- Posted by admin
- Posted in General Category
 Furl It |
The question whether urban and regional planning bodies should be insulated from politics or not, is an ancient one. In many western countries urban and regional planning studies become more and more influenced by the political arena, reflecting in provision of urban and regional planning degree programs under the umbrella of public policy faculties, instead of architecture faculties where they traditionally belonged.
Advantages of public sector planning body insulated from politics:
1. The lion share of planning decisions could be based on social and scientific theories. Politics in democratic states starts from individuals and their desires, therefore public planning in this environment will eliminate long-term planning based on social and scientific agendas.
2. Involvement of politicians and citizenry in the planning process slow it down and in some cases eliminate it, therefore politically insulated planning body will expedite the planning process.
3. A real democratic debate including all of the interest group involved on a particular planning issue is seldom occurs. In a result, opportunist interest groups are the ones which attracted to a particular planning process and influence on the planning outcomes to their favor. Politically insulated planning body will eliminate this phenomenon.
4. The planning policy will be liberated from the rule of the majority that often leads to social mediocrity and suppress genuine solutions.
5. In liberal states the state serves as an arbiter rather than positive actor. Therefore, a public sector planning body in this environment promotes values of efficiency and economy, rather than a comprehensive research of innovative methods to increase welfare that could take place at politically insulated public planning bodies.
Disadvantages of public sector planning body insulated from politics:
1. Since there are no neutral planners, planner??s personal interests may be reflected in the planning outcome. Therefore they must operate in the political arena which serve as supervision tool.
2. Political involvements empirically educate the planners about the relationship between particular policy and public interests. Insulating public planning sector from politics will eliminate this education process.
3. Public planning body that insulated from politics in a democracy will have significant problems to gain mandate and public trust to execute its plans. The democratic state seeks to maintain as much political power in the hand of citizenry, therefore the public planning policies should be determined in the political arena.
4. A politically insulated public planning body that plans in the name of public interest is not realistic. Society is built out of classes, therefore there are numerous classes interests rather than a unify public interest. The only place where all classes?? interests might be heard is the political arena.
5. Political environment provides additional tools and power to help planning policies to be executed.
6. As a physical territory, the state is responsible for its environmental and physical developmental issues therefore public planning policy should be determine within state??s institutes by political debates, rather than within politically insulated bodies.
Democracy, by definition, seeks to maintain as much political power in the hand of citizenry. Therefore, the overview goals of the planning policy should be debated and defined in the political arena. Essential step toward this goal is the provision of Urban and Regional Planning degree programs under the umbrella of Public Policy faculties.
Although physical planning is a prominent aspect of urban and regional planning profession, many other significant aspects such as economic, social and culture, must be incorporated into the planning theories.
Related Posts to Insulating urban and regional planning bodies from politics - advantages and disadvantages:
This entry was posted on Friday, September 7th, 2007 at 3:08 pmand is filed under General Category. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Leave a Reply