الاتجاهات الحديثة في نظرية التخطيط العمراني: من عموميات النظريات المعيارية إلى خصوصيات الممارسة بحكمة في الواقع

Abstract

The paper sets out to discuss the problems of planning theory and its development. It unravels the dichotomous nature of planning as a subject that has to reconcile theoretical abstractions and real practice. The difficulty resides in the fact that building a theory requires some internal consistency whereas the problems of the real world are not necessarily so consistent. This is probably the reason that has led many scholars to hastily jump to the conclusion that history of planning is one of great planning failures. At first, planning was seen as part of architecture or the art of building cities. Planning was thus conceived mainly as a blue-print or design oriented process. This rational approach that has dominated the sixties and seventies has not been able to produce any sound results. Another approach, known as the procedural planning, has thus emerged to overcome the problems of its predecessor. It asserts that planning is not about design but policy. Planning theory today seems to be taking three main directions. The communicative or collaborative direction aiming at consensus building among different stakeholders, the new urbanism direction inspired by the traditional patterns of public space design, and the phronetic planning that attempts to take account of power/knowledge issues within society. The paper concludes that the theory of planning is mainly developed from western experiences and contexts of planning. It lacks any contribution drawn out from the planning experiences and contexts of oriental and less developed societies. This cultural bias must be overcome if a clearer picture of planning theory is hoped for