Developments in Planning Theory: Paradigm Shifts?

This week’s reading was by Nigel Taylor from Planning Perspectives (1999).  It describes three significant shifts in planning theory since 1945.  The first occurred in the 1960’s with a change in planning from a design activity to one that incorporated more rigorous scientific analyses.  The second also occurred in the 60’s and was a shift that transformed planners from technical experts to facilitators or mediators in the planning process.  The last shift was associated with the broader philosophical change in western thought and culture from modernism to post-modernism.  In relation to planning theory, it was essentially a shift from simplicity and functionality to more of a focus on aesthetics and the recognition of the immense complexities involved in planning.

Thomas Kuhn author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 
(Source: http://www.molwick.com/).m/)

Taylor discusses whether each of this shifts can be considered ‘paradigm shifts’ as it was used in it’s original sense.  The term was first used in Thomas Kuhn’s history of scientific development.  In this context paradigm shift’s are described as changes in fundamental ‘world views’.  For example, from the view that the world is flat to the realisation that it is indeed spherical.  Taylor concludes that the shifts in planning theory can not be considered paradigmatic because no theories were entirely supplanted.  Rather elements of older theories continued along with the new ones.  For example, while planning expanded to include scientific and rational analyses, concerns for aesthetics and the physical form have certainly remained to this day.

I found this article particularly interesting.  To often does the original meaning of words and phrases become distorted when they are popularised.  When such an interesting term such as ‘paradigm shift’ is introduced to common knowledge it seems inevitable that it becomes the vogue.  Also, I found the article pertinent to the debate over urban planning’s validity as a profession.  For if the evolutions of planning theory could indeed be considered paradigm shifts, that would, in a sense, put them on par with scientific theories.  Such a status would certainly add creditability to the planning profession in the view of a sceptic.