Is it all about the middle class

This weeks seminar was by Adam and myself and was on a reading by Susan S. Fainstein called New Directions in Planning Theory.

Susan Fainstein is a world renowned planner and is currently a Professor of Urban Planning at Harvard University, her outlook mainly focuses on the political and economic side of planning.

The reading spoke about communicative planning and how it is designed to initiate planning at a local level. This makes the planner an essential element of discussion, meaning planners have to communicate with other actors in their daily practice, through face to face interactions or through planning documents.

New Urbanism is also a significant talking point and how it is the revival of the design focus of cities.  It attempts to reduce any inequalities through successful design which is similar to the Garden City ideals. This idea creates a strong city that interconnects, that is to say that everything is within a ten minute walk no matter what part of the city you live in.

Susan Fainsteins "Just City" puts planners in the role of advocates and allows them to accept the conflictual view of society. One of the main concepts of this is the need to embody the middle-class, not just the poor and disadvantaged.

This idea of supporting the middle class is seen in the Illawarra, which as experienced a shift from a predominately blue collar area to increased middle class working. The area is now moving away from the mining and steel industries towards increased middle class demographics. This can be seen in the area of Shellharbour which has seen an explosion of middle class development of housing and infrastructure.

This is seen in the continuing developments of areas such as Flinders and Shell Cove, both of which were subject to intense promotion and advertising through television, radio and social media. Five years ago these areas did not exist and were predominately farming land and had no housing developments.
The Shellharbour city centre has transformed into a hub of accounting firms, lawyer firms and several medical centres, a significant change from what it was five to ten years ago.

Art, Science, Modernis. Has planning experienced a Paradigm shift?

This weeks presentation was done by Laura and Jess, the reading was called The Anglo-American town planning theory since 1945: three signiŽcant developments but no paradigm shifts written by
Nigel Taylor.

The reading this week was a summary of what we have learned so far this semester through the first ten weeks of seminars. The topic of planning as an Art or Science was once again brought and the question was asked has planning had any paradigm shifts? That is to say has there been a radical change in the underlying beliefs or theory.

So has there been a shift ?

Im inclined to say both yes and no. Over the past few decades post WWII there have been many changes that have shaped planning to be what it is today. Certain aspects of science have made there way into the discipline, enabling them the luxury of being skilled in architecture and design as well as scientific analysis.
These changes over time were highlighted into a couple of key points :

1. From the planner as a creative designer to the planner as a scientific analyist and rational decision maker.

At one stage planning was primarily physical design and design based art. This was until systems and rational process theorists suggested it was a science. This did unsettle some plannners as they were required to learn aspects of scientific analysis.

2. From the planner as a technical expert to the planner as a manger and communicator

This was the definitive idea that both the art and science should be specialities that planners have to possess. They also propsed that planners have to be effective managers and communicators to ensure maximum efficiency.


Planning has experienced many changes and the battle continues to rage on about whether they are scientists, artists, mediators, facilitators or anything else you like to call it. The post modernism era has shaped many of these changes and it will continue to do so while there are so many differing opinions about the planning discipline. The bottom line is all planners wil have some knowledge of these areas, it is up to each individual which area they would like to pursue as there specialty.

Arguing, Community and Planning

This weeks reading was presented by Dan and Sarad and strongly focused on the role of arguing and community in the world of planning. The paper presents Professor Healeys take on the future of planning and the way in which she believes it would successfully create sustainable planning.

There were two waves of planning that swept across the world in the second half of this century. These included:

The comprehensive rational planning process of the 60s and 70s which was largely methodological and institutional and the political economy of urban regions in the 80s which was aggressively critical.

Through the reading she is proposing a communicative argumentative approach to planning which would be based  on a new wave of ideas sweeping over the field of planning and policy analysis. The system would be principle based and designed to build a consensus through economic and social relationships. She is more or less proposing to get as many people in community meetings as possible and talking till an agreement is made.

So are arguements beneficial to decision making ? Some would say that if you argue strongly for something and you are passionate about it then it displays that you are genuinely interested about the issue and you are going to contribute effectively to the decision making process. While on the other hand most would say that arguing just creates contradiction and heated exchanges that lead to no real avail.

Some of the benefits involved with the approach proposed by Prof Healey include reinventing stale ideas, recogonising diversity and is very inclusive as all attempts to keep people in the loop of what is happening are made. Despite this I believe the disadvantages out weigh the benefits.

Someone cannot vigorously argue about an issue if they know next to nothing about planning, how could they possibly influence a professional when they might not be a planning professional themselves. The process of arguing is never guaranteed to reach a compromise and finally while it would be nice to include everyone, the chances of this happening are very small, there will always be someone who misses out.

This approach was designed as a set of questions to challange and provoke our school of thought, it involves a cyclical strategy which is based around reviewing ideas, inventing or developing new ideas and monitoring these into the near future.

Contested Cities: Social Process and Spatial Form

This weeks seminar was by Will and Tom  and was on the reading "Contested Cities: Social Process and Spatial Form" by David Harvey in 1997.

Throughout the seminar there was a strong focus on what makes a community unique and the different aspects that shape different communities throughout the world. So what does make a community?

I believe a community is made up of people with a common sense of place or connection to a certain place. This can be seen through coastal and country communities, both of which live by different lifestyles, culture and values. People living on the coast are brought together through the beach whilst people living in country communities are banded together through agriculture and a completely different way of life.

 The people living within these communties gain a sense of togetherness and share common interests which allows them to interact successfully amongst one another. Quite often these communities have been created through generations of families who have chosen to live in the place that they grew up in, creating an even deeper sense of connection to certain places and how people can unify.


Communities also have certain meaning themselves, for example, in some cases they can serve to isolate rather then include, however it is this seperation from others that creates strong communties that share common attributes in some cases. An example of this is seen in gated communties, whilst the people living within these gated communities get along quite well and cooperate, as soon as they leave there is a mentality of us vs them.

Community Activistm is fundamental in creating commmunities, through militant particularism- which suggests that almost all radical movements have their origin in some place, with a particular set of issues which people are pursuing and following. Through this you can spread a persons passion amongst a greater number of people you will and hence create a better community.