Planning cultures

[4] In general, planning cultures evolved throughout the 20th century from a state-centred attempt at city beautification toward a more collaborative process involving the public.

[10] In Europe, with industrialization, planning was conceived as an attempt to provide city leaders with a framework to develop new neighbourhoods and towns outside of the urban core.

[10] After World War II, planning expanded from beautification to include many social elements such as economy, history, religion, and public policy.

Efforts began to shift from building functional and aesthetic architecture, to analytical and rational development approaches for resolving issues faced by a city or region.

[10] The planning culture in many countries has shifted from a design-centric practice led by a small group of professionals to a much broader social activity involving the general public throughout the process.

Starting in the 1960s, the traditional “top-down” and “state-centered” planning paradigm was criticized as being static and unresponsive in dealing with complex issues in local level.

[12] During this transitional period, planning evolved from its original object of providing solutions for specific issues to a more comprehensive goal of addressing socioeconomic challenges.

One such broad shift is the embracing of market-led development, where planning institutions now facilitate market forces in an entrepreneurial fashion instead of restraining them.

[6] This flexible and proactive approach is useful in Canadian planning culture because it helps balance the needs of different groups living, an often very diverse geographic, political, and social, region to come to positive solutions.

[7] Today, planning culture in Canada has evolved to a values-based practice embedded within the political realm that attempts to give agency to various groups by promoting collaboration and conflict resolution.

This is indicative of planning culture in China, which is characterized by centralization of decision making: for example, Civic Mayors are appointed by higher levels of government.

Citizens who take issue with planning decisions may sue the local government, file a petition, or engage in a public demonstration; however, these actions are largely futile.

As a result, civil society is still finding its role in balancing planning actors with increasing influence for historically marginalized groups.

During successive heredity an Emperor or the appointed Shogun had the authority to provide centralized planning for the areas of the country under their control.

During the 1990s, local governments were empowered to begin producing urban development Master Plans to guide long-term changes in their jurisdictions.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, local governments were rapidly given increased planning responsibility, but did not yet have the tools and structure in place to effectively regulate land use.

Significant political, societal, and economic changes in that period of transition further complicated the challenges faced by local planning authorities.

However, local and national authorities are increasingly directing attention to such settlements, and, combined with foreign financial support, are improving basic infrastructure needs.

The precarious nature of these unofficial residential lands limits the ability of residents to obtain services and raise issues with local planning administrations, further maintaining their marginalization.

They are the collective ethos and dominant attitudes of professional planners toward the appropriate roles of the state, market forces, and civil society in urban, regional, and national development."

Institutional change can be theorized as a process comprising six stages: equilibrium, shock event, deinstitutionalization, preinstitutionalization, theorization, diffusion, and reinstitutionalization.

In North America, the United Kingdom, and select European countries, the breadth of planning subject matter in education has expanded and directs more attention to environmental sustainability and social justice, while also focusing on built form and land regulation.