No abstract

There is increasing evidence that plan ning theory has been inadequate in recent years. Not only does it fail to guide prac tice, it contributes to cognitive dissonance and alienation among practitioners. Plan ning schools agree on no body of litera ture and ideas to count as planning theory. Planning is like a paradigm "in crisis," in that theory does not mesh with experience. Moreover, neither of the two main candidates for the prime exemplar for planning practice—the master plan model or the policy analysis model — is acceptable enough to provide coherence to the field

The often documented failures to use information in planning and policy can be attributed in part to the influence of the positivist view of knowledge on planning practice. This has encouraged planners to try to be value neutral, to focus on measurable issues and general principles, and see the production of information as distinct from the political process. A phenomenological conception of knowledge, on the other hand, focuses on unique and particular situations, and on the everyday world, it emphasizes the subjective meanings of the problems to the actors, it assumes knowledge is constructed in a community rather than having an independent existence, and it accepts that information is shaped by preconceptions. As a guide to planning practice, it can better link knowledge to action because (1) it deals with issues in forms more recognizable to decision makers, (2) it offers a more realistic model of what many practitioners actually do, and (3) it engages the decision makers in the information production process so they are more prepared to act on results Several cases are described which illustrate how knowledge developed interactively with knowledge users became influential in decisions. It is recommended that planners should develop greater skill in qualitative methods, and learn where best to apply the positivist methods, that they should develop information openly, negotiating definitions and assumptions with clients, and that they should develop a responsible ethic to guide them in their inevitably value- laden effort to inform.

In this paper we argue that behind widely accepted problem definitions are myths, stories which draw on tradition and taken for granted knowledge. These myths, which may or may not be true in a factual sense, are important to the definition of problems because they link public issues to widely accepted ways of understanding the world and to shared moral evaluations of conditions, events, and possible solutions to problems.Such myths perform a double-edged function in a policy or planning process. On the one hand, they can provide creative inspiration for policies, a way of translating community values into action proposals, and a powerful means to communicate to a broad public and rally support. They can mediate social and economic change by allowing new policies to carry familiar meaning. On the other hand, a myth can conceal crucial contradictions and realities, legitimize policies that benefit the powerful, and support anachronistic perceptions of policy problems.These ideas are explored in case histories of two areas of urban policy. In one we trace the support for home ownership to a transformation of the Jeffersonian myth of the independent yeoman farmer as the ideal citizen. This use of myth made home ownership the cornerstone of US housing policies and helped suppress alternatives. Though debate over home ownership occurs in the context of housing policy, the tacit purpose is to maintain a myth which is central to our identity as a nation. In the second example, public officials and analysts engaged in an explicit myth-making process to garner support for public-private partnerships as a central tool in urban redevelopment. The myths, which drew on familiar themes, made socially beneficial cooperation seem easy to achieve and legitimized new political and institutional arrangements though it also concealed implementation difficulties.Though myths complicate the effort to use rational, systematic analysis, they are an inevitable part of policy making and planning processes. Planning professionals must openly confront myths and make creative, responsible, use of them rather than allow policies and plans to be subject to their unexamined influence.

Although validity of an indicator, that is, whether it means what it purports to, is critical to its legitimate use in policy, there are few systematic approaches to validation. The reason lies largely in the traditions of positivist social science which require the separation of fact and theory and allow no place for meaning and valuation. The paper proposes approaches to test the validity of both indicators and the conceptual frameworks on which they are based. The most powerful forms of validation require the application of a priori concepts and models. Validation is partly judgmental and never simply mechanical. The validity of a measure is dependent on the context of its use. Social and political processes are an important part of validation, particularly in determining the appropriateness of the assumptions. If an indicator is to be valid, it should be chosen or designed iteratively with the policies it will help to shape.