Last Revised: February 10, 2015
Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
New York University
URPL-GP 2660 (001)
History and Theory of Planning
Spring 2015
Monday 2:00-5:15pm
Professor Hilary Ballon
19 Washington Square North
19 Washington Square North
Saadiyat Room (3 rd floor)
(212) 992-7949 hilary.ballon@nyu.edu
Office Hours: After class & by appointment
Fundamental social and political issues animate the history and theory of planning. One urban historian defined planning as “collective action for the public good concentrated on … shaping the shared physical infrastructure for present needs and future growth.” Consider the questions that arise from these keywords: collective action, public good, present needs, future growth. In American society, planning as a form of collective action comes up against strong claims of individualism and private property. How are these conflicting values reconciled? How does planning differ in societies where the claims of individualism and private property vary from U.S. norms? What is the public good and who defines it? How are current needs determined, and whose needs are prioritized? Growth targets depend on a vision of the good society. Toward what ends should growth be directed, and how are those goals advanced?
This course examines key ideas in the history and theory of planning and is organized in two parts: Classic Texts in Contemporary Context and Planning Tools. We will read a series of classic books by major thinkers whose ideas have had a significant impact on urban form, theory, and planning. We will also consider how those planning ideas have played out in recent years by reading about significant developments that derive in some fashion from the classic text. Our topics include: Ebenezer Howard and the garden city; Daniel Burnham and the metropolitan idea; Le Corbusier and the modernist city; Jane Jacobs and pedestriancentered urbanism; Ian McHarg and environmental planning; Henri Lefebvre and the right to the city.
Another set of readings and class sessions will focus on the techniques of planning. We will explore the historical development of those techniques and consider if the planner’s tool kit is adequate to deal with 21 st -century urban formations and problems, including megaslums on which we will focus. Our topics include: master plans, data surveys and the framing of planning as a social science, zoning, participatory planning, land titling, and urban
“acupuncture”
The class will operate as a seminar driven by your participation in lively and informed conversation. You are expected to read the texts closely, grapple with the ideas they advocate, and discuss them in class.
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Intended Learning Outcomes
Students who complete the course will:
● Develop an understanding of key ideas, authors, and texts in the history of urban planning from the 19 th century to the present
● Gain the ability to position current planning ideas and theories in critical and historical context
● Develop an understanding of the historical development of the primary tools used by planners in their professional practice
● Develop an understanding of the emergence of planning as a discipline and professional practice
● Improve the ability to express thoughts cogently and persuasively in writing and to marshal evidence culled from research to support your arguments
● Improve research skills
● Improve the ability to articulate thoughts clearly and persuasively
Scheduling
The schedule combines single classes, double classes, and a few weeks with no class. This irregular schedule requires your close attention to the dates on the syllabus. Please note that the schedule is also subject to change, should I have to be in Abu Dhabi, but the double module (2:00-3:40 pm & 3:40-5:15pm) will allow us to make up any missed class in our regular time slot.
Grade Scale
25% Participation and Preparation for Class
15% Writing Assignment 1
20% Writing Assignment 2
40% Writing Assignment 3
Readings
The readings are either available in electronic form on the course website (NYU Classes) or on reserve at Bobst Library. In addition, the books listed below can be purchased at the
NYU Bookstore.
Edward Glaeser, The Triumph of the City.
Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-morrow.
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley. The Metropolitan Revolution. How Cites and Metros
are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy.
Le Corbusier. The City of Tomorrow and Its Planning.
Justin McGuirk, Radical Cities. Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture.
Cynthia Smith, ed. Design with the Other 90%: Cities.
Liza Weinstein, The Durable Slum. Dharavi and the Right Stay Put in Globalizing
Mumbai.
Participation and Preparation
The following elements contribute to the grade for participation and preparation.
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 Your comments demonstrate that you have come to class prepared and done the assigned reading.
 Your comments demonstrate that you have reflected on the assigned readings and how they relate to other readings.
 Your comments are germane to the class discussion. You respond to the dialogue and engage with the ideas of your classmates.
 You participate in the exploration of the artworks, actively trying to figure out what they mean and relating them to the readings and course themes.
 You are an attentive listener, taking in what your classmates say.
 You keep to the time limit in the presentation of your final paper, you communicate clearly and you respond effectively to questions.
 Attendance.
Writing Assignments
Schedule
Paper
1
2
Length Due
5 pp Feb 23
5 pp
Returned
March 2
March 30 Apr 13
3: Topic Proposal
3
1-2 pp March 23
10-12 pp May 11
March 30
May 25
All papers should be submitted on the NYU Classes website. Please note the following formatting guidelines:
 Submit your paper as a Word file, not as a pdf.
 File Name: Your Surname-Paper # (e.g. Ballon-Paper 1)
 Paginate your paper
 Include your name, paper number, and topic, if there is a choice
 Spacing: 1.5 or double spacing, as you prefer
Paper 1: The Planner’s Role
5 pages
Assigned: Feb 9
Due: Feb 23
The readings for class on Feb. 9 present two antithetical models of the planner, one as a scientific expert who gathers data and proposes data-driven, “objective” plans, the other as a political leader, using political power and social organizing to advance urban initiatives.
Drawing from the assigned readings by Jeffrey Brown and Justin McGuirk and any supplementary readings you wish to incorporate, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches and then explain how you think the planner should operate.
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Paper 2: Slums--Strategies of Upgrading and the Right to Stay Put
5 pages
Assigned: March 23
Due: March 30
In The Durable Slum, Liza Weinstein challenges planning strategies that aim to eliminate slums and develops the idea of the right of slum dwellers to stay put.
Option 1: Weinstein reviews a variety of approaches to upgrade the megaslum of Dharavi.
Select one of the strategies introduced in The Durable Slum, e.g. regularization, site-andservices projects, arresting the increase in squatter settlements, upgrading of slum residents, and discuss the strengths and weakness of the approach. Your analysis should include one case study to support your point of view. The case study may be drawn from any city, not necessarily Dharavi.
Option 2: Argue for or against this statement, substantiating your argument with evidence drawn from the readings. Urbanists, including urban planners, should abandon the aim of eliminating slums, and instead should recognize the rights of slum dwellers to stay put and redirect their efforts to improve their living conditions.
Paper 3: An Issue in Depth
10-12 pages
Topic Proposal Due: March 23
Paper Due: May 11
Select a topic covered in this course and examine it in greater depth. Your paper should draw upon the readings for that week; if only a chapter of a book was assigned, read the entire book. But you should also go beyond the assigned readings, drawing upon other sources that will add depth and evidence to support your argument.
Topic Proposal: Your proposal should address the following questions.
What is your topic?
What is the driving question you will answer?
What sources will you consult in addition to the readings on the syllabus?
Class Outline________________________________________________________________________________
Assignment for the first class
Take a photograph of a spot in NYC that you consider an example of good urbanism. It is important that you take the photo; don’t download it from the web. The photo itself should convey the qualities you want to highlight. Bring the digital photograph to class; we will compile them on a flash drive then review them all. You will have two minutes to explain what you like about the place you’ve photographed and what, if anything, urban design and planning, have to do with producing the condition or experience you admire.
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1. January 26
Introduction
Background Reading: Soja, Edward, and Miguel Kanai. “The Urbanization of the World,” in
Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic, eds., The Endless City, The Urban Age Project by the
London School of Economics and Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Society (New
York/London: Phaidon, 2007), pp. 54-69. [PDF posted under Resources]
Jennifer Robinson, “Global and World Cities: A View from off the Map,” International Journal
of Urban and Regional Research 26/3 (Sept. 2002): 531-54.
Jennifer Robinson, Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and Development (London; Taylor and Francis, 2006). E-Book.
2. February 2
Classic Texts in Dialogue: Ebenezer Howard and the Garden City
Read: Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-morrow (orig. pub. 1898; Cambridge, Mass.:
MIT Press, 1965).
Portland’s Urban Growth Boundary: http://www.oregonmetro.gov/urban-growthboundary
Harvard Project on the City, “PRD Pearl River Delta,” in Rem Koolhaas, et al, eds., Mutations
(Barcelona: ACTAR, 2000), pp. 280-335. [PDF posted under Resources]
3-4. February 9
Classic Texts in Dialogue: Daniel Burnham and Metropolitanism
Read: Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett, Plan of Chicago (Chicago, 1909; reprint N.Y.,
1993). Introduction; Chaps. 1, 7, and 8. For online version: www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/10417.html
.
Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley, The Metropolitan Revolution. How Cites and Metros are
Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings
Institution Press, 2013).
Further Reading: Robert Fishman, “The Metropolitan Tradition in American Planning,” in
Robert Fishman, ed., The American Planning Tradition. Culture and Policy
(Washington, D.C./Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), pp. 65-85. [PDF posted under Resources]
Tools: The Planner: Scientific Expert or Political Power
Read: Brown, Jeffrey. “From Traffic Regulation to Limited Ways: The Effort to Build a
Science of Transportation Planning,” Journal of Planning History 5/1 (Feb. 2006), 3-34.
[PDF posted under Resources]
Justin McGuirk, Radical Cities. Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture
(London/New York: Verso, 2014), Ch. 6, “Bogota: The City as School,” and Ch. 7,
“Medellin: Social Urbanism.” [On Antanas Mockus and Enrique Penalosa in Bogota,
Jaime Lerner in Curitiba, Sergio Fajardo in Medellin]
February 16: President’s Day/ Academic Holiday
February 23: No Class (make up on Feb. 9)
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Paper 1 due.
5. March 2
Classic Texts in Conversation: Le Corbusier and the Modernist City
Read: Le Corbusier, The City of Tomorrow and Its Planning (translation of Urbanisme [Paris,
1924]; New York: Dover, 1987). Chs. 1-2, 7, 11, and 12-15.
Justin McGuirk, Radical Cities. Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture
(London/New York: Verso, 2014), pp. 150-56. [on the 23 de Enero public housing project, Caracas, Venezuela]
Roberta Lucente and Patricia S. Travanti Mendes, “The 23 de Enero Public Housing in
Caracas: Re-thinking the relationship between the formal and informal city,” EURAU
(European Symposium on Research in Architecture and Urban Design) 12, Public
Space and the Contemporary City, September 2012, Abstract of a paper presented at the conference. ( http://eurau12.arq.up.pt/en/theme-and-communications/3creating-urban-order ). [PDF posted under Resources]
Fernando Luiz Lara, “The Form of the Informal: Investigating Brazilian Self-Built Housing
Solutions” [on informal uses of Le Corbusier’s Domino House], in Rethinking the
Informal City: Critical Perspectives from Latin America, eds. Felipe Hernandez, et al
(New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010), 23-38. [PDF posted under Resources]
6. March 9
Classic Texts in Conversation: Jane Jacobs, Scale and Density
Read: Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Knopf/
Doubleday, 1992 [orig. pub., 1961]), Parts 1-2 & Ch. 15.
Thomas J. Campanella, “Jane Jacobs and the Death and Life of American Planning,” in
Reconsidering Jane Jacobs, eds. Max Page and Timothy Mennel (Chicago/Washington,
D.C.: American Planning Association Planners Press, 2011), pp. 141-60, 178-9. [PDF posted under Resources]
Vishaan Chakrabarti, A Country of Cities. A Manifesto for an Urban America (New York:
Metropolis Books, 2013), Ch. 4, “Building Hyperdensity and Civic Delight,” 126-53.
[PDF posted under Resources]
March 16: Spring Break/ Academic Holiday
7. March 23
Classic Texts in Conversation: Ian McHarg and Ecological Urbanism
Paper 3 Proposal due.
Read: Ian L. McHarg, The Essential Ian McHarg. Writings on Design and Nature, ed. Frederick
R. Steiner (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2006), “Man and Environment (1963)” and
“The Place of Nature in the City of Man (1964), pp. 1-29. [PDF posted under
Resources]
Chris Reed, “The Agency of Ecology,” in Ecological Urbanism, ed. Mohsen Mostafavi and
Gareth Doherty (Zurich: Harvard University/Lars Muller, 2013), pp. 324-29.
Edward Glaeser, The Triumph of the City. How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer,
Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier (N.Y.: Penguin Press, 2011), Ch. 8, “Is There
Anything Greener than Blacktop?,” pp. 199-222. [PDF posted under Resources]
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Scott Campbell, “Green Cities, Growing Cities, Just Cities? Urban Planning and the
Contradictions of Sustainable Development,” Journal of the American Planning
Association 62/3 (Summer 1996), pp. 296-312. [PDF posted under Resources]
Further Reading: Ian L. McHarg, Design with Nature (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1992; orig. pub. 1969).
March 30: No Class
8-9. April 6
Part 1: Classic Texts in Conversation: Henri Lefebvre and the Right to the City
Part 2: Megaslum
What tools are available to the planner to improve living conditions in megaslums? Are they effective? What else can be done?
Paper 2 due.
Read: Henri Lefebvre, “The Right to the City,” Writings on Cities, trans. and eds. Eleonore
Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1996; Le Droit à la ville orig. pub. 1968), pp. 147-59. [PDF posted under Resources]
Edward Glaeser, The Triumph of the City, Ch. 3, “What’s Good About Slums?,” pp. 69-92.
[PDF posted under Resources]
Liza Weinstein, The Durable Slum. Dharavi and the Right Stay Put in Globalizing Mumbai
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014).
10. April 13
Tools: Zoning and Development Controls
Read: I recommend you read these texts in the order listed.
Keith D. Revell, “Regulating the Landscape: Real Estate Values, City Planning and the 1916
Zoning Ordinance,” in David Ward and Olivier Zunz, eds., The Landscape of Modernity.
Essays on New York City. N.Y.: Russell Sage Foundation, 1992, pp. 19-45. [PDF posted under Resources]
Christopher Silver, “The Racial Origins of Zoning in American Cities,” in June Manning
Thomas and Marsha Ritzdorf, eds., Urban Planning and the African American
Community. Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Sage, 1997, pp. 23-42. [PDF posted under Resources]
Jonathan Barnett, Urban Design as Public Policy. New York: Architectural Record, 1974,
Chaps. 1-2. [PDF posted under Resources]
Jonathan Barnett, “Shaping Cities through Development Regulations,” in The Urban and
Regional Planning Reader, ed. Eugenie L. Birch (London/New York: Routledge, 2009), pp. 216-225.
11-12. April 20
Tools: Community Participation and Self-Built & Incremental Housing
Read: John F. C. Turner, “The Reeducation of a Professional,” and “Housing as a Verb” in
“Freedom to Build. Dweller control of the housing process, John F. C. Turner and Robert
Fichter, eds. (New York: Collier Macmillan, 1972), Chaps. 6-7.
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McGuirk, Radical Cities. Ch. 2 “From Lima to Santiago: A Platform for Change,” and Ch. 3,
“Rio de Janeiro: The Favela is the City.”
TED Talk: Alejandro Aravena, “My architectural philosophy? Bring the community into the process,” http://www.ted.com/talks/alejandro_aravena_my_architectural_philosophy_bring_th e_community_into_the_process?share=11ed137d5d
Further Reading: John F. C. Turner, Housing by People: Towards Autonomy in Building
Environments (London: Marion Boyars 1976).
Tools: Property Rights, Land Titling, Land Cooperatives
Read: Hernando de Soto, The Other Path. The Economic Answer to Terrorism (New York:
Harper & Row, 1989), Ch. 2-3, “Informality in Photos,” and Conclusion.
Sebastian Galiani and Ernesto Schargrodsky, “Property rights for the poor: Effects of land titling,” Journal of Public Economics 94 (2010):700–729. [PDF posted under
Resources]
John Gravois, "The De Soto Delusion," Slate 2005. [PDF posted under Resources]
April 27: No Class
Visit: Museum of Modern Art, Uneven Growth. Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities,
Architecture and Design Galleries, 3 rd floor.
13. May 4
Tools: Upgrading by “Acupuncture”
Read: Ananya Roy, “Urban Informality; Toward an Epistemology of Planning,” Journal of the
American Association 71/2 (2005): 147-58. [PDF posted under Resources]
Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner, “Rules of Engagement: Caracas and the
Informal City,” in Rethinking the Informal City: Critical Perspectives from Latin America, eds. Felipe Hernandez, et al (New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010), 119-36. [PDF posted under Resources]
Jorge Fiori and Zeca Brandão, “Spatial Strategies and Urban Social Policy; Urbanism and
Poverty Reduction in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro,” in Rethinking the Informal City,
181-205. [PDF posted under Resources]
Cynthia Smith, ed. Design with the Other 90%: Cities (New York: Cooper-Hewitt National
Design Museum, 2011).
Further Reading: Alfredo Brillembourg, Kristin Feireiss, and Hubert Klumpner, eds.,
Informal City. Caracas Case (Munich: Prestel, 2005). [PDF posted under Resources]
Jaime Lerner, Urban Acupuncture (New York: Island Press, 2014).
14. May 11
Presentations of Final Projects
Paper 3 due.
There will be 10 minutes per student: 5 minutes of presentation of your argument and findings; 5 minutes of discussion about your presentation.
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