Dr. John Friedmann, one of the most distinguished and influential city planning scholars, died in June 2017 at the age of 91. He was the author or coauthor of 27 books and more than 100 peer-reviewed articles on planning theory, regional planning and economic development, Chinese urbanization, and international development. It would be hard to overestimate Friedmann’s influence on planning theory and the ways in which planners think about the growth and development of cities and regions around the world.
Friedmann published a total of 14 pieces in the Journal of the American Planning Association (JAPA; and its predecessor, the Journal of the American Institute of Planners) over almost 40 years; the first two in 1963 and the last in 2002. Some were research articles; others were think pieces or reflections on current planning issues. His JAPA publications ranged from a short introduction to a special issue of JAPA on regional planning to comprehensive assessments of major planning topics, including planning in Chile (Friedmann, Citation1966) and the role of American planners working internationally (Friedmann, Citation1969). One contribution, ironically, was a tribute to Harvey Perloff after his death (Friedmann, Citation1984). Friedmann was the single author of all but one of these pieces (his one coauthor was Barclay Hudson in Citation1974). It surprised me that one of Friedmann’s 14 JAPA contributions was a critique of Euclidean zoning and traditional city planning practice broadly defined (Friedmann, Citation1993). But I know well a provocative essay that I long assigned students in which Friedmann makes a case for planning in the public interest as he defined it, with two extremely critical rejoinders from Herb Gans and Robert Nisbet suggesting that Friedmann’s views of how to understand and respond to the public interest were impractical (Friedmann, Nisbet, & Gans, Citation1973).
Friedmann himself sometimes responded to other pieces in the journal, taking on a challenge issued to planners by Alan Altshuler (Friedmann, Citation1965) and responding at length to Ernest Alexander’s commentaries on Friedmann’s take on emerging planning roles (Friedmann, Citation1994). It is telling that there are 360 entries on the JAPA website under Friedmann’s name, which indicates the large number of JAPA reviews of his many books as well as articles in the journal that listed him as a keyword.
There have been many celebrations of Friedmann’s life and work since his death, including a major event on November 2, 2017, at the University of California at Los Angeles Luskin School of Public Affairs, where he taught for much of his illustrious career. Some of his students and colleagues are together creating a book of essays honoring his contributions to planning theory and scholarship over more than six decades.
I asked some of Friedmann’s former students to take a different tack for JAPA, to write personal essays that reflect on his contribution to planning practice, appropriate considering his 1987 book Planning in the Public Domain: From Knowledge to Action , which is widely used in many planning programs around the world. Bish Sanyal has written a major essay that views Friedmann’s whole career from a variety of perspectives, showing the traces of Friedmann’s influence on himself and many other scholars. Keith Pezzoli, Hemalata C. Dandekar, and Mee Kam Ng have also written short personal essays that make clear the themes in Friedmann’s work that resonate with the work that practitioners undertake. Their essays follow.
References
- Friedmann, J. (1963a). Intention and reality: The American planner overseas. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35(3), 187–193. doi:10.1080/01944366908977951
- Friedmann, J. (1963b). The strategy of deliberate urbanization. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 34(6), 364–373. doi:10.1080/01944366808977563
- Friedmann, J. (1964a). Introduction. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 30(2), 82–84. doi:10.1080/019443664089781000
- Friedmann, J. (1964b). Regional development in post-industrial society. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 30(2), 84–90. doi:10.1080/01944369408978101
- Friedmann, J. (1965). Comprehensive planning as a process: A response to Altshuler. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 31(3), 195–197. doi:10.1080/019443665089978166
- Friedmann, J. (1966). Planning as innovation: The Chilean case. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 32(4), 194–204. doi:10.1080/01944366608978495
- Friedmann, J. (1969). Notes on social action. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35(5), 311–318. doi:10.1080/01944366908977241
- Friedmann, J. (1973). Readership review sampler. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 39(5), 311–318. doi:10.1080/01944367308977424
- Friedmann, J. (1984). Harvey Perloff: Explorer, pioneer. Journal of the American Planning Association, 50(1), 79–81. doi:10.1080/01944368408976585
- Friedmann, J. (1987). Planning in the public domain: From knowledge to action. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Friedmann, J. (1993). Toward a non-Euclidean mode of planning. Journal of the American Planning Association, 59(4), 377–379. doi:10.1080/019443693089759092
- Friedmann, J. (1994). The utility of non-Euclidean planning. Journal of the American Planning Association, 60(3), 377–379. doi:10.1080/01944369408975595
- Friedmann, J. (2002). City of fear or open city? Journal of the American Planning Association, 68(3), 237–243. doi:10.1080/0194430208976270
- Friedmann, J., & Hudson, B.(1974). Knowledge and action: A guide to planning theory. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 40(1), 2. doi:10.1080/01944367408977442
- Friedmann, J., Nisbet, R., & Gans, H. J.(1973). The public interest and community participation: Toward a reconstruction of public philosophy. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 39(1), 2–12. doi:10.1080/01944367308977649 (Note: Although cited as coauthored, these are three separate pieces.)