[Last Updated:January 11, 2009]
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URBS 300: THE PLANNING IDEA
Tuesday, Thursday, 2:00 – 3:15 PM
SH 286
Instructor: Ashwani Vasishth
Office: ST 206
Office Hours: T 12:00 – 1:30 PM; or by appt.
E-mail: vasishth@csun.edu
Telephone: x-6137
Course website: http://www.csun.edu/~vasishth/URBS-300.html
COURSE TEXT: Campbell, Scott & Susan S. Fainstein. 2003. Readings In Planning Theory (Second Edition). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Available at the University Book Store, Abe.com and Amazon.com.
COURSE OBJECTIVES AND ORGANIZATION:
We care about planning because actions have consequences, and because context makes a difference to what we can see. Thus doing planning is about tracing consequences and telling the context. We learn to “think ahead” because not doing so can prove expensive, and because the future, properly, influences the present. But how we think about planning, and what we think about it, is contingent most on our world-view—that is to say, how we think about the world before we come to think about it hugely influences what we do think about it,
The idea that “market-driven” approaches to decision-making are somehow superior to “planning-driven” approaches is a notion that reaches back into the early history of capitalist thought. The belief that “the invisible hand” can and will deal more effectively with questions of collective decision making denies the fact that what the “invisible hand” is able to do is hugely constrained by the rules of the game that preconfigure the market landscape. Thus, irrespective of our belief systems about markets, we are constrained to give heed to context and to consequence.
This course will consider the myriad ways in which we have learned to think about thinking about the consequences of our actions, and the ways in which we have sought to tell the proper (necessary) context within which our actions are set.
There are some few ideas that are key to planning theory. For instance, that the world is a complex place means that we can not, with impunity, treat the world as a simple, mechanical system, but rather must see it as an organic, responsive condition. When we poke at the world, the world pokes back at us. The conditions under which we started to act are themselves changed by the consequences of our actions. This is made more real for us by Rittel & Webber’s “wicked problems” idea. This is what it means to think “ecologically.”
And then there is the claim that humans are rational profit maximizers. If this were so, it would considerably simplify the business of telling preference in the collective. But Herbert Simon showed us that we are, instead, “satisficers”—that is to say, we are satisfied with less than the maximum benefit, perhaps because benefit and cost are not mutually exclusive categories, but rather, deeply interpenetrated.
Also, we are congnitively constrained in what we can visualize. George Miller’s article, “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two,” shows us that we can only keep but a few thoughts simultaneously in play, in our minds. Then, how are we to deal with complexity, if we cannot, in any factual way, dwell in complexity? Lindblom’s notion that we can get by with marginally incremental thought systems leads us to the towering edge of an adaptive management approach to crafting intervention. We can take “dinky little pokes” at the world, and then be attentive to the world’s responses to our pokes, and so tweak our actions. That we can, indeed, get by with muddling through gives us the tool of adaptive management.
These are some few of the building blocks that we will see as shaping the planning idea. But always we return to our root concern—with tracing consequence and telling context. Successful planning is a mode of action that effectively tells us the consequences of alternative courses of action, and that presents us with the relevantly full context within which any one particular action is grounded.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING:
There will be two major assignments, one in the form of a review essay (7-10 pages @ 25% of the total grade), and one final research paper (10-15 pages @ 35% of the total grade). The review essay will be based on discussion in class. The subject matter of the final paper is open to negotiation, and I really would prefer that you use this course as a means to furthering your own academic or professional areas of interest within the context of the course. There will be four in-class essays and pop-quizzes based on assigned readings (20% of the total grade). Weekly study guides will be prepared and submitted for all readings. Informed participation and attendance are worth 20% of the grade.
All assignments (other than in-class work) are required to be typed, double-spaced, and in a standard font. Do not use colored inks. You are required to leave a 1.25 inch left and right margin. You are required to leave two spaces after every period. You are required to use informative sub-headings to structure your papers. Bibliographies, in APA style and with appropriate in-text citations, are required, for the three formal assignments. Each submission will carry your name, e-mail address, course number and the date at the top right-hand corner of the first page. Your submission will be stapled, once, at the top left-hand corner. Do not use any sort of binder strips or covers or decorative embellishment. Proof-read your work for typographical errors and spelling mistakes. This is not optional. Which means it is compulsory. Points will be deducted if all of these requirements are not met.
In general, you are strongly urged to make use of the course web-site, library and scholarly internet resources, in-class discussion, as well as office-hour meetings to further your interests. I have a vast storehouse of articles and reports, and really do enjoy helping you get better at doing research, so please feel free to come chat with me, explore ideas, discuss options and obstacles.
Plagiarism will not be tolerated under any circumstances. I will unhesitatingly fail you and put the case on record with the University in all cases. If you take three or more consecutive words from any other source (article, book, web site), you MUST put them in quotation marks, and provide a clear citation. You are required to familiarize yourselves with the University regulations at:
http://library.csun.edu/Research_Assistance/plagiarism.html
and at:
http://library.csun.edu/kdabbour/plagiarism.html
ASSIGNMENT SCHEDULE:
Monday, March 26, 2009: Mid-term Paper Due (Review Essay)
Monday, May 12, 2009: Final Paper Due
COURSE READING SCHEDULE
* Articles available over WebCT
Campbell & Fainstein. “Introduction: The Structure and Debates of Planning Theory”
* Wildavsky. If Planning Is Everything, Maybe Its Nothing?
Klosterman. “Arguments for and Against Planning”
Perry. “Making Space: Planning As A Mode of Thought”
Fishman. “Urban Utopias: Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier”
Jacobs. “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”
* Rational Choice (to be uploaded)
Starting Tuesday, February 24, 2009
* Rational Comprehensive Planning articles (to be uploaded)
Scott . “Authoritarian High-Modernism”
Fogelsong. “Planning the Capitalist City”
Starting
Tuesday, March 10, 2008
Friedmann.
“Toward A Non-Euclidian Mode of Planning”
Beauregard.
“Between Modernity and Post-modernity: The Ambiguous Position of US
Planning”
Starting
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Davidoff. “Advocacy and Pluralism In Planning”
* Harwood. Environmental Justice and Advocacy
Planning article (to be uploaded)
No Class
On Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Mid-term Paper Due: Tuesday, March 26, 2009
Starting Tuesday,
March 31, 2009
* Molotch. The City As A Growth Machine
April 6 –
11, 2009 (SPRING BREAK)
Krumholz. Equitable Approaches to Local Economic Development
* Frosch et al. Environmental Justice and the Southern California “Riskscape”
Crabgrass Frontier chapter
American Dream article
* Sustainable development articles (to be ouloaded)
* Campbell: Green Cities, Growing Cities, Just Cities: Urban Planning and the Conflicts of Sustainable Development.”
* Smart Growth article
* Growth Visioning article (to be uploaded)
Monday,
May 12, 2008: Final Assignment Due