Rational-Comprehensive Planning Theory | Radical Planning 101

I'm kicking off a new series of short videos about the fundamentals of urban planning for planners and non-planners alike. In this video I'll discuss the urban planning's first major theoretical frame work - the rational-comprehensive theory of planning. While rational-comprehensive planning is a somewhat taboo subject today, it pervades every aspect of the profession.

Sources/Reading List:

Michael Brooks - Planning Theory for Practitioners.

Sam Stein - Capital City.

[acheyawachtel]

For the love of planning, please do more of these
I NEEED these

[jdavidlim]

bro this is literally the channel i've been waiting to find 😭😭😭 love

[TheJayman]

Love this new format. Longer videos are also good.

[Cinephile-gyfb]

Loving this! Looking forward to the rest of the series!

[lucasamo]

Thanks for making this video. Could you give some relevant reading material on the topic? I'm a first year in undergrad studying urban planning and would like to look into this topic more.

[mieke_illustration]

Thanks for creating this channel! I just started my Master's in Planning and we're learning about the different theories in planning at this very moment. Looking forward to more of your videos!

[ladislaoquintanilla]

I’m in urban planning undergrad and your videos are so digestible and informative. Please don’t stop 😩

[packman]

I think I feel this in social theory too. I'm going off largely academia (rather than jobs putting it into practice) but it is apparent that a lot of awareness of personal bias and history is stated, but the method of learning still involves fairly basic narratives of education built around the idea that the student/reseacher etc can dispassionately take in and assess things, and a failure to recognise that argumentation is often just testing how good at rhetoric you are, rather than the validity of points. The structure keeps recreating the modernist problem we swear we've identified.

[LostSky]

This is great! I hope you touch on Soviet planning.

[tuhenyedanmuatjitjeja]

thank you for the video, very informative and straight to the point.

[bgtyhnmju]

Good video. Happy to see you're still working on these, and I look forwards to more.

[chrisanry]

Hey Josh! Love your work! You mention the communicative planning video at 4:00. This is still coming, right?

[whattheheckisthisthing]

I'm so glad you're making these videos

[SebastianGutwein]

Thanks for these great videos. I think the playlist is out of order. Looks like the first one is sorted as number three.

[mfaran]

Waiting for your discussion on incremental planning approach. This video is now a month old. Please continue the video at faster pace. Developing states need to hear this. Love from Pakistan! :)

[FXT]

can you give some book recommendations on those different theories?

[alexwithclipboard]

Hi there!

I've watched a lot of your videos, and while I think I understand the concepts you're arguing for, I'm a little disappointed with the tangible evidence you're offering in order to support your sweeping condemnations against the planning discipline.

For instance, you said in this video that planning students are taught to minimize public gathering spaces. That is not true. I know because I am a planning student. There is enormous emphasis put on public gathering spaces.

I'm also perplexed by the example you offered, where you claim that Richmond's parks department is replacing the Robert E. Lee statue with a flower garden to "restrict the potential for social movements", when this change is being made in response to a social movement. They're not trying to steal your protest spot. The protesters only went there in the first place because of the statue that they have now removed, because you asked them to!

I assume the comment about surveillance is in reference to the "eyes on the street" doctrine. I would think that encouraging consistent foot traffic and providing clear sight lines would be the least offensive way to deter crime from your perspective.

This follows a theme. It feels like in every Radical Planning video I watch, mundane design features like infill development, flower gardens, sight lines and even walkability itself are part of a coordinated attack on the working class.

If you've seen my videos from last year, you know that we definitely have some differences in our ideology. That's okay. Should cities use eminent domain to save community gardens or let developers build on them? Reasonable people could disagree.

What bothers me is the anger you're directing at other urbanists who don't want to overthrow capitalism along with car dependency. Urbanism is not inherently left or right. For instance, I support reclaiming parking spaces for sidewalk space, bike lanes, or restaurant seating. Maybe Karl Marx would think the restaurant seating was an "enclosing of the commons", but it makes my city a better place, so I'm going to show up to those council meetings and fight for it to stay. To me, the fact that restaurants are making a buck off of formerly "public" space is a fair trade for a more livable city. The yimbys you refer to as unwitting unpaid lobbyists are making a similar decision. They aren't fighting for capitalism, gentrification or any of the other evils you often bring up. They're fighting for policies that will allow more people to live in cities. You should respect them for doing it, or at least leave them alone.

My point is that urbanism is already not a huge tent. Subdividing the tent by preferred economic system won't get our cities fixed any faster.