Planning As Social Process

Discusses the intellectual processes involved in social planning. Professor Kahn provides critical tools for the analysis of the planning process, and shows what social planning is and can be. Clarifying the major phases in the planning process, he shows how planning can succeed or fail at any one of these stages. He examined planners in their various roles: as "neutral" technicians and as advocates, as representatives of interest groups and as public officials. The book describes both the social aspects of planning and the relationship between social and physical plans.

Planning in this century has been largely influenced by the appeal of scientific activity on the one hand and by reform movements on the other. As a result of this influence, two roles of planning developed with one predominating: an advisory role which adheres to the scientific canon of deta ched objectivity and which is the prevailing version, and an active role where intervention into the development of society is promoted. This duality creates problems for planning theory and practice, especially since the positivist foundation of planning has proven to be inadequate. An examination of logical positivism indicates that a correct social theory can only be critical. This suggests that planning should use critical theory as new epistemological framework.

American communities are changing fast: ethnic minority populations are growing, home ownership is falling, the number of people per household is going up, and salaries are going down. According to Marc Brenman and Thomas W. Sanchez, the planning field is largely unprepared for these fundamental shifts. If planners are going to adequately serve residents of diverse ages, races, and income levels, they need to address basic issues of equity. Planning as if People Matter offers practical solutions to make our communities more livable and more equitable for all residents. While there are many books on environmental justice, relatively few go beyond theory to give real-world examples of how better planning can level inequities. In contrast, Planning as if People Matter is written expressly for planning practitioners, public administrators, policy-makers, activists, and students who must directly confront these challenges. It provides new insights about familiar topics such as stakeholder participation and civil rights. And it addresses emerging issues, including disaster response, new technologies, and equity metrics. Far from an academic treatment, Planning as if People Matter is rooted in hard data, on-the-ground experience, and current policy analysis. In this tumultuous period of economic change, there has never been a better time to reform the planning process. Brenman and Sanchez point the way toward a more just social landscape.

In Basic Social Policy and Planning, Burch presents a generic process for professional intervention and social work leadership that is required of those who desire to achieve improvements in the lives of those they serve. Burch developed this text and guide so that even persons with no prior formal training in social planning can apply these principles in their practices. Because few social workers are content with simply repairing the damages caused by inequities, inadequacies, and injustices in society, Basic Social Policy and Planning offers a usable set of guidelines on how to change lives for the better, in small and occasionally large ways, from within any setting--agency, community, and public policy. Social workers, nurses, teachers, and other human service professionals spend their lives relating to the social and emotional needs and problems of people. Burch converts sophisticated policy and planning concepts and techniques into a form which experts and non-experts can understand, relate to, and apply in their practices. He supplies these workers with approaches, methods, models, ways of thinking, and techniques for planning. He covers: VIBES (Values, Interests, Beliefs, Ethics, and Slants): Understanding where you and others are coming from and toward what destination you and they are heading Systems theories and worldviews: Understanding how these affect planning Logical analysis of all ways of thinking--scientific and experiential, bounded and nonbounded Different approaches to planning--comprehensive rational analysis; disjointed incrementalism and satisficing; mixed scanning; strategic, decentralized, contingency, transactional, and advocacy planning Global, strategic, tactical, and project management levels of planning Needs assessment and participation of those who will be affected Quantitative and economic planning approaches: Understanding basic ideology and assumptions Quantitative and economic approaches--measurement, pricing, cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis, decision analysis When used as a text, the first priority of this book is to give BSW and MSW students the training which they will need and want later in their careers. This training is consistent with Council on Social Work Education’s required BSW/MSW foundation courses as well as advance practice courses in most programs. When used as a guidebook for the many practitioners who have learned, since graduation, that they need more skill in setting and achieving policy, agency, and community goals than they learned in school, Basic Social Policy and Planning can enhance the “left brain” in social workers, who as a group tend to be stronger in the “right brain” direction with chapters that walk the reader step-by-step through a generic rational planning model and tell why, whom, when, and how to involve others in planning. Because the substance of the book is rooted in advance interdisciplinary planning theory and practice, this book is just what the doctor ordered for a doctoral first course in policy and planning--it provides the “hard” background in planning for professors of policy and macro practice. It is also highly appropriate for new PhDs who are assigned to teach such courses with limited background with its chapters on foundations of policy and planning, various approaches to planning, and quantitative techniques related to costs, benefits, and uncertainties in planning.

This is Volume VI in of eighteen a series on the Sociology of Behaviour and Psychology. Originally published in 1962, this book offers the interactionist approach when looking at human behaviour and social processes. This book shows that interaction theory can provide us with a body of significant testable propositions regarding the relationship of self and society.

Using the economic approach of social choice theory, this unique book examines difficulties found in democratic processes involved in the creation and implementation of planning policies. Social choice theory focuses on the hard trade-offs to be made between rationality in decision-making on the one hand, and political values such as democracy, liberalism and freedom from manipulation on the other. As an institution can be seen as a set of rules, the focus on rules and procedures of collective choice makes social choice theory well suited for analysing important political aspects of planning institutions. Special attention is given to communicative planning and the logical reasons why all the desirable properties of dialogue cannot be simultaneously attained. The analysis provides original and significant new insights into the process and the institutions involved. It highlights weak spots of present planning techniques and procedures and suggests further steps towards institutionally enriched planning theory.