Susan Fainstein argues that planning theory is flawed because it doesn’t take the urban space that it affects into context. Slapping rules and outlines onto a real, complex community doesn’t help the people that live in it. She introduces the ideas of Karl Mannheim, who aimed for an explicit theory in which experts could plan under guidance of the public through elected representatives. He wanted to make things more bureaucratic so that there would be no class-bias. Mannheim spoke of a new type of planning that was based on comprehensiveness. This sounded ideal, but did not take into account the differing priorities and views of people or organizations. Comprehensiveness is a system in which everyone’s values can be organized based on importance and planning can work based on those levels. I feel that such a clearly laid out system is impossible because the types of priorities that people have vary too much. Not only that, but there are some priorities like a sense of community that are hard to quantify and rank. This leads me to the approach that my group is taking with community gardens. Although gardens certainly provide food for the poor, lower crime rates, and increase property values, they also allow for a sense of community. There are some concepts that are too ambiguous and not quantifiable to simply be placed on a scale of importance.
Reminiscent of Jane Jacobs, Mannheim surmises that planning must be viewed more specifically, as the conditions in a certain area affect the people’s values. However, he is different from other communicative theorists because he still expects educated elites to lead this.
The next section talks about a call for democratic control that arose from the fact the people making policies didn’t understand the people that those policies were affecting. He introduces Sherry Anderson’s argument, which is that the results of planning will be more equal if the poor have more input in forming policies. This relates to DeRienzo’s idea of institutions allowing a community to have strength. Without the proper means or education, it is very difficult to make seemingly small matters heard. This concept also relates to David Harvey’s belief that we should aim for more democratic control over how surplus is created and used. Gradually, we see more privatization and power falling into the hands of the rich. Despite living in the city, the poor do not have a right to the city. Through this, we see the poor are at a disadvantage both in terms of institutions and government.
Discussion: How do we rank the importance of ambiguous concepts like a ‘sense of community’ in comparison to statistics like the amount of money a development project requires or makes?
