People,Planning and Adaptability

This article is based on a survey of the New Residential Area in Tangshan.The purposes of the survey were tounderstand the characteristics of the residents' activities,probe into the state of adaptability between people andplanning where conflict lies,and search for the ways to improve planning in residential area.     

Planning Information

On the 22nd of Aug.Premier Li Pengmet with mayors attending the inaugurationmeeting of the Association of Mayors ofChina in Zhong Nan Hai and had talks withthem when he spoke on directives and poli-cies of urban development and urban man-agement and such important issues.Li Peng pointed out that the inaugura-tion of the Association of Mayors of Chinawas a significant event in the annals of ur-ban development in China. On behalf of the     

Sustainable Development,Rational Planning–Annual National Planning Conference 2017 Successfully Held in Dongguan

<正>The Annual National Planning Conference 2017(shortened as the Conference hereinafter)was held in Dongguan from Nov.18to 20.The theme of the Conference was"Sustainable Development,Rational Planning,"which aims to call on planners to better study and act on the spirit of the 19th CPC National Congress and fundamentally promote reform and innovation of the plan-     

One Nation,Two Planning Systems? Spatial Planning and Multi-Level Policy Integration in Ghana: Mechanisms,Challenges and the Way Forward

Effective integration across policy domains and between spatial scales is indispensable in dealing with the inherently complex process of policy formulation and implementation at all levels. In this paper, we examine the key features of Ghana’s spatial planning system focusing on the mechanisms and challenges of policy integration in practice. We show that a combination of path dependence and recent reforms has inevitably created two distinctly separate planning systems: an established Development Planning System and a newly instituted Spatial Planning System. Under the established notion of the ‘spatial’ being distinctively separate from the ‘socio-economic’ in planning, these two systems deploy separate institutional and legal arrangements as well as policy instruments to accomplish the task of planning. Within this context, mechanisms to ensure effective policy integration were found to be weak and ineffective. Moreover, the absence of a tradition of strategic regional planning and a culture of strategic partnerships among local authorities, the lack of appropriate institutional arrangements and sustainable sources of finance and duplicitous institutional functions were the key barriers to effective integration within the new concept of hierarchical spatial planning. We argue that a new paradigm of integrated planning under a unified planning system is urgently needed as a pre-condition for effective multi-level policy integration. We suggest that some forms of institutional restructuring would be necessary to establish a tradition of integrated planning. Finally, we recommend the use of legally binding mechanisms to institutionalize and enforce a culture of strategic alliance among local governments in cross-cutting matters.     

Bring City Planning, Construction and Management Under Legal Supervision

The legislative body in China is mak-ing headway to bring city planning,urbanconstruction and administration underthe supervision of the law.Soon after CityPlanning Act,the first of its kind in thefield of construction was put into effect inApril 1990, provinces, autonomous re-gions and municipalities directly underthe Central Government throughout thecountry drafted corresponding local lawsand regulations. In the same year,TheProvisional Regulations for the Sale and     

The Modern Management of Urban Planning and the Controlling Planning

Since 1980s,with the further reform of political and economic systems,the urban construc-tion in our country has undergone great changes,greater than ever.Such changes pose a series ofnew problems to urban planning:How should planning be suitable for the development of moderncities?How should planning management coordinate with urban planning?How to carry out ur-ban planning under new situations? etc.The answers to these problems lie in one point:urbanplanning and plann ing management must be restructured.Only when the former is well com-bined with the latter can the above problems be solved satisfactorily.This article provides someviews in this respect.     

Improving Planning Mechanism to Upgrade the Planning Level of Old Cities

Before 1980,in the development ofChina's cities,emphysis was laid on theconstruction of new cities and expansionof new urban districts.As for old citiesand old urban districts,the principle of“full utilization and gradual transforma-tion”was adopted.Therefore,accordingto general comprehension,old cities main-ly refer to the areas which were formed inhistory and need to be maintained andtransformed now,and they usually in-clude inner city and areas built before     

Planning,Law, and Property Rights: A US–European Cross-national Contemplation

Globalization today encompasses multinational dialogues on the appropriate role for planning in mediating relationships between individual and community, state and citizen, government and market, and people and property. Yet confusion persists as speakers from one country attempt to convey concepts different from what listeners from another country hear. This paper provides a cross-national contemplation on the sources of that confusion, comparing the USA to Western Continental Europe, primarily Germany. Americans and Europeans engage fundamentally different worldviews in promoting progress while reconciling harms, stemming from different philosophical traditions that can be broadly characterized as a Millian versus a Hegelian liberalism, respectively.     

Half-Full or Half-Empty? Planning for Women's Safety in Victoria,Australia

Over the past two decades there has been an emerging international consensus that locally coordinated efforts are effective in addressing violence and insecurity. Promoting “women's safety” has become a recognized international planning and governance strategy. There are, however, concerns about how the “women's safety” approach can address intimate partner violence, incorporate diversity between women from different cultures, and integrate a gender mainstreaming approach to male on male violence. Finally, there are challenges in evaluating these initiatives. The paper will use the Gender, Local Governance, and Violence Prevention (GLOVE) research project in Victoria, Australia as a case study to examine these tensions.     

The Nanchizi Renewal Planning Project

The fourth parcel considered by our team in this seriesof articles is smaller than each of the others,but its locationis by far the most culturally important in the image of OldBeijing.A narrow strip of land along the west side ofNanchizi Street,it is less than five hectares in area.Howev-er,it lies in the very heart of the city,alongside the WorkingPeople's Cultural Palace Park and the moat of theForbidden City.Nanchizi Street itself is one of a very few re-maining streets with a perfectly preserved atmosphere of     

“Between a Rock and a Hard Place”: Planning Reform,Localism and the Role of the Planning Inspectorate in England

Like many European countries, England saw the establishment in the late 1990s and early twenty-first century of regional-scale spatial planning. Radical reform of English planning following the Localism Act 2011 however saw the whole intermediate tier of regional planning stripped out of the national planning system along with detailed guidance and top-down targets for house-building at a local level. This had a major impact on the Planning Inspectorate, the agency responsible on behalf of government for approving local development plans. Reform left the Inspectorate fully exposed to the tensions and contradictions between top-down policy and local autonomy inherent under the new planning framework. Focussing on future levels of housing development, a key responsibility of local councils under the new framework, we examine the implications of reform for the Planning Inspectorate in practice. We draw on approaches to localism and planning theory, in particular the idea of ‘conditional localism’, in order to situate and understand these changes. The study was based on interviews with elite respondents in or close to the Planning Inspectorate together with documentary sources. Lack of previous work on the Inspectorate, coupled with their key role in the national planning system, reinforced by recent reforms, emphasises the significance of the study. The importance of such ‘land-use tribunals’ internationally, points to the study’s wider relevance. It provides, as well, a study of planning reform with relevance in a wider European context and suggests how recent contributions to the localism debate can help make sense of these changes.     

Planning law,power, and practice: Haussmann in Paris (1853–1870)

The transformation of Paris by Haussmann (1853–1870) is presented as a classic case of state-led modernization. What most accounts do not take into consideration is that Haussmann faced formidable opposition from property owners in his attempts to realize the emperor's ambitions for Paris, an opposition that centred on competing interpretations and uses of planning law. Based on heretofore unstudied archival material, this paper traces Haussmann's attempts to establish his (at times) creative use of planning law as legitimate in a context where planning was firmly in the hands of property owners. Haussmann's strategic use of the law, or planning practice, was able to lay bare the fact that planning law has no legitimacy in itself – only particular uses of the law can gain or lose legitimacy. Planning power can thus be defined as the possession of legitimacy in the use of planning law; and since the legal framework is a site of contest rather than a source of legitimacy, planning power depends on external legitimation. In the Haussmann case it is clear that state backing was central, even though (implicit) early support from the Parisian population cannot be ruled out until more research has been conducted.     

View on Control through Detailed Planning

Recently the“control through detailed planning”has become a popular research subject allover China.This article discusses about its origin,nature,content,depth and its aesthetic princi-ples as well,aiming at enhancing the research on this subject.     

Planning Experience and Planners’ Ethics

Problem, research strategy, and ­findings: Ethical considerations are integral to most aspects of planning, but the bases of planners’ ethical decisions are not well understood. In fact, there has been no follow-up to Elizabeth Howe and Jerome Kaufman’s original 1979 survey of the ethics of American planners in this journal (45(3), 243–255). Our research evaluates the differences in planning roles and planners’ ethical perspectives since then. In their study, Howe and Kaufman use hypothetical scenarios to determine which of three roles planners play: technician, politician, or a hybrid. They also evaluate how the role that planners assume affects their ethical views. Our research uses similar scenarios to evaluate these relationships in contemporary planning practice while simultaneously evaluating the influence of professional experience on the ethical bases of those choices. We confirm many of Howe and Kaufman’s findings, but first we find that today’s planners assume different roles than they did in the mid-1970s, conforming more often to a technical role and less to a political or hybrid role. Second, today’s planners tend to make virtue-based choices when concerned with ideological and legal issues, but revert to rule-based or utilitarian choices when faced with the dissemination and quality of information and segments of the population receiving special advantages. Finally, we find that planners, at all stages in their careers, maintain a mixture of virtue- and rule-based ethical choices while affirming the profession’s core values (as represented in the 2009 AICP Code).

Takeaway for practice: The vast majority of practicing planners in our sample (80%) use the AICP Code of Ethics in response to our hypothetical scenarios. At the same time, self-interested responses were rarely made. These findings reaffirm the code’s value to the profession.     

Urban Planning Means Serving the People

Theplanningandconstructionofcitiesaresubstantialworkforservingthepeople.Planningandconstructionshouldsolvetheproblemsinessentialneeds.Theissueofhousingdoesnotmeanhousesalone,Itgoesasfaraseco-environmentwhichhumanbeingsneedinordertoleadacomfortablelife,and…