The term “urban planning” can be said to refer to a wide range of city-oriented activities: what planners do; what planners say they do; what citizens do to plan their cities; the process by which comprehensive plans are produced; and what planning schools teach.

These activities can be quite different, yet all are facets of the ongoing creation of American cities.

Planning involves an understanding of the concept of “city,” as well the underlying social and governmental processes that shape a city. Its practice entails establishing goals and objectives, developing and evaluating alternatives for attaining those goals and selecting an appropriate course of action. This process is viewed by some as primarily “rational,” based in the scientific method, by others as primarily political, and by others still as a combination of the two. Differences in these viewpoints are reflected in professional practice. Some planners emphasize professional expertise while others emphasize organizing, interaction and consensus building. American planning has evolved from a focus on development of the physical plan (City Beautiful) in the first half of the twentieth century to an emphasis on analytical modes in the 1960s and 1970s.

Communicative and collaborative modes dominated the 1980s and 1990s.

The focus of modern urban planning up to the 1960s was the “comprehensive plan,” of which the centerpiece was the “image” or “form” of the city. Plans were created by governmental entities to address rapid growth by implementing changes in physical, social and economic patterns. Viewed by some as a mechanism of control over development, planning was viewed by others as a process for balancing competing private and public interests, or addressing pressing problems such as inner-city decay transportation, pollution and housing.

Pre-1960s planning was typically a governmentcontrolled, centralized process that was later found to be inadequate for dealing with issues like transportation that transcended urban boundaries, for achieving public support, or adapting to the rapidly changing and uncertain conditions of the cities. Although the last two decades of city planning emphasized procedural activities and plannerstakeholder interactions, some suggest that a renewed interest in urban design has sparked a revival in the image of the city and the plan.

Today public participation is mandated by law in most planning activities. This entails bringing more and new players into the planning process, transferring power from government representatives to citizens and re-defining planning in ways that often defy the bounds of a traditional academic discipline or profession. These idiosyncrasies notwithstanding, planning can be said to distinguish itself from other disciplines by including some or all of these themes: (1) improvement of human environments; (2) forging interconnections among various sectors; (3) consideration of the future; (4) consideration of equity issues; (5) public participation; and (6) linking knowledge and action (Myers 1997).