Planning History • + • • • • • + • ••••• • • • • •• + • • • Bulletin of the Planning History Group Vol. 14 No. 1 1992 Planning History Bulletin of the Contents Planning History Group ISSN 0959 - 5805 Editorial 1 Editor Notices 2 Or Stephen V. Ward School of Planning Articles 3 Oxford Polytechnic Gipsy Lane Headington American Influence on Stockholm's Post World War II Suburban Oxford OX3 OBP Expansion K.C. Parsons 3 Telephone: 0865 819421 Telex: G83147 VIA Fax: 0865 819559 Metamorphosis of Corinth from the Community of the Ottoman Era to the Neohellenic Town Martinidis Associate Editor for the Americas V. Hastaoglou 15 Professor Marc A. Weiss Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Street Widths in Victoria New Zealand Preservation R.P. Hargreaves 29 Columbia University 410H Ave ry Hall New York, NY 10027 Transatlantic Exchanges in Planning: the UK-US Balance Sheet USA G.E. Cherry 32 Associate Editor for the Pacific Or Robert Freestone School of Town Planning Reports 39 University of New South Wales P 0 Box 1 4th National Conference on American Planning History I Kensington, NSW 2033 5th International Conference Planning History Group, Richmond, Australia Virginia, November 7-10 1991 Production S.V. Ward 39 Design: Rob Woodward Word Processing: Sue Bartlett Printing: Middlesex Polytechnic Print Centre Publications 45 Planning History is published three times a year Abstracts for ctistribution to members of the Planning 45 History Group. The Group as a body is not responsible for the views expressed and Urban History 45 statements made by individuals writing or reporting in Planning History. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form The Society for American City and Regional Planning History: without permission from the editor. Working Papers 46 Notes for Contributors The prime aim of Planning History is to increase Treasurers Report 48 an awareness of developments and ideas in planning history in all parts of the world. In pursuit of this aim, contributions are invited Job Vacancies 49 from members and non-members ali ke for any section of the bulletin. Articles should normally not exceed 2500 words, and may well reflect work in progress. Photographs and other illustrations may be included. Contributions submitted on a ctisc, with accompanying hard copy, are to be encouraged; please contact the editor for format details. Editorial Planning History Vol 14 No. 1 Corporations associated with the regeneration of the London Docklands and other inner city areas. Editorial Traditional public interest planning has been subordinated to market criteria. This has been underpinned by the assertion that the pursuit of As I write this editorial Britain is in the middle of a private profits by developers in such areas has general election campaign that seems more likely to actually been synonymous with the 'true' public produce a change of government than any since int~rest in a dynamic market society, a viewpoint 1979. Readers have the advantage over me in that ~hich has not been widely accepted in planning the. res';llt will be known by the time they read this, crrcles. so 1t m~ght be regarded as plain foolishness to address such a topic when I could comment on And there were similar moves to change the impact something much less controversial and uncertain. of the regulatory 'negative' side of planning. In the However I have to admit that the challenge to say early 1980s we were told that planners "locked up something that will appear reasonably sensible jobs in their filing cabinets every night when they even after the election has outweighed natural went home". A great of effort was put into "lifting caution, so I will press on. the burdens" of the allegedly unreasonable demands by planning development control on the Planning, still less planning history, is far from l egi~mate desires ~f private developers to develop. be~~ a. major ~lection issue, in which I suppose Agam the assumption was that the public interest Bntam IS no different to most other countries. But would best be served by a planning system that elections provide opportunities for reflecting on the aided the private developer. However the reality recent ~nd li~ely future directions on many aspects was that the public interest had to be pursued of pubhc pohcy, and I fancy the main trends in through the rather unpredictable mechanism of recent British planning history will have immediate negotiating planning gain. echoes in many other countries. Not surprisingly these attacks on the two basic Thus over the last thirteen years Britain has modes of public planning activity in Britain were experienced the first serious attempt to dismantle ~ewed with considerable dismay in planning the post-war planning consensus which had crrcles. The planning profession became convinced emerged in the 1950s and 1960s when the highly that planning itself would only survive in a statist planning system created by the Labour radically slimmed down form. Several planning government in 1947 was moulded into something schools had professional recognition withdrawn on more appropriate to a mixed economy welfare the strength of this assessment, forcing some to state. However since 1979, when the Conservatives ~ l ose completely. In the event though this under Mrs Thatcher first came to power, we have judgement was well wide of the mark and planning seen a radical change in the pattern and purpose of authorities in the south of England found planning as part of a more general push of "rolling themselves short of qualified staff during the back the frontiers of the state". Much of general development boom of the 1980s. character of the resultant changes will, I think, be familiar to most overseas readers. Most countries Moreover the belief in a much more strongly have experienced at least some of the same ~ket-led app.roach to planning and development medicine, if not always administered with the same ttself soon ran mto serious practical problems. It highly personal style that Mrs Thatcher gave it in became clear by the late 1980s that many voters Britain. who s_upported the government actually valued a There has accordingly been a strong reaction pl~nru~g system that controlled private developers against what used to be called 'positive planning', fat_rly tightly. The opposition to the proposed pnvate new towns at Tillingham Hall, Foxley whereby central or local government agencies directly undertook planned development, Wood and Stone Bassett brought this contradiction between Mrs Thatcher's pushes towards an prioritising public interest objectives. Traditional ente:Prise culture in the field of planning and more instruments of such interventionist planning, such tradttonal Conservatism to a head, with the latter as the comprehensive development area or new essentially winning the argument. Moreover as the towns, have rather gone out of fashion. The Thatcherite equivalent of these instead used state development boom began to fade at the end of the power to give greater encouragement and freedom 1980s, 1t became clear that relatively uncontrolled to private developers. The classic example of this ~nd uncoordinated private development in areas approach has been the Urban Development lik~ the London Docklands was creating quite senous and costly problems. In addition growing 1 Planning History Vol. 14 No. 1 Notice Articles Planning History Vol. 14 No. 1 environmentalist pressures both within Britain and Secretary, Ma.rtin Schwartz, 10 rue Michel-Chauvet, fro~ Eu:opean ~titutions have encouraged greater CH-1208 Geneva. Tel: 41-2-468200; Fax: 41-22- caution m relaxations of the planning system. Notices 468261. Articles By the early 1990s therefore the classic arguments Bartlett International Summer School (BISS) The Urban History Association fo~ planning are beginning to be releamed along Department of History American Influence on With a few new ones. All of which bodes well for 14 TilE PRODUcriON OF THE BUlLT do Lake Forest College planning after the election. We can, I think, be Sherldan Road Stockholm's Post ENVlRONN.mNT: EUROPE1~2 555 N reasonably confident that, whoever turns out to Lake Forest, IL 60045-2399, USA will Brussels, Belgium, 5-10 September 1~2 have won, planning be a much more 708-234-3100 X 430 World War 11 Suburban significant force over the rest of the 1990s than it 708-234-6487 (fax) was in the 1980s. Perhaps a new planning Expansion 1992 marks a conclusion and starting point in the con~nsus, .transcending party, is in the making, as Recipients of prizes awarded by The Urban History my unmediate predecessor as Planning History process of integration under the auspices of the EC. Simultaneously the disintegration of East European Association in its 1991 competition for scholarly editor, Dennis Hardy, has been hinting recently. Or distinctions include: Kermit C Parsons, Cornell perhaps it is simply that, as his predecessor, Mike socialist states gives rise to novel relations between eastern and western Europe. What impact will this Hebbert, once sang in an Oxford Polytechnic Best dissertation in urban history, without University, lthaca, NY, USA planning revue of the 1970s, adapting the lyrics of process of integration and disintegration have on building protection, particularly on the labour geographic restriction, completed in 1990: Karen L Ira Gershwin: In time the Roclcies may crumble/ "Those that know the influence of Radbum outside process, and on the development of the built Sawislak (Stanford University), "Smoldering Oty: Gibraltar may tumble/