| The professional field of planning is by many indications facing a severe paradigmatic crisis, shaken by the discrediting of its underlying intellectual rationale as well as by disappointment from repeated instances of practical impotence and failure, and threatened with impending decline or even possible dissolution. The desire to reformulate an appropriate paradigmatic consensus has prompted a considerable amount of research on the concrete aspects of contemporary planning practice as well as on the history of planning and the planning profession. This study extends this research to the academic sub-community of planning, to learn how the discipline has actually been defined in the schools of the profession from the beginnings of formal planning education in this country to the present. Detailed research was conducted about the planning programs at ten universities in the United States, involving site visits to obtain information about the past and present characteristics of each school from interviews, current publications and other descriptive information on the programs, official catalogs, and other historical documents and records. The research was expanded through additional interviews as well as an extensive survey of the literature on American planning theory, practice and education to obtain a sense for the general development and present state of the field. On the basis of this research, a preliminary history of planning education is presented as a way to illustrate how specific paradigms of planning practice, education and research were defined at the schools of the profession during different periods of development and change leading up to the present condition of crisis. A final chapter undertakes a retrospective-prospective comparative assessment of American planning education, discussing several "paradigmatic currents" of professional practice, education, and research and the factors influencing their development and change in the planning schools, the dilemma of the academization of planning education and the loss of balance between theoretical and practical learning, and the possibilities for change and innovation for the planning schools in response to the major challenges and opportunities of the present and future. |
