A critique of urban planning: directions for research

Over the past two decades planners have shifted from one planning approach to another—urban renewal, community participation, system analysis with emphasis on transportation modelling, and their current interest in “the quality of the environment”. This paper examines the planning principles underlying all these approaches, and discusses their fundamental similarity. It is suggested that the failure of many urban programmes to solve some of our severest problems, and in some cases to recognise what they are, may be due to inherent errors in these underlying principles, and their inappropriateness for urban analysis and decision‐making. Reference is made to a number of urban planning models and in particular to the Sydney Area Transportation Study. Examples of recurring urban problems are examined in order to point to the types of questions we might ask in urban planning, and the conclusions to the paper outline directions for research which might lead to information more relevant to our real problems.