1. -Topic-
Politics of Planning
By :
Desy Rosnita Sari
P28017016
NCKU
Urban Planning Department
1st Presentation
Seminar 4th course
March 28th 2014
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2. Planning in the Face of Power
-- John Forester --
Published in : Planning in the Face of Power (1989)
-- Classic Reading In Urban Planning 1995. p;437
Keywords : Information, Power, Planning, and Political communication
ARTICLES :
To be professionally effective, be politically articulate
-- Norman Khrumholz and John Forester --
Published in : Making Equity Planning Work (1978)
– Classic Reading In Urban Planning 1995. p;456
Keywords : Politic planning, Planning practice, Planning profession, and Cleveland
Looking back; Making city planning work
-- Allan B. Jacobs --
Published in : Making city planning work (1980)
– Classic Reading In Urban Planning 1995. p;426
Keywords : Politic of planning, Planning profession, Planning process, and San Francisco
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3. Motivesfor choosing the Topic and Articles
Allan B. Jacobs : Looking back; Making city planning work
John Forester : Planning in the face of power
Norman Khrumholz : To be professionally effective, be politically articulate
John Forester
1. Classic readings in urban planning
2. Intercourse between previous topics (last semester)
Ethics in profession, the environment,
and conflicting priorities/planning goals
scope of
the profession
Ethics in
the profession
Challenge in
the profession
“Planning is political”
Planning profession certainly operate within the web of political relationship
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4. Making city planning work (1980)
Classic Reading In Urban Planning 1995. p;426
Allan B. Jacobs
December 29, 1928 (age 85)
Looking back;
Making city planning work
BOOKS
The Boulevard Book (2003), Great Streets (1995), Looking at Cities (1985), Making City Planning Work (1980), The
Urban Design Element of the San Francisco General Plan, Toward an Urban Design Manifesto (well-known paper
describes how cities should be laid out)
• Bachelor of Architecture, Miami University
• Master of City Planning, University of
Pennsylvania in 1954
• Graduate School of Design, Harvard.
• Study City Planning as a Fulbright Scholar at
University College London (1954 – 1955)
Present; Professor emeritus of city and regional planning.
Berkeley University (1975 – 2001), twice served as chairman
Prior;
Taught; Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania
Worked; The Pittsburgh City Planning projects, Ford Foundation in
Calcutta. India
8 years as Director of the San Francisco Department of City Planning
(1967 – 1974)
(A city and regional planner, urban designer, architect)
Keywords: Politic of planning, Planning profession, Planning
process, San Francisco
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5. Looking Back.
Jacobs’ reflection on his experiences as a planner
----- mostly during his duty as San Francisco’s planning director (1967 - 1974).
• Pictured the flavor of doing planning under governmental setting (win/fail the
battle)
• Conveying clear sense of the alternate moods of
excitement, disappointment, challenge and frustration
• Revealing some strategies and tactics used by Jacobs and his agency in trying to
influence various policy decisions in San Francisco.
• Both explicitly and implicitly informed that planning can indeed work if
skilled, dedicated and committed people are willing to devote sufficient energy
into it.
5/19

6. Comprehensive plan
Master plan
San Francisco
√
X
Based on large-measure on an assessment of the social
and economic needs
Accompanied by a set of recommendation for programs
and actions, which is all separate plan elements related
**Program that could be achieved via legislative action and directly under
planning department of SF Government , is more likely to be successful
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7. Long-range
development goal
Policy documents, statistic picture of
future, Dictated plan, inefficient planning
process (too vague, too biased, too
subjective, etc)
A frame work of plan that could
lead planner to be easier to
explain their idea and proposal
that are preferable to the people
7/19

8. The post of city planning division
Planning as Legitimate product
Executive in local government
• Comprehensive planning with long-range action
• More likely understand people needs
• Planning proposal can be propose before election
• Another option for people to connect with
government
• Legitimate action / top-down plan (dictated plan /
copy from favorite type) but tends to success
• Inefficient planning process (too many programs)
• Commission as buffer from private’s demand
Planning commission
• Mayor’s short range-plan
(practical an visible goal)
• Planning director limited by
administrative set-up
decentralization Semi-autonomy
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9. Jacobs’ stressed points:
• Qualified, trained, dedicated planner
• Bottom-up planning with qualified planner (responsiveness
than efficient)
• Planner limitation may substitute by consultant (cooperation)
• Planner have strong argument upon their utopia
prediction/vision
• Best plan is planed locally, developed locally, and used local
resource (advocacy planning)
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10. “Victory today, over the wrong thing in the wrong place, does not ensure
that the same battle will not have to be fought tomorrow or the next day,
.....................,city planners may have a hard time knowing when they have
been successful, it is hard to know what constituted a good batting
average......in many cities, success is measured by what happens, by what
gets done, by what is accomplished..... we are accustom to think that way,
BUT sometimes it is better to measure success by measure what does not
happen"..............Allan B. Jacobs - Making city planning work (1978)
Quotations
Aceh Comprehensive planning
(social economic relationship and strategic)
• HRD VS quality of urban environment (scholarship VS Museum)
• Women empowering VS physical project (skill raining VS Elegant Mall)
• Conservation VS Urban artifact (forest protection VS city park)
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11. John F. Forester
Planning in the face of power
English Town Planner, Urbanist, Geographer
Professor and Director of Graduate Studies -
Department of City and Regional Planning
Cornell University.
Critical Theory and Public Life (1987), Planning in the Face of Power (1989), The Deliberative Practitioner
(1999), Dealing with Differences: Dramas of Mediating Public Disputes (2009).
Graduate from University of California, Berkeley
**City Planning
BOOKS (emphasis on participatory planning)
Published in : Planning in the Face of Power (1989)
-- Classic Reading In Urban Planning 1995. p;437
Keywords : information, power, planning, and political
communication
11/19

12. Vulnerability of democracy
Professional responsibility
Political action
domination
inequality
Ideology
Illegitimate authorityResistance
Democratizing practices
1. How planners work to fulfill their legal mandate
for foster a genuinely democratic planning
process?
2. What power can planner have?
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13. • Information is an important source of
planner’s power in the planning process
• requests planners to be progressive
practitioners
Forester’s argument
5perspectives of how planner use information:
1. The technician
2. The incremental pragmatist
3. The liberal advocate
4. The structuralist
5. The progressive
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14. Type of misinformation / distortion
Incidental / Ad Hoc Systematic structural
inevitable
cognitive limits of
communication
division of labor
unnecessary interpersonal manipulation
structural
legitimization
• Comprehension (distorted by problem framing)
• Sincerity or trust (distorted by false assurance)
• Legitimacy (distorted by lack of consent)
• Knowledge (distorted by misrepresentation)
Managing Misinformation:
distortion
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15. BOOKS
To be professionally effective,
be politically articulate
Published in : Making Equity Planning Work (1978)
Keywords : politic planning, planning practice, planning
profession, Cleveland
Norman Khrumholz
John Forester
Professor in Levin College of Urban Affairs
President of the American Planning Association (1986-1987)
President of the American Institute of Certified Planners (1999)
Planning Director of the City of Cleveland from 1969-1979 (10 years)
Planning practitioner in Ithaca, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland
Norman Khrumholz
Making Equity Planning Work (1978)
Revitalizing Urban Neighborhoods (1999)
Reinventing Cities: Equity Planners Tell Their Stories (1994)
*Legacy : Center for Neighborhood Development. Cleveland State University.
President Jimmy Carter asked him to serve on the National Commission on Neighborhoods, whose members
traveled around the country and held hearings on neighborhoods’ needs.
M.C.R.P., Planning, Cornell University, 1965

16. To be professionally effective, be politically articulate
• A review of Cleveland political experience in the practice of equity
planning during his duty (Planning Director; 1969-1979)
• In the time of equality and racial justice issues emerged in the nation
• Progressively program and policies that resulted;
*changes in Ohio’s property law
*improvement in public-service delivery
*protection in transit services for the most transit-dependent
*rescue of city parklands and beach
Question : How was this successes accomplished ?

17. “To play an effective role in the messy world of
urban politic, planner have to be professional able,
organizationally astute, and, most of all, politically
articulate.”

18. 1. Anticipating problems and organizing support
2. Shaping the new agenda
3. Building a reputation for practical equity-oriented analysis
4. Practical rhetoric and publicity
5. Relation with the media
6. Strengthening planning analyses by using outside expertise
6 aspect planner should has for being politically articulate :

19. Xie Xie Ni
Thank You
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