Читать книгу The Best-Laid Plans - Randal O'Toole - Страница 27

Any one of the technical problems—collecting data, predicting the future, building models, and dealing with the pace of change— would render planning infeasible. Rather than admit that planning is technically impossible, planners simply ignore these problems. But if they are not collecting data, accurately calculating the future, and building useful models, what are they doing?

Since planners can’t really do the rational planning that they advertise, they instead follow fads. In the 1920s, the fad was zoning. In the 1950s, it was urban renewal and public housing. Today, it is smart growth (which before 1996 was called New Urbanism), meaning policies that encourage high-density development and discourage driving. Given the technical barriers that prevent planning from working, it is not surprising that these fads end up doing more harm than good.

Planning is susceptible to fads for at least two reasons. First, because planning is so complex, planners must simplify, and fads are the ultimate simplification. Fads provide a substitute for real thinking. Rather than try to figure out the best transportation system or the best land-use plan, planners can simply apply the latest fad.

A second reason for planning fads relates to the nebulous nature of planning. While a private development is easily judged by whether it earned a profit, planning is supposed to produce all sorts of difficult-to-measure social benefits. The difficulty is greatly increased when a plan is written for a long period, such as 20 or more years; until the last year is reached, no one can know whether even a plan’s measurable goals will be attained, much less the nonmeasurable ones. By that time, most planners will have taken other jobs or retired.

Planners are therefore judged on other criteria, and most of the judges are other planners. The American Planning Association and other planning groups issue an endless series of awards to planners whose plans meet the approval of their peers. Because the awards are presented before the plans can be evaluated on the ground, these awards have nothing to do with whether the plans improve the livability of the cities for which they are written or otherwise accomplish their goals, and everything to do with whether the plans follow the latest fads.

Planners who win such awards may be more likely to get pay raises, promotions, or better-paying jobs in other cities. At the very least, they win the praise and admiration of their peers at conferences and other planning forums. Other planners respond by imitating the award-winning plans and few bother to ask whether the plans will really work. Except in the political sphere, where planners must do their wily best to sell their ideas, this means that actual innovation is extremely limited.