http://thinkmarkets.wordpress.com/2009/12/21/th...

Re: confusion over the word “planning” (and “planner”) in the context of urbanism

Market Urbanism (Adam) –

I look forward to your essay!

I don’t know if you had a chance to look at it, but there was a related discussion over on Daniel’s “Discovering Urbanism” blog. Daniel’s original post is entitled “My working definition of Planning,” dated November 18, 2009. My comments in the thread are from 11/21/09 and are currently the last three. (My three comments are really only one post that I broke up into three parts in order to get by the software’s word limit. But it really isn’t that long.)

To paraphrase my comments there, it seems to me that, in the English language as it is used today, there is currently no “neutral” term to denote the study of cities that does not also imply that cities are to be, at least to some significant extent (“comprehensively”) “planned.” Our current lexicon presumes that, in studying cities, people are also in favor of (“comprehensively”) planning them – in the sense that people who study cities are interested in city “planning,” and the word “planning,” as it is used in the field, also essentially means some form of “comprehensive” planning. (I think it’s fair to say that it does not mean market urbanism.)

In my comment, I point out that the same is not true with regard to our language and the study of economies. The field of economics is not called economic planning; and the people who study economics are NOT necessarily called economic planners. Instead, with regard to the field of economics our language has “neutral” words like “economics” and “economists.” And economics and economists can be either for (“comprehensive”) economic planning or against it (and those economists who are against comprehensive economic planning can favor relatively modest monetary interventions, instead, for example).

Here’s the URL:

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=507929...

P.S. — It's back! (I'm referring to the New Comment box that allows you to see only two lines at a time.) But since I'm typing from yet a different PC, perhaps it has to do with the settings of the PC's rather than the blog?

Sat. 12/19/09 – 11:25 p.m.

I would also love to visit with you just to hear about journey. I was once very libertarian and then I tried getting anything done and found the whole movement was failing miserably. The irony is, libertarians (including myself for time) couldn't grasp the concept of voluntary grouping of people to form cities. What naturally follows is where I had to part my ways. I see nothing wrong with those voluntary groups creating rules and asking those who live “among them” to abide by them. Society rules are considered vital to our advancement as a society and I find nothing wrong with it.

It is tempting to jump on a train to come up for that beer. I really would love to hear your thoughts.

After years of mulling these ideas over and questioning my assumptions, I
have come to disagree with your thoughts on government- even after most of
my life agreeing almost completely with what you are saying. But, that's a
topic beyond the scope of this blog. Maybe if we ever have the chance to
meet for a beer…

Well, not wanting to high-jack the topic of the post. It was a neat interview.

The problem with the examples you gave, is that it is nearly impossible to imagine the market-based counter factual because it was not allowed to emerge. It would be interesting to compare those examples with a market-based approach such as the growth of the internet, cellular phones networks, and railroad networks.