"Anglo-American Town Panning Theory since 1945: three significant development but no paradigm shifts" - Nigel Taylor (1999)

The following is a brief review/summary of Taylor's work entitled "Anglo-American Town Panning Theory since 1945: three significant development but no paradigm shifts"

Taylor argues that although planning theory has developed greatly especially as a political and environmental process and to 'postmodernism' but these have 'filled out' primitive planning theory. He then goes on to introduce the idea of a paradigm as a changing world view - the whole way of perceiving something is overturned. With this in mind Taylor believes there has not been multiple planning paradigm shifts - he doesn't consider changing ethics and values which have been common in planning history as 'paradigm shifts'.

He then goes on to describe 3 significant shifts in the way town planning has been conceived:

1.  From the planner as a creative designer to the planner as a scientific analyst and rational decision maker

• Planning is seen as "architecture writ large" until the 1960s - advanced to the 'ideal-type' conception where towns were viewed as "'systems' of interrelated activities in a constant state of flux". Towns were then examined in social and economic terms - they were identified as a 'process'. Therefore planners were required to have more skills, techniques are were required to be able to analyse scientific.
• Therefore, there was a shift in planning as an 'art' to a 'science'
• As the design element of planning hasn't been overtaken, just superimposed by the scientific processes, Taylor argues this cannot be considered a paradigm shift

2.  From the planner as a technical expert to the planner as a manager and communicator

• After the 1960s shift to planners as 'rational-decision makers' questions were raised by the public which questioned planners qualifications over others to make executive decisions for the entire community. Therefore planning was seen as a "value laden political process"
• Theorists then agreed that planners have no such expertise
• Therefore, planners were required to have "skills in managing the process of arriving at planning decisions and facilitating action to realise publicly agreed goals"
• Led to increasing planners skills in ciphering other people's assessments of planning issues, mediation and therefore becoming a facilitator. 

3.  Modernist to postmodernist planning theory: a shift in normative planning thought

Postmodernists celebrate "complexity, diversity, difference and pluralism" but maintains base principles present in modernist theory - such as focus on environmental quality and on reason and scientific understanding