Linking Research and Practice in Planning

The Journal of the American Planning Association has a long history; just how long depends on which of its precursor publications one takes as the start. An earlier editor of the journal, Don Krueckeberg, put the beginning at 1915 when The City Plan (1915–1918) was established. However, he noted that it was reborn a number of times as City Planning (1925–1934), the Planners’ Journal (1935–1943), the Journal of the American Institute of Planners (1944–1978), and, finally, JAPA (Krueckeberg, 1980).

Throughout its history, JAPA has had a complex relationship with the profession of planning. Krueckeberg (1980) describes a committee of the then–American City Planning Institute reporting on City Planning in the 1930s: The committee “was candid and to the point. They were not satisfied with its present form. It was too popular to be technically valuable and too technical and ‘much too conservative in format’ to have popular appeal” (Krueckeberg, 1980, p. 10). In response, City Planning was transferred to the American Civic Association, and the Institute created a new and more technical forum, the Planners’ Journal, though with the same editors.

Today, JAPA emphasizes research with application to planning actions, broadly defined, giving it a more complex mandate than many scholarly journals. This raises a number of questions about the scope of planning work that JAPA should feature and the kinds of research that can be applied to it. I have written before about different cultures in planning research: working on the scientific frontier, examining issues of practical relevance, reflecting on practice history, and answering enduring questions often about ethical issues (Forsyth, 2012). I would hope that JAPA would include all of these, though the link to planning action is key.

A central question is how to maintain and enhance research standards while helping practitioners take advantage of the substantial body of planning research. Practicing planners working on specific problems often struggle to make the connection between research and their own projects (Forsyth, 2016). To better support planners in conducting research in evidence-based or evidence-informed planning takes work. It requires more than releasing single studies; such work must be placed in a wider context, in a way that is also accessible and engaging (Krizek, Forsyth, & Shively Slotterback, 2009). Although not simple, it is particularly important in the current period when expertise—based on scholarly research, professional knowledge, data analysis, and planning experience—is being challenged in public debates.

This is also a time when there is much information available on the internet, though this information is of uneven quality. Partly in response, the larger world of publishing is working to better disseminate high-quality peer-reviewed work such as that contained in JAPA, evolving toward new forms of open access and increasing use of social media to disseminate versions of content. This could be very positive in helping improve access to JAPA material and ideas among the international body of practitioners, a topic to which I will return in future editorials.

To experiment with fostering scholarly communication with links to practice, JAPA has introduced a new article format, the Planning Viewpoint. JAPA Planning Viewpoints make well-reasoned arguments that draw on planning scholarship and research and are relevant to planning practice. Examples might include critiquing a practice case, evaluating a key planning idea, identifying an omission in planning research, or speculating on the future of a domain of planning. Clearly conceptualized, Planning Viewpoints also acknowledge or engage with alternative interpretations. They join standard research articles and longer review essays as a double-blinded refereed article format in the journal. I hope that they will engage issues of central concern to the profession in the United States and internationally, from social justice and climate change to new technologies and the evolving role of government.

JAPA’s link to the profession has recently become more organizational. With the start of my editorship, at the beginning of 2019, the American Planning Association has also placed the JAPA Editor on APA’s Board of Directors, if in a nonvoting ex officio role. This promises to improve communication between the practice and research arms of the planning profession more generally. The last “PhD” academic to be on the board was Frank Popper, with stints in the 1980s and early 2000s. Having a permanent seat on the board as a representative of the research community is a positive step. APA’s board also changed a number of other aspects of governance that will be the subject of a future editorial further examining the relationship between JAPA and its sponsoring body, the American Planning Association.

Welcome and Thanks

Finally, my thanks go to the prior Editor, Sandi Rosenbloom, for having done a terrific job shepherding the journal and smoothing my transition. Thanks also to Tim Chapin, JAPA’s Book Review Editor, who generously agreed to stay on until Gerardo Sandoval takes over. Michelle Treviño, the journal’s Managing Editor, will remain on the team.