The Shame of Planners

Abstract

It has been more than two decades since the late Supreme Court Justice William Brennan challenged the planning profession with his famous query: “If a policeman must know the Constitution, then why not a planner?” (San Diego Gas & Elec. Co. v. City of San Diego, 450 U.S. 621, 661, n. 26 [1981].) It's not that Justice Brennan was unsympathetic to the goals and tribulations of land-use planners. After all, his constitutional gauntlet was thrown down shortly after he had authored the Court's opinion in Penn Central (undoubtedly lauded in some of the other commentaries in this issue, as it was by the Tahoe-Sierra majority) upholding New York City's Landmarks Preservation Law.