Customer Reviews

Planning in the Public Domain

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Professor John Friedmann presented back in 1987 this complete review of the modern traditions of social planning: how did revolutionaries, engineers, politicians, sociologists and social prophets designed human groups and resources to meet diverse kinds of goals? And what has been the role of people themselves in this adventure during the last 200 years? The information in this book is complete, the analysis deep, and the author achieves the highest level in gaining the attention of the reader. The third part of the text is a zestful and documented proposal for the recovery of the political comunity, as the way to solve the contradictions of our modern market-driven world. Philosophers, sociologists, politicians, third-sector leaders (and inteligent social-driven individuals) will find this modern planning classic of enormous help in their tasks.

That was the message I took from this book. Planners, for the most part, are mandarins of the state, performing bureaucratic and policy functions to further the needs of capitalist political economies. The influence this book has had on practicing planners is clearly minimal: most college educated American planners are not radicalized by their university experiences and end up entering the sprawl industry (private or public sector). Friedmann's favorites, advocacy and radical planning, are essentially POWER politics in whatever realm one deems important (env., energy, urban, social, etc.). Friedmann never says it, but I think the GREEN movement comes closest to what he wants 'radical' planners to engage in-- rather than process permits for the real estate industry. Good for a history of planning, but a review of the last 20 years of what planning has accomplished (anything positive?)would be nice for the next edition.