If one were to look at the planning occupation from the outside, observing the everyday tasks of the members of the profession, it is understandably difficult to identify the purpose of urban and regional planning. Planners take on the role of educator, researcher, technician, legal consultant, public information officer, mediator, advocate, administrator, and many others. Because the planning profession is interdisciplinary, addressing issues across so many different topics, a mere description of the profession could, easily, become little more than an unconstructive list of discrete functions. Instead, to understand the purpose of urban and regional planning, we must look past the singular activities and look at the totality of their joint effect. Upon such an effort it becomes clear that urban and regional planning is the expression of community sovereignty for the purpose of cultural transformation.
The Declaration of Independence, one of this country’s foundational documents and a source of inspiration for generations around the globe, argues that people have the right to determine their own form of government, "laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness" (Jefferson, 1776). (Please note the use of the operational "effect," which survived multiple revisions, rather than the merely influential "affect.") The standard being constructed by the Declaration is that people have, by right, the authority to envision a future within which they would like to live and, through the application of the sovereignty they lend to the government, effect social change. Explicit in Jefferson’s assertion is the requirement to connect foundational principles, organization of collective power, and the public’s safety and happiness.
From the inherent complexity and interconnectedness of our world emerges the necessity to plan. Each location, each neighborhood, and each culture has immediate needs to fulfill and future aspirations to pursue. The history, values, conditions, and future of each neighborhood varies. Consequently, each community has a different set of needs and a different set of goals. Yet, we all share this one world, each affected by and connected to each other. The atmosphere created by the members of the planning profession serves as the environment within which each community becomes aware of itself, expresses its priorities, and interacts with others. Without this, there would be little hope for anything more than ongoing conflict and repeated failure to achieve the synergistic potency of collective action.
What occupation but planning could embark upon such a diverse, expansive mission? It is through planning that communities become functionally aware of their goals and the values that propel them forward. Planning permits the formation of the coalitions of free individuals to express their innate sovereignty through the application of their joint authority. And, finally, planning explicitly connects the values of the community with the policies they adopt to make the society they crave. Only through planning does a democracy approach Jefferson's self-governmental ideal.
While each individual planner should be free to gravitate toward a role which suits their personality and skills, planners as a professional guild must serve as the informed, imaginative, intentional conscience of the community, nation, and of all of humanity. Only then does urban and regional planning approach its rightful purpose: cultural transformation through the expression of inherent sovereignty.
Jefferson, T. (1776). Declaration of independence: rough draft. Retrieved October 28, 2010, from ushistory.org: http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/rough.htm
The Purpose of Urban and Regional Planning by Brian A. Sayrs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
