
with at least two competing leadership cliques. In this
situation the planner-tries not to cause direct conflict
between the groups and to find solutions to problems that are
acceptable to all segments of the community. It may be very
hard in this type of community to fulfill any project goals.
Compromises are frequent occurrences and concessions must be
made to piece together coalitions. In this type of community
the planner must be ready to play all sides of the fence

26

Rabinovitz, op. cit., p. 34°Atl
\gg.
{A31 Lf‘J‘ ..\.4_ i. ." .

l4

attempting to do what is best for the city while attempting
to maintain the general plan.

In the fragmented community (no dominant leader—

ship group) the planner's role is even more

complicated. Here, not only the opportunity to

persuade a dominant clique is prevented but also

that of the broker knitting together existing

groups is impossible. In the fragmented system,

it is easy to generate ad hoc coalitions on

particular issues;zthese coalitions rarely out-

last the decision.

In this situation the role of the mobilizer must be used. In
this role the planner must persuade divergent groups to support
a program they might not otherwise hear of or even care about.
This might be done by getting publicity in the local papers,
organizing committees, and generally creating support of

the project in question. In other words, the mobilizer gets
out into the community and drums up support.

Ms. Rabinovitz gives three indicators of a planner's
effectiveness: 1) being able to implement a plan when there
is no opposition; 2) preventing policies from being initiated
that the planner opposes; and 3) initiating and implementing
a plan or policy when there is opposition. All three of the
planning roles would be able to implement a plan without
opposition, but the purely technician role will not be able
to implement a plan when there is opposition or be able to
prevent the initiation of opposing plans. The other two roles

must be used for the planner to be effective and a combination

of all the roles is essential to a planner's success. Ms.

 

2
71bid., p. 97.

15

.4. _
EARabinovitz feels that planners should be political, get out

into the community and work toward their goals, and not sit
around waiting to be asked for advice.

The effective planners in the cities studied in

New Jersey did not act as purely disinterested

participants. . .It seems clear that despite the

repeated claims of urban planners to being non—

political policy and technical advisors, the city

planner definitely is an actor in the urban

political arena.

Her thoughts certainly take planning'afiong way from the
traditional planner as technician to a much more activistic
politically effective role, but the planner is still an elite.
The gap still exists between planner and the general public.

In the past few decades America has made attempts at alleviating
many social inequalities, through the previously mentioned

urban renewal program and others. There has been an increased
awareness of the general public of the need for more representa—
tiveness of their general welfare in all fields. The planner

is an allocator of scarce resources and it has become increasingly
necessary to better equip the public to make choices from the
alternatives that the planner presents. This requires a

broader and more humanistic role than planners had previously

29
played. If this can be done, the ability of planning to
achieve a more desireable urban environment will be vastly

increased. The success of planning is dependent upon the

technical means of the process. Technical methods, such as

 

28Ibid., pp. 149-154.

9
Eversley, op. cit. p. 5.

16

A .

traffic counts and aerial photography, are very beneficiad,

but the success of a plan remains with the people.30 Those
being planned for cannot be overlooked, planning operates for
human welfare and planners must include those people in the
process.31 Planners should make alternative courses known,

but cannot choose for the client. Planners should seek to
convince the clients that the plan is theirs and thereby
enlist their talents to aid the planner in making and achieving
the plan.32

In Daniel P. Moynihan's discussion of community action

in the war on Poverty, Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding, the

 

difficulties of such an originally humanistic program are
explained. He traces the origins of the program.from the
creation by a group of ideological individuals to the destruction
of the program due to bureaucracy and politics. The original
war on Poverty was intended to link expertise with those in
need through various self-help programs. The program was
supposed to promote the "maximum feasible participation” by
the public, but due to various difficulties the opposite may
have occurred. The have-nots involvement in plans<szecting

them was taken as a threat to those already in power. The

 

Cuyahoga County, Seminar '68, Regional Planning Commis-
sion (Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County Regional Planning
Commission, 1968), p. 20.

31Ibid., p. 33.

32B.J. Frieden, and William W. Nash, Jr., Shaping an

Urban Future, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969), p. 193.

 

 

(Q

'c

17

main point of the book is the subversion of the best intentioned
program in order to get any sort of legislated program and

then explains the bureaucratic and political powers that
undermine any such radical program. He showed how the program
even with the participation of the poor did not seem to alter
their condition. The significance for the planner lies in
attempting to find a way to integrate the client, in this

case the poor, into the planning process without co-opting
either the client or the planner.

The role of advocate has been one recommended way the
planner may be able to involve the public in planning, eliminate
the gap between the general public and the planner, and develop
some form of local community power organization. In the
advocacy role, proposed by Davidoff and Reiner in A Choice
Theory of Planning, the planner attempts to designate alterna-

tive goals and courses of action. In so doing he or she makes

choices. These choices are made in terms of the values of

the planner and the client, the means of meeting the goals,
and the possibility of implementation of the goals.

The planner deals with values to discover which

future conditions are presently desired and which

may be desired by future clients. The environ-

ment desired for the future is, in the first

instance, purely a matter of values. . .(O)nce a
particular set of values concerning the future

is posited, knowledge of facts is needed to 33
determine the relative weight of a particular value.

 

Paul Davidoff and Thomas A. Reiner, "A Choice Theory
of Planning," Journal of the American Institute of Planners,
Vol. XXVII, No. 2 (May 1962): P. 8.

 

18

The planner's responsibility becomes not guiding choice 5nd
goal formation, but an agent working on the choices of the
client.

It is not for the planner to make the final

decision transforming values into policy com-

mitments. His role is to identify distribution

of values among peOple, and how values are

weighed against each other. To do this, the

planner must determine relevant client groups.

we can speak of two general classes the immediate

client, or the planner's employer; and th§4ultimate

clients, those affected by the proposals.

A major criticism of this theory is that planners cannot
divorce themselves from their values, and therefore their
biases. Undoubtedly these biases limit the range of choices
that the planner conceives.

The planner only very rarely states all the possible

goals and usually says nothing about the goals that

he th§gks unattainable, undesirable, or insignifi-

cant.

It makes little sense to assume that planners choose to block
out goals because they conceive them as undesirable. WOuld a
planner associate an undesirable occurrence as a goal and
decide not to allow it to take place, or would the perception
of undesirability eliminate the action as an alternative

goal? Is this a conscious choice that anyone can avoid

making? According to the "Theory of Choice" the clients

would have input into the planning system, thus insuring that

 

34 ,
Ibid., p. 9.

35John Dakin, "An Evaluation of the 'Choice' Theory of
Planning," Journal of the American Institute of Planners,
Vol. XXIX (February 1963), p. 22.

4
.__._.v

19

outside goals are not forced upon the people being planned
for; and, that the clients are involved in the goal formation
process.

Understandably clients' values and planners' values may
not always coincide. Values determine how choices are made
and how goals are perceived. According to the Theory the
planner would not be the sole determinator of the planning
process, but would become an arm of public opinion used to
achieve goals desired by the community in question.

Although (Davidoff and Reiner) propose that the

planner become vitally involved with values, we

must make clear our belief that the planner

should act with a keen sense of responsibility.

He cannot, as an agent of his clients, impose

his own ideas of what is right or wrong. We do

not wish to see the planner's influence on decisions

limited, but we would argue Strongly that the plan—

ner's role in dealing with values must 3% constrained
so that he acts as a responsible agent.

A Critique of Past PlanningAPrograms and Alternatives for
the Future.

 

The failure of many urban renewal projects may be
attributed to the lack of interest in the needs and wants of
the people they were intended to house. As Herbert Gans

recounts in The Urban Villagers the West End of Boston was

 

considered by outsiders as a blighted slum. Planners decided
that it should be eliminated, cleared and rebuilt. The
problem arises that the residents of the area didn't consider
thgir neighborhood a slum and prefered living there. They

liked their neighborhood with its social cohesiveness, the

 

3 .
6Davidoff and Reiner, op. Cit. p. 8—9.

20

low cost of housing, the proximity to the central business
district of Boston, and the security of having neighbors of
the same ethnic background. The planners did not look past
the physical structures which were crowded and deteriorating
when they decided to tear them down. The fact that the
residents liked their area did not enter into the decision—
making process.

This situation also exists in the lack of consideration
given to the future residents of housing projects. No one
asked the future residents of Pruitt-Igoe what type of
dwelling they would like to have, or what type of dwelling
they could maintain. These projects usually deteriorate
rapidly, had anyone ever thought of consulting the future
residents, these projects may have been successful in improving
urban life for the poor.

A belief in the possibility of effective planning

rests on the assumption that man controls his

destiny: either by affecting the rate and

direction of ongoing change or by initiating such

motion. Planning is often relied on to achieve

such control. Many of the reform features of

city planning can be traced to a conviction that

it is possible So improve man's conditions or to

arrest decline. 7

The creation of the Model Cities Program in the middle
to late 60's was intended to meet the social needs of the poor
that the earlier programs had missed. A very complex citizen

participation scheme was a major aspect of this program. The

program appeared to be a drastic step forward in urban planning

 

37
Ibid., p. 5.

21

by having its emphasis on citizen involvement rather than
physical accomplishments. It appeared to have the citizens'
best interest at heart, but there exist criticisms that claim
that what has been accomplished is the exact opposite. Many
critics argue that the program just channelled the poor's
energy into bureaucratic channels instead of the disorderly
and disruptive tactics that had previously been a threat to
the federal government. The insinuation is that both planners
and the general public have been co-opted by the process.
Frances Fox Piven argues that advocacy planning has been used
to bring the black or minority vote into line with the major
political powers, thereby limiting the political effectiveness
of these groups.

However worthy one thinks the social goals

attributed to these programs, and whatever‘

their actual social benefits, they also met

the political needs of the democratic admini-

stration in3§djusting to population changes in

the Cities.
She feels that planning decisions are essentially political
decisions and that implicit in the advocate planner's view is
the notion that those being planned for can influence decisions
when given the technical help, while the opposite is actually
what happens. Ms. Piven states that

what all of this suggests is that involving local

groups in elaborate planning procedures is to
guide them into a narrowly circumscribed form

 

38
Frances Fox Piven, "Whom Does the Advocate Planner

Serve?" in Perspectives on the American Community) ed. by
Roland L. Warren, (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1973), pp. 443-
444.

 

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22

of political action, and precisely that form for

which they are least equipped. What is laid out for

the poor when their advodate arrives is a strategy

of political participation which to be effective

requires powerful group support, stable organization,

professional staff, and money-~precisely those
resources which the poor do not have.

Another spokesperson against advocacy and Model Cities
is Sherry Arnstein. In a narrative article written for the
residents of a Model Cities Neighborhood it is alleged that
not only have these techniques been unsuccessful, but that
the planner is being co-opted by the existing power structure

40 The

in order to placate citizen disorder and unrest.
residents of the neighborhood have compiled a list of lessons
for others to learn prior to dealing with the federal govern-
ment: 1

1) No matter what HUD says, model cities is first
and foremost a politicians game;

2) You can't trust City Hall or HUD;

3) Community coalitions need to develop their own
agendas instead of constantly reacting to the agendas
of outside forces;

4) Community organizations must have the dollars to

hire their own staff technicians, and must be able

to direct that staff and to hold it accountable;

 

391bid.. pp- 443-444.

0Sherry R. Arnstein, "Maximum Feasible Manipulation,"
in Perspectives on the American Community, ed. by Roland L.
Warren, (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1973) pp. 413-417.

 

5)

6)

7)

8)

23

You can't organize a community without "deliverables,"
Don't underestimate the potential support for the
community's agenda from sympathetic people outside

the community;

Beprepared to fight each frustrating step of the

way when you're trying to break new ground;

Community people all over the cOuntry need to get
together to create our own national power base to

4
force "our" government to deal with us directly.

What these people want is money from the federal govern-

ment with no strings attached. With this money they could

start their own self-help projects that fit the needs of their

specific

community and not generalized nation-wide goals.

Also, the ability to directly hire their own planning staff

would not only make the staff more responsive to community

needs, but would remove the threat of co—optation from the

planner.

When considering the political realities of this

situation, will those in power help those out of power get

power, one must remember what President Kennedy once said about

'5

those who crush efforts of self-determination: "Those who make

peaceful

revolutions impossible make violent revolutions

42 . .
inevitable." This is a direct corollary to Frances Piven's

assertion

that in

 

41

Ibid., pp. 421-427.

2
Ibid., p. 421.

 

 

 

24

The reality. . .the poor get responses from govern-

ment mainly through disruption, and the question

to ask about any radical analysis we contribute

is whether it stimulates action or mutes it.

It is interesting to note that many community organizers,
such as Richard Sennett, now advocate and see value in the use
of disorder to achieve community goals. It is through the
disorder that unity of the community is formed and one's
identity becomes purified, there exists in disorder a common
tie or cause to rally around.44 This is not the most common
community organizational approach, a more common and ideal
type would be Saul Alinsky's method of organizing WOodlawn, a
black slum area of Chicago. Alinsky dealt with the existing
leadership of the area, a few clergy, in attempting to create
a community organization that could lobby and work for the

Sxx~¥ewce ’

benefit of the area. The problem being that there existed

'-

little sense of community, and most residents seemed fairly

 

apathetic about the area. His exact methods of organizing

the neighborhood aren't that important, what are important

are his tactics. He used an existing power structure and
leadership group, and built an organization that effectively
represented the neighborhood and promoted its cause. By more
or less applying visible pressure to existing institutions,
such as showing up en masse for public hearings, or boycotting

a specific store or agency, or intimidating local store keepers

 

43
Piven, op. cit., p. 448.

Richard Sennett, The Uses of Disorder, (N.Y.: Random
House, 1971) p. 152.

 

25

by placing scales outside their doors to check the validity
of their weights, a show of strength was achieved and.people
of the area began to identify with the neighborhood organiza-
tion. Alinsky's approach is to basically catch the power
structure off guard and force it to live up to its responsibi-
lities, which politically it must under the pressure of a
show of strength by the community. He states it more aptly
in his own words:

The basic tactic in warfare against the haves is a

mass political jujitsu: The Have—Nots do not

rigidly oppose the Haves, but yield in such planned

and skilled ways that the superior strength of the

Haves becomes their own undoing. For example,

since the Haves publicly pose as custodians'of

responsibility, morality, law, and justice (which

are frequently strangers to each other), they can

be constantly pushed to live up to their own book

of morality and regulations. No organization,

including organized religion, can live up to the

letter of its own book. You can club them to
death with their "Book" of rules and regulations.

45
In other words, exploit the weak spots of the power structure,
which makes it vulnerable, and therefore more open to change.
The recent housing and community development act is
interesting in that the previous requirement for citizen
participation in model cities has been dropped and the only
stipulation of community involvement is that there be public
hearings. This is significant in that either the federal
government is retreating from its social commitment back to a

physical orientation, or it has been convinced by the criticisms

of its programs that social planning cannot be effective unless

 

5
Saul D. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, (N.Y.: Random
House, 1971), p. 152.

 

26

the citizens have the reins and planners are not placed in

the precarious position of representing one segment of the
community while being paid by another. The effectiveness of
neighborhoods like Woodlawn and other ex-model cities neigh-
borhoods to organize may also have convinced the government
that it was going about the issue all wrong and so they
decided to pull back. Only time will tell, if new legislation
gets passed that benefits local communities, or if neigh-
borhood corporations become increasingly successful across the
country, what role the federal government will take in the
area of community development. In this period of economic
recession with most frills being cut, programs helping the
powerless get power may be more threatening to the federal
government than they were a decade ago and be considered
extraneous, and therefore terminated.

The Housing Quality Program of New York City could be
the combination of physical, economic, and social roles that
would allow for the optimum planning situation. The system
is based on allowing maximum flexibility while insuring a high
level of minimum quality.

”(T)he Housing Quality Program is designed to

force the deve10per and architect to consider

and comply with as full a range of quality as 46
possible as expressed in the program elements."

 

Charles Reiss and Michael Kwartler, "Housing Quality
Program Puts Human Scale into Residential Zoning," Planner's
Notebook, Vol. 4, No. 6 (December 1974) p. l.

27

The program was inspired by the need of New York to compete
with its surrounding suburbs and towns. Middle—income families
were leaving the City because it couldn't compete economically
or aesthetically. "Inflated construction and financing costs
have made rental or purchase in new buildings, even subsidized
47
ones, very expensive;" In 1972 the Urban Design Council
(UDC) was given the task of studying New York City's housing
situation in regard to the quality of life by ex-Mayor Lindsay.
They-concluded that New York's existing zoning ordinance was
counterproductive.
It has encouraged tall buildings surrounded by space,
of "the‘city in a park concept." The Urban Design
Council found, however, that the newly created open
space was not being used by residents. It was not
perceived as useable space nor as public space. . .
(They) also found that the buildings encouraged by
the ordinance tended to offer a sense of insecurity
regarding crime and personal safety, that a sense of
psychological breaking up of neighborhoods wag
encouraged rather than a sense of community.4
This program is extremely significant, because it attempts
to deal with the City's and the residents' economic situation,
the design or physical needs, and the social needs all in one
package. Planning would be done on a value system by assigning
points to different aspects of development. The Housing
Quality Program is a set of 26 program elements divided into
four categories. The categories are neighborhood impact,

security and safety, recreation space, and building interior.

Each program element has a set goal and statistical standards

 

7
4 Ibid., p. 2.

48Ibid., p. 2.

28

for determining the degree of compliance with the goal. Direct
or implied conflicts were intentionally built into the program
to allow resolution on a site by site, community by community
basis.

Objective standards, or community values, had to be

developed that could apply throughout the city. We

(UDC) recognized that the subjective aspects were

really a "vision" of what good housing is. In a

neighborhood framework, it is a vision of what a good

neighborhood is. A new development, therefore,

would be judged by its neighbors on the basis of

what impact it had upon the commonly held vision.

Where the vision was positive, new housing would

reinforce i5. Where negative, it would have to

change it.

Of major significance to this paper are the considerations
of neighborhood impacts, and the new role and composition of
the clients. In the past market forces had promoted the
treatment of the builder and developer as client, with this {
program the eventual occupant and the neighborhood are also
considered as clients. This program attempts to deal with the

impacts new buildings have on a neighborhood and considers

such things as circulation, community services, and social

 

activities when evaluating a project; it also introduced the
concept of perceptual impact that developments have in terms

of physical and social community identity. These are very
notable developments in planning, the total group of those being
effected by a project are finally being considered in its

design. This program allows planning much more flexibility

 

49 ,
Ibid., p. 3. f:

29

by not having strict guidelines that must be followed,
permitting the plan to be molded to fit into its specific

environment.

Conclusion

 

According to Duhl, "Planning is not a static state,
planning is not a product but a process, . . . a veritable
ev01utionary continuum."50 Planning must change with time,
and has changed significantly in recent years away from the
purely technical advisory role, to one of activism and compre-
hensiveness. The social role of the planner is just now
developing and only time will tell whether it will be effective.
Community power and neighborhood associations, along with the
Housing Quality Program in New York City are innovations
that will hopefully make planning more significant and
effectiye in the future. 1

It is difficult to understand how planning, being a
well intentioned field, has had an adverse effect upon our
cities, and caused such widespread criticism. Planning has
achieved many positive results. It has organized land use to
prevent haphazard deleterious development, and set minimum
standards for health, safety, and welfare that have effectively
upgraded urban living standards. As the allocators of scarce
resources planners may have, in order to stay in existence,

favored those who controlled the resources they must allocate.

 

50
Hagman, Donald, Urban Planning and Land Deve10pment

Control Laws (St. Paul: West Publishing Co., 1971) p. 35.

 

30

As stated in the introduction planning is a new field and has
had to invent techniques, considering this we must expect some
failure and attempt to learn from past mistakes. It appears
that planning instead of attempting new approaches has tended
to retreat back to the safe technician role. This may be a
function of what programs get funding since those with power
tend to be rather hesitant with funds for programs that
threaten their power. In this era of rising expectations of
equality and representation by those on the bottom of the
political, economic, and social ladder, it is easy to under-
stand their criticisms of planning, which has appeared to
favor the status quo. New programs are looked to, at first,
as solutions to our problems, but then when they aren't
entirely successful have come under vociferous attack.
Planning is not a panacea, it is a process that can attempt
at improvement of current urban ills. '

Once it is realized that social science and physical
science can't explain bigotry and human irrationality the
great expectations of planning will be minimized. This
explains why some have advocated such radical things as the
use of disorder and disruption to achieve social progress and
community power, instead of planning. The Alinsky approach
may be effective and valuable in helping upgrade the lives of.
the "Have-Nots," but planning needs to do more than that, it
must benefit the general public. The Housing Quality Program
of New York City may be the tool that enables planning to meet

the needs of responsiveness and effectiveness. It allows a

31 .

high degree of participation of all sectors of the population

in attempting to deal with the important economic, social,

and physical considerations of develOpment. Through programs
like New York's and efforts of people like Alinsky new approaches
to urban problems are being attempted, and some may succeed.
Planning must learn from its mistakes and continue to innovate,
if progress is to achieved in this field. It must be remembered
that planning is not a static state and must adapt and change

itself over time.

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