Berkeley Planning Journal

City Planning may be a minor league profession, but if it has major league expectations, that's because it's been carrying the ball for a major league idea--the idea of planning. Planning is a major human practice, on the par with science or art, indispensable and ever expanding in modern society. Public sector planners in the U.S. are still slow to recognize this and ambivalent about planning's role and value. Serving in a society that has made a fetish of the old myth of laissez-faire, it is not surprising that, paraphrasing Wilbur:

We milk the cow of planning, and as we do,

We whisper in her ear, "You are no good."

Even in private corporations planning plays a more central role than in the public sector. Indeed, a corporation without planning is a contradiction in terms. Planning is even beginning to take hold, with a vengeance, of personal life--witness the $ 1 50 leather­ bound ""Personal Planners" that promise to guide the busy profes­ sional through his or her day without a glitch.