The Army of Progress

One of the difficulties planning has faced over it's history is the task of appeasement. Planning is a field that touches almost everyone in their day to day lives and as such can be very contentious. Because it is never possible to please everyone the question becomes do we support the majority, or do we impose what we think is the right course of action? Haussmann, the man who transformed Paris, is often idolized today as a visionary for his great plan, however in his time it was widely unpopular and essentially forced upon the citizens by their monarch Napoleon III. If history has vindicated his decision regarding Paris then can we as planners take a similar standpoint today, or are the days of "Great Plans" over, replaced by incremental improvements subject to the approval of the people.

Paul Davidoff was one of those who advocated for planners to take a populist approach. He felt that the masses where being overlooked by the planner, that industry and transportation took precedence over people. These ideas have merit, formulated during the sixties, it is easy to see the problems in the system of the time. But is that a perspective best left in the past, as a necessary, but transitory shake-up of the industry. Today the people are consulted more than ever about every detail of planning issues yet the majority only ever voice their opinions after the fact. Ultimately both methods will work, one city can be a riot of conflicting ideas and implementations and another a utopian uniformity and both can be great cities. The decision, therefore, rests very much upon the shoulders of the planner. Will they advocate for the populace, citing that the city is for the people of today and the planners purpose is to create as directed. Or will they act the part of the vilified but pragmatic, looking only at the future and the legacy of their plan long after the current generation have turned to dust.

I find myself leaning more towards the role of villain in theory, but more of a centrist approach in practice. The planner must plan for the future, that is their role. But since the future is so murky, and the great sweeps of human history so hard to predict, the people of today must be used as the foundation, the cornerstone of any plan. Only a plan with the broad support of the people will be implemented, and only a plan that caters for the future will be deemed relevant tomorrow. Planning is an ever evolving task, even the greatest, most visionary plan will eventually become outdated and discarded. The planner must accept that their work will be changed, modified and distorted by later generations of planners who consider it outdated and naive, but that doesn't mean that the future can be ignored or that we shouldn't aim as high as possible.

Planned Aesthetics

Art versus science, the classic debate. On the one hand scientists, beholden to no one but logic and reason, who utilise facts and evidence to demonstrate the utility of their designs; and on the other artists, disciples of aesthetics, who believe that the human touch is essential in all human endeavours. So where do planners fit into this equation? Are we, as the early industry suggested, scientists devoted to improving the lot of the citizen, or are we, as the more recent trends promote, artists making our mark upon the city like some sort of ever-evolving canvass? 

Hard questions to be sure but like most things the answer tends to lie somewhere in the middle, a balance between the two. Certainly some planners can be said to lean toward one more than the other, plenty of designs have character and soul but lack well thought out amenities and transportation corridors. Rio de Janeiro springs to mind as a city that no one would deny invokes vivid ideas about Brazil, but few would suggest that the Favelas couldn't use a better planned infrastructure, something which the city of Rio struggles with right now. Finding cities that are well planned but lack a certain something of the human essence is more of a challenge, primarily because planned cities are much rarer. However it has been suggested that Canberra is an excellent example of this, a city with good infrastructure, plenty of green space and an aesthetically pleasing road map, but few people living there are overly attached to the city in any kind of spiritual sense as many are in London or New York.

So what then is required to achieve this symbiosis of art and science, to make a good city great? Art can be found in science after all, and science can be used as the basis for art. It was declared in the forward to the 1968 Green Book by Dennis O'Harrow "Planning strives hard to be a science but will always fundamentally remain an art... the personal skill of the planner, of the artist, remains paramount.". based on this approach planning becomes somewhat of an oddity, an art trying to be a science, few other fields of endeavour struggle to hide the artistic side of their profession, particularly when artists are held in such high esteem.

Ultimately I consider planning an art form, but one that because of the broad scope of its canvass requires science to achieve. A million great artists have the most amazing ideas, but without action, without will, they do not outlast their creator by even a moment. When dealing with cities, states and nations the planner must understand and incorporate science in all things. Physics, chemistry, psychology, mathematics and perhaps most importantly economics are all essential tools with which the planner imposes their vision upon the world. To be lacking in science harms peoples quality of life, their health, education and housing, but to be lacking as an artist hinders those same people from enjoying and embracing those lives in a way that perhaps the sciences struggle to quantify.