Critically Reconsidering Orthodox Ideas: Planning as Teleocratic Intervention and Planning as a Rational Decision Method

ABSTRACT

In order to improve contemporary planning theory and practice, this article critically discusses two orthodox ideas of planning that held considerable sway during the twentieth century: planning as a specific form of intervention and planning as a particular method of rational decision making. Attention and critical debate in the field of planning theory have largely concentrated on the latter, seeking above all to construct alternatives to it. Much less critical attention has been paid to the former, with the consequence that the possible alternatives have been less explored. The article suggests how to develop the debate and research in this direction.

KEYWORDS:

• Planning theory
• rationality
• decision
• comprehensiveness
• effectiveness

Acknowledgments

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and publication of this article

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The term “teleocracy” derives from the Greek words telos (goal, end, purpose) and kratein (to rule, to govern). This term was coined by Michael Oakeshott, who introduced it in his oral lectures delivered in the late 1960s (which have been recently published: Oakeshott, 2006). For this use of the term “teleocratic” in planning theory (to identify an approach to planning focused on achieving a specific final state, and shaped by that intent), see Moroni (2010).

2. The most striking application of the rational-comprehensive decisional model is certainly that of Leibniz’s God, by which Leibniz held that, prior to creating our world, God had imagined, simulated, and calibrated all the possible alternative worlds (and all the chains of events that would ensue from each of these projected worlds); after which He supposedly decided to create our universe because it was the best of all possible worlds (Leibniz, 1710/2007).

3. Notably, both these authors – and Davidoff in particular – later distanced themselves from this type of approach.

4. To simplify, here the attention is mainly on, so to speak, ‘direct’ effects of plans, but it can be widened to consider certain ‘indirect’ effects as well.

5. The issue of ‘outcome effectiveness’ is considered for example by Porter, Ten Siethoff, and Smith (2005), Alfasi, Almagor, & Benenson (2012), Millard-Ball (2012), Wang, Han, and Lai (2014), and Long, Han, Tu, and Shu (2015).

6. For research on factors favouring or hampering the implementation of plans, see for instance Berke et al. (2006) and Brody, Highfield, and Thornton (2006).

7. The question of ‘decision effectiveness’ is discussed for example by Dean and Sharfman (1996), Elbanna and Child (2007) and George and Desmidt (2018).

8. The term “dirigiste” is used here in a very general sense to denote a form of top-down, end-state-focused type of intervention in the economy and society.

9. The term “nomocracy” derives from the Greek words nomos (law) and kratein (to rule, to govern). This term too has been introduced by Oakeshott (2006). As regards planning theory, see Moroni (2010).

10. Differently from directional rules, relational rules concern only standard and typical (forbidden or permissible) relationships between urban actions and transformations. They do not concern specific circumstances (Alfasi & Portugali, 2007; Moroni, 2015).

11. “In accepting an imperfect approximation of the rational process, planners think they have come to grips with the role of rationality in planning” (Dalton, 1986, p. 148). However, in this way they only deal with some obvious limitations of the ideal rational approach but do not acknowledge the other basic assumptions underlying it (Dalton, 1986, p. 148).

12. From this perspective, also new reflections on some devices (helpful in designing this kind of instruments better) will be relevant: for instance, particular forms of legal drafting (Moroni, Buitelaar, Sorel, & Cozzolino, 2018) and ways to reinterpret and operationalize the link between the present and the future (Hopkins & Zapata, 2007).

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Notes on contributors

Stefano Moroni

Stefano Moroni is professor of planning at Milan Polytechnic University (Italy). He mainly works on applied ethics, philosophy of law and planning theory.