Planning, Progress, and Social Values

Extract

Planning is widely presumed to be alien to the moral assumptions of American democracy. Where tolerated it has come to be identified largely with the process of economizing, with what is so often the American approach to life: getting the most for your money. Thus the city planner, whose primary concern is with the practical problems of zoning, the routing of a new cross-town parkway, or the provision of parking space, is also a respected member of his community. Does he not help, after all, to conserve community values? His technical skills stand in the service of property and of the dominant class interests which control it. The planner in large industry or in the military finds himself much in the same position: goals are defined for him in advance; he is to work for the most rational solution. His status, therefore, is that of a high-class technician; and only in this role is he fully accepted by his culture.