The young discipline of urban planning is often presented to students and external researchers as having a single storyline. Learning about the history of one’s discipline is important to understand its impacts but remains, without doubt, biased. Focusing on the built successes of past urban planners, planning history reinforces the voice of white cisgender male figures. The paternalistic nature of such discourse encourages the perception that we, planners, have the answers to urban issues and that the continuity of said issues is caused by other levels of authority choosing to ignore our wisdom. However, urban planning is much more complex than this. The discipline itself is dated to be no more than a decade. Before the recognition of the profession, cities were still planned, in other ways. Sandercock speaks of the multiple histories that are at the base of urban planning, by including insurgent planning in the historiography (1998). A striking example included in her work is the Blues epistemology, which includes music as an alternative form of change (1998). If protest through music is considered as a form of urban planning, can other types of activism be included in the process as well? In an era of performance activism, this idea may find several opponents. The truth remains that grassroots movements have increasingly taken their seat at the table, widening the horizons of what is considered urban planning. Modern practice now considers the efforts of many involved parties, which includes all governing levels. Future classes on planning history will surely present a much different vision of what is and is not planning.
©Yu 2019
References
Sandercock, L. (1998). Towards Cosmopolis. Chichester: Wiley.
Yu, Chia-Chi. (2019). Urban Planning. https://www.behance.net/gallery/81172487/Urban-planning