Learning from Other Countries: The Cross-National Dimension in Urban Policy Making

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Learning from other countries

LEARNING FROM OTHER COUNTRIES The cross-national dimension in urban policy-making Edited by

Ian Masser and Richard Williams

Published by: Geo Books Regency House 34 Duke Street Norwich NR3 3AP UK This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © Ian Masser and Richard Williams (1986) Learning from other countries. 1. City planning 2. Regional planning I. Masser, Ian II. Williams, R.H. 711′.0723 HT166 ISBN 0-203-97376-3 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-86094-210-4 (Print Edition)

Contents

Page List of figures Acknowledgements Contributors FOREWORD Ian Masser and Richard Williams

PART I

vii viii x xii

The design and implementation of cross-national research projects

1.

Introduction Philip Booth

3

2.

The historian’s perspective Anthony Sutcliffe

7

3.

Some methodological considerations Ian Masser

15

4.

Translating theory into practice Richard Williams

27

5.

The problem of comparative research: the case of France Philip Booth

45

PART II The study of planning in other cultures 6.

Introduction Ian Masser

59

7.

Problems in cross-national research: an East European perspective Gordon Cherry

63

v

8.

Do you know what I mean? Problems in the methodology of cross-cultural comparison Stephen Cropper

69

9.

Comparative studies to counter ethnocentric urban planning Mohammad Qadeer

81

PART III The diffusion of planning ideas: the case of new towns 10.

Introduction Richard Williams

93

11.

International exchange of ideas about new towns Anthony Ramsay

95

12.

The French new towns Irene Wilson

105

13.

New towns concept in Poland Jack Wawrzynski

115

14.

Diffusion of the new town idea in the developing world Patsy Healey

125

PART IV The role of international agencies in promoting crossnational comparisons 15.

Introduction David Massey

141

16.

Policy analysis and the work of supranational bodies Richard Williams

147

17.

Internationally comparable urban data John Zetter

157

18.

Working with international agencies H.W.E.Davies

167

19.

The transferability of planning experience between countries Ian Masser

173

POSTSCRIPT Ian Masser and Richard Williams

185

vi

SUPPLEMENT Teaching comparative planning 20.

Introduction Richard Williams

191

21.

An integrated package: researching and teaching French planning Irene Wilson

195

22.

The Ruhr-Mersey project and a research-led teaching programme John Herson and Chris Couch

203

List of figures

Page Figure 1. The cross-national research process Figure 2. The foreign culture model Figure 3. Location of new towns and DATAR study areas in France Figure 4. Polish new towns strategy Figure 5. BSc Town and Regional Planning, Dundee. Lecture courses Figure 6. Academic year timetable for International Comparative Planning and French language courses

20 22 107 117 196 198

Acknowledgements

This book originated from a series of workshops organised by the editors on behalf of the European Urban and Regional Planning Study Group of the Regional Studies Association (RSA). These were held to address questions of cross-national comparative research methodology, explore problems faced when undertaking such research and to share experiences between researchers active in this form of planning research. Five workshops were held over a two-year period (May 1983 to May 1985), at each of which papers were given by people with particular experience in this field. In total, it was felt that these added up to a sufficiently comprehensive exploration of the subject to merit wider dissemination in book form. Some of the chapters in this book have appeared in a similar form elsewhere: Part I in a special edition of Environment and Planning B (Pion, volume 11, 1984), and earlier versions of Parts I and II have been published as working papers TRP 44 and TRP 47 by the Department of Town and Regional Planning. University of Sheffield. The agreement of the Pion Press to the publication of Part I here is gratefully acknowledged. The hosts for the workshops were the Department of Town and Regional Planning, University of Sheffield; Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, University of Birmingham; Department of Town and Country Planning, University of Newcastle upon Tyne; Department of Town Planning, Polytechnic of the South Bank; and the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Strathclyde University, The meeting at the University of Birmingham was held in conjunction with the Planning History Group. Our thanks go to these institutions and to a number of people who have assisted in organising the workshops and with making publication possible. Particular thanks are due to the following: Gordon Cherry (Birmingham University); Anthony Ramsay (Strathclyde University); and Ingrid Watson (Polytechnic of the South Bank) for their local organisation; Derek Stroud (Department of the Environment) and Urlan Wannop (Strathclyde University) for acting as workshop chairmen; Gloria Frankel (Executive Secretary, Regional Studies Association) and Lutz Luithlen (Leicester Polytechnic, Hon. Sec., European Group of the RSA, 1981–85) for their

ix

support of the whole enterprise; and Philip Booth (Sheffield University) for editorial assistance. In addition, of course, our thanks go to all the contributors to the workshops and to this volume, and to everyone who attended. Without them, nothing would have been possible. Ian Masser University of Sheffield. December 1985. Richard Williams University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

List of contributors

Philip Booth:

Department of Town and Regional Planning, University of Sheffield, UK Gordon Cherry: Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, University of Birmingham, UK Chris Couch: Department of Surveying, Liverpool Polytechnic (formerly in Department of Town and Country Planning), UK Stephen Cropper: Department of Operations Research, University of Sussex, UK H.W.E.Davies: Department of Land Management and Development, University of Reading, UK Patsy Healey: Department of Town Planning, Oxford Polytechnic, UK John Herson: Department of Social Studies, Liverpool Polytechnic (formerly in Department of Town and Country Planning), UK David Massey: Department of Civic Design, University of Liverpool, UK Mohammad Qadeer: Department of Urban Planning, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada Anthony Ramsay: Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Strathclyde, UK Anthony Sutcliffe: Department of Economic History, University of Sheffield, UK Jack Wawrzynski: Department of Town and Country Planning, University of Manchester, UK Irene Wilson: Department of Town and Regional Planning, University of Dundee/Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, UK John Zetter: Environment Directorate, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris

xi

Editors Richard Williams: Ian Masser:

Department of Town and Country Planning, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Department of Town and Regional Planning, University of Sheffield, UK

FOREWORD IAN MASSER and RICHARD WILLIAMS

Many researchers in the field of urban and regional studies are attracted by the idea of adding an international dimension to their work. Town and country planning systems are found in most countries of the world and many developed nations, especially in Western Europe, have responded to increased density of urban development by establishing increasingly complex systems of urban and regional policy making. These systems display considerable variety both in procedure and in substantive policy content, although the problems which they need to handle may be broadly comparable. Other countries, therefore, are an obvious source of stimulation and new ideas for anyone analysing the way a particular urban problem is being tackled or wishing to improve practice or who is simply curious and seeking broader experience. Many people have, for reasons such as these, embarked upon studies of planning in other countries in the expectation that they may be easily interpreted in terms of their own country. Such expectations have often proved to be false. The complexities involved, the much slower rate of progress compared with domestic research, and the difficulty of identifying truly comparable or transferable phenomenon, have often presented greater problems than have been anticipated at first. The idea for the series of workshops which form the basis of this book arose from discussions between researchers who had become very conscious that comparative research presented both methodological and practical problems which did not arise in purely domestic research. The workshops were a series of informal meetings where researchers who were confronting these problems could contribute to the development of methodology and share their experiences of overcoming some of the practical problems they collectively faced. A theme was chosen for each meeting, and researchers with appropriate experience were invited to contribute papers as a basis for discussion. They were asked to reflect on the state of the art as they saw it. As a result, papers drew upon a wide range of experiences and were not limited to the findings of detailed empirical studies. The majority of papers presented in this way were prepared in written form and subsequently,

FOREWORD xiii

reflecting the discussion at the workshop at which they were presented, have been revised to form the chapters of this book. The focus of attention is cross-national comparative research. This does not differ from other aspects of planning research in respect of the range of subject matter capable of being studied (i.e. the whole field of planning and urban policy studies). However, the introduction of the two key elements of cross-national and comparative introduces many additional complexities, both methodological and practical. It is to these complexities, the development of a research methodology, and the contribution of cross-national comparative research to the totality of our understanding of urban and regional policy making and planning, which this book is addressed. Because of this it is useful to distinguish between comparative research and studies of specific foreign countries. The latter is far from easy, but in methodological terms it is no different from studying planning in one’s own country, as a self contained system. Comparative planning introduces the concepts of comparison and, crucially, evaluation of the experience of one place against another. This can occur within national systems, but this book focuses on the more complex, but to us very fascinating pursuit of cross-national comparison. Many people embark on cross-national comparison in the expectation that transfer of a planning technique, method or policy may be a readily achieved outcome. However, the circumstances in which transfer has occurred in the past, and the prerequisites for successful transfer in the future, are by no means fully understood. It is clear, however, that it is not a straightforward process, especially between countries which do not, for instance, share an institutional inheritance as a result of former colonial status. Crossnational comparative research raises questions such as national culture, language, institutions of government and law, political divisions, and evolution of urban structure. These and other issues have to be confronted, and taken into account, in order to undertake comparative evaluation or make any realistic proposal for policy transfer. The chapters are grouped in four modules according to the workshop theme for which they were originally prepared, and each group is preceded by an introductory essay, setting the context and introducing the themes to be discussed. The chapters in Part I address the theme which was seen from the beginning as representing the heart of the problem facing comparative researchers: how to define the research task, devise a theoretically sound methodology, and translate this into an operational research design which can be put into practice. The first chapter draws upon Sutcliffe’s experience as an economic historian researching the history of urban planning. It demonstrates that many of the issues in comparative planning have also been faced in this discipline. Masser addresses the methodological issues involved in designing and carrying out

xiv LEARNING FROM OTHER COUNTRIES

cross-national research projects, while Williams reviews the ways in which selected comparative research projects have handled these issues in practice. In the last chapter of the module, Booth illustrates these problems with particular reference to France. Workshop themes were not chosen according to a master plan worked out in advance, but were selected in response to the directions taken in discussion. From the first workshop it emerged that particular difficulties can arise when cross-national research involves crossing a major cultural divide in terms of either time or space. The first workshop focused primarily on Western Europe, but it was recognised that other areas of the world were of equal interest although they involved crossing much greater cultural divisions. This, therefore, forms the theme of Part II. In this module, Cropper addresses the conceptual and methodological issues involved, while Cherry and Qadeer draw upon their experience of comparative research in two other areas of the world separated from the UK and Western Europe by major cultural divides: the Soviet Bloc and the Third World. A consideration of the cultural division of the world led to an examination of the extent to which certain planning concepts, principles or policies had transcended these divisions and found expression in different national and cultural contexts. This is explored in Part III by consideration of the diffusion of the new town idea to many parts of the world, where it has many different objectives. This raises questions with respect to comparability, diffusion and transfer, or independent development of the idea. A perspective on the international diffusion of the new town idea is provided by Ramsay. This is followed by comparative evaluation of experience in France by Wilson, in Poland by Wawrzynski, and in Latin America by Healey exemplifying different degrees of diffusion, transfer and independent development. Certain supranational bodies have responsibilities which include the identification and dissemination of good practice in the urban policy and planning field, including the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for Western Europe and the developed countries, and the World Bank, Habitat International and the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements, operating primarily in the Third World. The Commission of the European Communities has a more direct interest in policy making at a supranational level, and community legislation is significant in many respects for local planning authorities in Member-States. These supranational bodies necessarily have an interest in cross-national research. Part IV explores the interests of some of these bodies, and the contribution that comparative research can make to them. Zetter describes one facet of the work of the OECD, while Davies evaluates the experience he has gained through working on projects for supranational agencies. These are accompanied by chapters from Williams and Masser which discuss policy analysis in the

FOREWORD xv

supranational context, and implications for promoting transfer of planning experience that arise out of the interests of these agencies. Some suggestions on future directions for cross-national research are set out in the concluding chapter of the volume. In addition to the main text, there is a supplement on teaching comparative planning. Most participants in the workshops were teachers as well as researchers. Many had devised their own approaches to cross-national teaching. The variety of teaching practice is illustrated by Williams and two examples of research based cross-national curricula are described in detail, from Dundee University by Wilson, and Liverpool Polytechnic by Herson and Couch.

xvi

PART ONE The design and implementation of cross-national research projects

2

-1Introduction PHILLIP BOOTH

In liberal academic circles there would no doubt be a general assent to the notions that travel broadens the mind and that ‘What should they know of England who only England know’1. Applied to the field of town planning, this must surely act as healthy counterweight to the insularity which is evident in the tendency to regard the British system as the one against which all others pale in comparison. Cross-national research and study are good, such an argument might run, because they help us to see our system in perspective. But what we may actually mean by this perspective, and what utility there may be in developing it, is by no means necessarily clear. Two general reasons for entering the field of cross-national research might, however, be identified. The first might be the development of the understanding of what planning is, or could be, about. Town planning, both as a discipline and as an administrative practice, has a curiously chameleon-like quality whose colours depend intimately on the particular social, political, and cultural context in which it is found. We may thus begin to challenge our assumptions about the proper limits of planning, by reference to systems other than our own. On the face of it, research designed to develop this understanding of what planning is about is relatively straightforward: the snags arise in plumbing the depths of the context in which the particular conception is rooted. A simple description of a planning system invariably conceals the assumptions in which it is based. The second reason might be to learn how practice could be improved by reference to examples from beyond our own country. Here the contextual problem becomes considerably more difficult. The danger of proposing change in practice in the light of experience abroad is that practice may be dependent for its success upon a chain of circumstance which does not apply at home. To cite one instance: the successes and failures of the French practice of conserving historic buildings and areas are dependent on a level of central government involvement (through a variety of organisations) and funding that would require major changes both to central and to local government in Britain to be successful. Comparative

4 LEARNING FROM OTHER COUNTRIES

research to improve practice need not, however, always be cross-national. Indeed, much research is carried out by comparing case studies within one country, and there may be something to be learnt from understanding the premise upon which such within-national studies are based. In a comparison of, say, Sheffield and Birmingham, a number of constants will apply, in the form of a general understanding of the purpose of planning a generally similar system of administration and a like pattern of statutory controls. Beyond these constants are, however, a range of differences that are dependent on the particular circumstances that obtain in Sheffield, or Birmingham. At least within-national comparative studies allow the researcher to make judgements about the factors in, say, residential development which are the result of the general framework of planning practice and those which are dependent on local conditions. From those judgements stem the possibility of making recommendations for the improvement of practice. In cross-national research, the constants of culture, administration, and statute do not apply. It therefore becomes vital to find other points of reference that are constants in the countries to be studied. Such points of reference are unlikely to be general ones: they are much more likely to be specific to the subject areas to be studied. Yet the danger of false analogy is great. A project which was floated upon the equivalence of the schema directeur2 and the structure plan would very quickly founder on the totally different purposes that the two types of plan are designed to serve. The result is all too likely to be that we shall have learnt only that two countries are different because they are different. The four contributions that follow attempt to tackle some of these problems in the belief that, in spite of them, cross-national research is indeed worth pursuing. In the first, Sutcliffe sets the historical context for cross-national research and argues for comparisons over time as well as over space. The remaining chapters take up the questions of appropriate methodology and practical difficulties. Masser considering particularly the methodology, Williams looking at the problems encountered in selected examples of comparative research, and Booth focusing on the case of France. All these chapters add to our understanding of how cross-national studies might most appropriately be conducted. It must be clear, however, that the difficulties in conducting such research must lead us to question very closely our motives for wishing to undertake it. In the end, the desired outcome of the research, whether in terms of improvements to understanding or to the formulation and implementation of policy will to a large measure determine how these problems would have to be surmounted.

INTRODUCTION 5

NOTES 1. From Rudyard Kipling’s The English Flag. 2. A schéma directeur is an upper-tier land use plan in France.

6

-2The historian’s perspective ANTHONY SUTCLIFFE

In the 1980s, internationally comparative research lies towards the top of the agenda in urban, regional, and planning studies, as indeed it does in most areas of social knowledge (e.g. Harloe, 1981). Comparative investigation has been fundamental to the social sciences since they took on their current strongly empirical form in the nineteenth century, but there have been significant methodological shifts within the comparative model. Currently, historico-comparative approaches are in vogue (e.g. Castells, 1983). Laconte, who was one of the most astute observers of the world planning scene, encapsulates this orthodoxy in a recent article (Laconte, 1983). Reviewing some of the published products of the work of the Planning History Group, he describes ‘a long road ahead in planning history’ and identifies a number of methodological issues: ‘The international analysis of planning ideas, policies, systems and of their effects poses far-reaching problems’ (p. 236). This emphasis on history appears to derive principally from the productive opposition to two positions within the planning debate. On the one hand, the ameliorist tradition on which most post-1945 urban and regional planning was based has now generated its own autocritique in which structural and ideological limitations on the role of the planner are stressed. The nature and implications of these limitations are readily identified historically (e.g. Cherry, 1982), particularly as the ameliorist position had previously generated numerous historical studies charting the steady progress of planning towards the creation of a happier and more efficient world (e.g. Pepler, 1949). On the other hand, the neo-Marxist urban critique of the 1970s has created its own internal demand for historical research in order to sustain a theory of urban political economy which has come to be identified as, at best, dangerously deductive (Harloe, 1981, p. 186), and, at worst, utterly specious (e.g. Pahl, 1983, pp. 375–376). However, both the reformist and the neo-Marxist tendencies reflect, and may even be a function of, low levels of investment in the environment during the current world depression. This common experience helps to explain certain superficial similarities, and perhaps even a more fundamental convergence, between the two tendencies (see Sutcliffe, 1983,


pp. 235–237). It also provides the context of the current interest in international perspectives. Historians cannot fail to warm towards this renewed interest in their perception and expertise. Indeed, moves are already afoot within the historical profession, notably in the USA, to emphasise and enhance the potential contribution of history to public policy (e.g. Stave, 1983). This contribution, it is claimed, will be more specific than the common understanding which Warner rightly sees as the most valuable contribution of history to the conduct of human affairs. Since 1975, postgraduate programmes in this applied branch of historical studies have been taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara (MA in public history) and at Carnegie-Melon University, Pittsburgh (PhD in applied history). Numerous North American universities are now following their example and the movement has its own journal, The Public Historian, published by the University of California Press. Steps are now being taken, notably by Offer of the University of York, Beck of Kingston Polytechnic, and the present author, to investigate the potential of a selfconscious organisation of applied historical studies in Britain. Similar moves are being made on the Continent. Thus, as planning and urban studies turn to history, they encounter a converging tendency from within that discipline. THE DEVELOPMENT OF CROSS-NATIONAL STUDIES Historians’ contributions to cross-national research can be valuable ones. Their appreciation of the structural components of currently observable phenomena is likely to modify the social scientists’ perceptions of those phenomena. Historians can contribute, in particular, to the creation of an internationally acceptable glossary of terms and categorisations, without which no comparisons can proceed. At the same time, historians can be annoyingly iconoclastic, refusing to see merit in the battles of abstractions which so often preoccupy social scientists. In their attention toward longrun developments of diachronic contrasts, historians are constantly aware of the relativity and transience of the contextual factors which condition cross-national research. The national state, for instance, whose existence is validated by the very concept of cross-national comparisons, is seen by historians as historically specific and as much a product of the processes they are investigating as an organiser and container of them. The division of most of the globe into legally independent national states is a recent development, as is the intervention of those states in the ordering of the environment. Both these features, though foreshadowed before the nineteenth century, are essentially products of the world industrialisation process which has also generated the social sciences in their present form. It is customary to divide planning into various

THE HISTORIAN’S PERSPECTIVE 9

national modes, but the environment which we attempt to plan, in the sense of man and his accumulations of capital in their relationship with land, is dismissive of national boundaries. One of the most intriguing factors of the pre-1914 urban planning debate was its links with the Peace Movement (Sutcliffe, 1981, pp. 164, 166–167). Abercrombie was among those people who regarded the International Union of Local Authorities, founded at Ghent in 1913, as an embryonic system of world government. The idea was that cities, as productive and interdependent participants in a worldwide division of labour, could form regional federations which would replace the anachronistic and dangerous institution of the nation-state (e.g. see the editorial, probably written by Abercrombie, in Town Planning Review, 1914, volume 5, pp. 179–180). Paradoxically, the World War which dashed these hopes prompted an extraordinary exercise in international planning, the formulation of reconstruction policies for occupied Belgium by groups of exiles, British, French, and other foreign sympathisers in conferences and discussions held in London, Le Havre (seat of the Belgian government in exile), and elsewhere during the war (Smets, 1977, pp. 90–92). These episodes may appear quaint, but they were echoed between the wars by the efforts of the Congres Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne to create an international system of urban designs, and after World War 2 by the ekistics movement. Thus, we can approach the organisation of settled space from three different perspectives. First, we can regard it as a function of productive specialisation with an evolving world economy—what might be called the regional approach in which spatial variations are paralleled by temporal modulations, in that the diffusion of certain institutions and technologies associated with economic advance is complete in some regions but only partially so in others. Second, we can emphasise universal or ideal concepts in which, for instance, fundamental distinctions are made between town and country, and worldwide timeless qualities are attributed to these categories, allowing the formulation of ostensibly universal solutions. Third, we can stress various national peculiarities, including those stemming from national political attitudes and policies. The existence of these three approaches notwithstanding, when the chips were down and I had to write an internationally comparative study of the pre-1914 origins of urban planning, I plumped for the national approach (Sutcliffe, 1981). This choice reflected the perceptions of the actors in the process I was analysing; not for nothing did Horsfall add the example of Germany to the title of his influential tract (Horsfall, 1904). However, I was fascinated by the interrelationship between increasing national diversification, on the one hand, and the growth of an international plane of activity in the social sciences, on the other. During the nineteenth century the growth of social science, the diffusion and


reinforcement of national states, and the development of international organisation proceeded in close association. Fundamental to all three was the growth of a professional class which served and indeed had a stake in the national systems but which, as a distinct interest within the world system, readily transcended national boundaries. This aspiration to comprehensive knowledge was reflected in the early activities of Le Play and his positivistic supporters, notably in the Association Internationale d’Economie Sociale, founded in 1856, and the Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales, established in 1862. Le Play’s own study of the condition of European workers, Les Ouvriers Européens (1855), led on to another selfconsciously comparative study, La Réforme Sociale en France Déduite de l’Observation Comparée des Peuples Européens (1864). However, such interests were not restricted to the positivists, another mid-century pioneering work in comparative research being Engels’ The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, first published in the original German in 1845. What these early comparative workers were doing was to keep track of the implications of industrialisation for human organisation and human happiness. Because that industrialisation was in large measure being diffused from Britain, comparative studies which included Britain had an important political potential. As the century wore on, industrialisation spread further and further outside Western Europe, sustained by outward flows of European capital and labour. This process extended the spatial context of international comparisons which, by the end of the century, had attracted an important North American contribution (e.g. Bliss, 1908). By 1900, international comparisons clearly revolved around a tension between the increasingly international character of flows of capital and technology, and institutional structures which were much less readily diffused yet more endurin through time, in that they were reinforced by the growing maturit of the national states. This tension was reflected in the uncertainty surrounding the role and potential of the International Union of Local Authorities, already described. As industrialisation proceeded, the institutional structures came increasingly to be dominated by government, and internationa research in the social sciences devoted increasing attention to policy. This tendency was sharply accelerated from the 1880s when Bismarck’s social reforms shifted attention from the original industrial core, Britain, to the centre of an even more dynamic industrialisation. The displacement of attention was also noticeable in urban affairs, with Germany regarded as the source of the most effective and enlightened planning by the early 1900s. In the twentieth century the role of government has been further enhanced by two World Wars which, paradoxically, have also led to a strengthening of the institutional framework of international cooperation and comparison. Since 1945, we in Britain have been noticeably


incorporated into a European network, a process which has been accelerated by British membership of the European Community. This European orientation, of which we are constantly reminded by the contents of the ESRC Newsletter, now complements the special intellectual relationship of Britain with North America which derives partly from a common language. Thus, supranational institutions have again come to complicate but also to enrich the context of comparative investigations. In terms of material wealth, the basis of British participation in the contemporary knowledge-producing network is very weak, but its potential knowledge input and coordinating power are substantial. From its long lost pioneering position in industrialisation, Britain has derived a strong university system and advanced institutions of government. It also still retains an important fulcrum position in relationships between Europe, North America, and the Third World. The knowledge input would be enhanced by a greater language facility than British researchers normally display, but the main second language in Britain is French, which is a very efficient complement to English which is increasingly becoming the international language of government as well as of commerce. THE HISTORIAN’S CONTRIBUTION: TRANSFER AND INNOVATION What of the role of historical studies in the process of crossnational knowledge creation? Comparative historical studies were rare in the nineteenth century, but in the twentieth century they have become increasingly common, owing to two developments whose origins can be detected in the later decades of the Victorian era. First, the historical sciences developed as an objective field of inquiry under the influence, initially, of Ranke and Stubbs. Second, they came to incorporate theory from the expanding social sciences. The resulting framework for comparative study has permitted a proliferation of cross-national work, especially during the last two decades. This tendency has its own interest and validity, but more significant in the present context is the possibility that, at our present stage in the process of world economic development, a special opportunity exists to enhance social science comparisons across space by the inclusion of a time dimension. Incorporation of a time dimension is essential, as Castells and others have realised, to the achievement of a general understanding of the forces at work in our world. However, its potential extends beyond the creation of critical theory to a regeneration of the ameliorist contribution by allowing the latter once again to formulate solutions to problems. Planning, as we know it today in the industrialised capitalist world, was designed primarily as a means of minimising external diseconomies


within a production system whose development could safely be left to market forces. In the twentieth century, planning has performed well in this task, but it has contributed to a transformation of the production of the productive system which now requires it to adopt a promotional rather than a restrictive role. Planning studies, nevertheless, are still to a large extent rooted in the evaluation of procedures, and one of the dangers of the current vogue for comparative studies is that it will reinforce this increasingly outdated activity and miss the opportunity to contribute to the elaboration of a portfolio of policies appropriate to the concerns of the 1980s which, it is to be feared, will also be the concerns of the 1990s. See the discussion by Masser (1984) on comparative studies as a stimulus to innovation rather than mere transfer. Paradoxically perhaps, the historical dimension will help in the creation of the future by setting current conditions in a long-term perspective from which an understanding of what needs to be done will be derived. One example of a space-time comparative exercise of this type is the study of the regional economies of Sheffield, Pittsburgh, and Bochum, in relation to their respective environments, which has recently been under discussion at Sheffield. The three cities, which are linked by twinning and sister-city agreements, are major nodes within steel-producing regions, all of which have faced major structural adjustments in recent decades. In view of the earlier beginnings of the structural decline of British manufacturing, in the later nineteenth century, Sheffield maintained its industrial prosperity for a surprisingly long time, longer in fact than either Pittsburgh or Bochum. A relative shift of steel production away from Pittsburgh could be detected from the early 1900s, and a major reconstruction of the regional economy was put in hand from the 1940s, with significant results achieved by the end of the 1960s. In Bochum, the decline of the Ruhr staple industries of mining and steel manufacture first made itself seriously felt in the 1950s. Sheffield, meanwhile, clung with success to its concentration on the manufacture of special steel which provided a perfectly adequate economic base until the early 1970s, when home demand quite suddenly collapsed at a time of accelerated erosion of export markets. Historical experience suggests that some kind of strategy for economic regeneration or at any rate adjustment will eventually be formulated for the Sheffield region, but, in its continuing absence, clear scope exists for drawing on the experience of the other two cities. In Pittsburgh, an alliance of local business interests loyal to the city and region provided the basis of resurgence, and adjustment in Bochum was to a greater degree the product of national and regional planning. In both, however, a planned transformation of the environment was one of the keys to the attraction of new capital and enterprise, and the reinforcement of local loyalty. It will be straightforward to undertake a comparative diachronic study of economic adjustment in the three areas from the perspective of


Sheffield alone. More difficult, but also more satisfying, would be a programme of study which will benefit all three regions equally, in the form of both a shared understanding of the impact of world economic tendencies on cognate regional economies, and of the diffusion of policies, to which Sheffield may well expect to make a contribution. Such a programme implies a high level of funding and a direction of coordinating apparatus capable of securing the confidence of three or more local research teams. The problems encountered by the ESRC Inner Cities Research Project would be multiplied and exacerbated in this international framework. The bringing together of existing research in a conference or symposium might produce a purely superficial accord. The big issue, of course, would be that of whose questions are to be answered. Closely related would be the question of the mode of diffusion. Useful experience may be drawn from the Trinational Inner Cities Project (see Davies, 1980) but the daunting obstacles which clearly stand in the way of an efficient research project equally benefiting all three cities and regions call for a degree of idealism comparable to that which may just have been emering on the eve of World War 1, when talk of federations of cities paved the way for the twinning relationships which we now take for granted but which produce so little in the way of concerted action. And yet, may a time not come when a worldwide league of steel-producing cities will no longer be an impossibility? Of course, that dream could come true only in a world in which the system of national states had been supplanted, and in such a world the type of internationally comparative research that I have discussed in this Chapter would no longer retain any vitality. However, that state of affairs is too remote to deter us from continuing with a mode of knowledge creation whose significance is certain to grow in the years to come. REFERENCES Bliss, W.D.P (ed.), 1908, The New Encyclopedia of Social Reform (Funk and Wagnalls, New York). Castells, M., 1983, The city and the grassroots: a cross-cultural theory of urban social movements (Edward Arnold, London). Cherry, G., 1982, The politics of town planning (Longman, Harlow). Davies, H.W.E., 1980, International transfer and the inner city: report of the Trinational Inner Cities Project, OP-5 (School of Planning Studies, University of Reading, Reading). Engels, F., 1845, Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England (O.Wigand, Leipzig); first English edition, 1887, The condition of the working class in England in 1844 (J.W. Lovell, New York). Harloe, M., 1981, Notes on comparative urban research, in: Urbanisation and urban planning in capitalistic society, ed M.Dear and A.J.Scott (Methuen, London) pp. 179–195.


Horsfall, T.C., 1904, The improvement of the dwellings and surroundings of the people: the example of Germany (Manchester University Press, Manchester). Laconte, P., 1983, Planning and the environment in the modern world, Town Planning Review, 54, pp. 230–237. Le Play, F., 1855, Les Ouvriers Européens (Imprimerie Impériale, Paris). Le Play, F., 1864, La Réforme Sociale en France Déduite de l’Observation Comparée des Peuples Européens (Plon, Paris). Masser, I., 1984, Cross-national planning studies: a review, Town Planning Review, 55, pp. 137–160. Pahl, R.E., 1983, Concepts in context: pursuing the urban of ‘urban’ sociology, in: The pursuit of urban history, ed D.Fraser and A.Sutcliffe (Edward Arnold, London) pp. 371–382. Pepler, G.L., 1949, Forty years of statutory town planning, Town Planning Review, 20, pp 103–108. Smets, M., 1977, L’Avènement de la Cité Jardin en Belgique: Histoire de l’Habitat Social en Belgique de 1830 à 1930 (Pierre Mardaga, Brussels). Stave, B.M., 1983, A conversation with Joel A.Tarr: urban histor policy, Journal of Urban History, 9, pp. 195–232. Sutcliffe, A.R., 1981, Towards the planned city: Germany, Britain the United States and France, 1740–1914 (Basil Blackwell, Oxford). Sutcliffe, A.R., 1983, In search of the urban variable: Britain in the later nineteenth century, in: The pursuit of urban history, ed D.Fraser and A.Sutcliffe (Edward Arnold, London) pp. 234–263.

-3Some methodological considerations IAN MASSER

Over the last few years the idea of cross-national comparative research has become increasingly attractive, because of the opportunities that it provides for analysts to test emerging theories under new circumstances and for pracititioners to consider the lessons from other people’s experience. In practice, however, the conduct of research projects in this field has presented major problems to analysts from the point of view both of the design and of the execution of projects of this kind. In this chapter, I consider a number of questions related to the design and implementation of cross-national research projects. In the second section, I discuss the characteristics of cross-national comparative planning research as an activity and define the subject matter involved. It is concluded that the basic problem facing analysts is associated with the difficulty of studying phenomena in isolation from their context. In the third section, I consider possible research strategies that can be adopted to deal with situations of this kind. I am particularly concerned with examining the properties of the case study approach, which forms the predominant mode of investigation at the present time in this field. The fourth section of the paper is an examination of the implications of this approach from the point of view of the design and implementation of projects in this field. I evaluate some findings from recent experience and suggest some priorities for further research. THE NATURE OF CROSS-NATIONAL COMPARATIVE PLANNING STUDIES There is general agreement that there is no distinct field of cross-national comparative planning studies and that the subject matter of comparative planning differs from that of planning as a whole only in its crossnational dimension. In consequence, the subject matter of cross-national comparative planning research can be summarised in the following terms: ‘the study of planning problems and practice in different countries in relation to the institutional context of the respective countries’ (Masser, 1984b, p. 4). Such a distinction, which draws attention to the relationships between the phenomena under investigation and the


context in which they operate, is derived initially from Friedmann’s (1967) classical paper on the institutional context. In this paper, Friedmann put forward the following working hypothesis for crossnational research: Distinctive styles of national planning are associated with different combinations of system variables, including the level of economic development attained, the form of political organisations, and historical tradition (p. 33). If this is the case, then, ‘The general style of planning can be predicted for any country on the basis of only a small number of system variables’ (P. 34). Friedmann recognises that such an approach is likely to prove ‘immensely difficult’ in practice and draws attention to several caveats that must be attached to it to avoid potential misunderstandings. In particular, the lack of hypotheses linking the respective elements of the model means that the descriptive categories are likely to need substantial revision after empirical investigation. They should not be regarded in any sense as a straitjacket, but rather as an indication of potential areas for study. It should also be recognised that in the course of these investigations some of the categories are likely to become blurred as they represent a continuum rather than discrete elements. The basic distinction between the planning system and the context within which it operates is apparent in most crossnational comparative studies. In its simplest form, it can be seen in the contextual sections of works outlining the national setting in terms of history, politics, resources, culture, and the administrative structure governing planning (e.g. Strong, 1972). In other cases it is developed in more abstract terms; for example, McCallum (1976) puts forward the view that it is impossible to understand the differences between British and US planning practice without reference to the political culture of planning which involves ‘the emotional and attitudinal environment within which a political system operates’ (p. 4). In general terms, the underlying model in studies of this kind can be summarised as follows: differences between countries with respect to elements of planning practice are a function of differences in the institutional context within which planning takes place. On this basis, the phenomenon can be regarded as the dependent variable which reflects the configuration of independent variables making up the context. When expressed in this form there are clear parallels between this conceptualisation and the contingency model that occupies a central place in organisation theory. The contingency model postulates that organisation structures will be contingent on a number of contextual factors such as market environment, technology, and size. Because of this it is argued that there is no one best way of designing organisations and

SOME METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS 17

that the most successful organisations are those which are able to design structures which match their environment. The theoretical assumptions underlying both contextual and contingency models have been criticised by many analysts. For example, Faludi (1973, p. 320) argues that contextual models are ‘concomitant of a behavioural approach’ whereby ‘planning instead of being an abstract, normative concept, becomes a dependent variable, dependent that is on the environment of decision making’. Similarly, as a result of experience in the management field, Child (1977) concludes that there is a lack of convincing evidence to demonstrate that the matching of organisations to prevailing contingencies contributes significantly to improving performance. In Child’s view, two basic problems have to be resolved before conclusive evidence can be presented. First, there is the problem of causality. Most studies have been crosssectional in nature and only a few have considered the reasons why particular structures were adopted. Consequently, it is not possible to conclude from these studies as yet that a cross matching of organisational design to contingencies is a significant determinant of high performance. Second, there is a general tendency in this kind of work to ignore the possibility that some organisations may be less dependent upon their environments and in a more secure position to maintain performance than others. For this reason it is possible that nonorganisational variables may also have high levels of association with performance. In Child’s opinion, contingency theorists tend to overemphasise the constraints upon organisational behaviour and underplay the range of choice that is open to both managers and planners. In practice, a number of additional obstacles have to be overcome in trying to implement this approach in empirical investigations. The most serious problem facing the analyst is not so much a question of studying the phenomenon in relation to its context, but a question of trying to separate phenomenon and context from one another. Because of this, major difficulties arise in defining an appropriate unit of study, and these difficulties are accentuated in the design of cross-national research projects, because what is regarded as phenomenon in one country is often seen as context in another. To resolve these problems, the basic theoretical model that underlies comparative planning studies must be modified substantially in practice. THE CHOICE OF RESEARCH STRATEGY The work of Yin (1981a; 1981b; 1982) is particularly helpful when considering possible research strategies for cross-national projects. The main findings of his work will be summarised in this section. Yin (1982, p. 84) argues that situations of the kind described above, where context and phenomenon are entwined to such an extent that the boundaries of


the unit of study are unclear, are quite common in social science research. He cites as evidence in support of this view his own work on neighbourhood revitalisation and his study of how new practices become routinised within public organisations. He also argues that the difficulties experienced in his case are only symptoms of a very much deeper problem and that there is no adequate research craft in the social sciences as yet for studying cases where phenomenon and context are closely interrelated. This is because traditional experimental or laboratory approaches, which assume that a phenomenon can be isolated from its subject matter, are of very limited value in cases of this kind. Similar difficulties also arise in connection with the use of survey research techniques and statistical analysis, because the number of variables that are involved considerably exceeds the number of cases that are being analysed. Having rejected these approaches, Yin turns to the case study approach which he regards as the most promising research strategy especially for empirical enquiries concerning contemporary phenomena (Yin, 1981a, p. 98; 1981b, p. 59). Yin sees the case study as a research strategy which can be likened to an experiment, a history, or a simulation. He points out that it does not imply the use of any particular type of evidence or data collection technique. It can draw both on quantitative and on qualitative evidence and make use of field-work techniques, verbal reports, and observations, either separately or collectively. The essential strengths of case studies lie in their ability to take account of a large amount of local detail at the same time as generally comparable information, and in their essential flexibility in practice. Although less demanding in terms of research design than either the experimental or the survey approach, the flexibility of case studies should not be overestimated, either within the case or when comparing cases. In Yin’s (1981a) opinion, the lack of good within-case research design has been responsible for some of the major weaknesses in case-study research: The successful use of case studies requires that individual ones, whether part of a multiple case design or not, also follow an explicit design. At a minimum, this design should specify the main topics to be covered by the study, the type of individuals (or their roles) from whom information might be obtained, and the unit al analysis at the case level as well as within each case, if relevant (p. 103). The same is true for multiple case design. However, the strength of this approach lies in the fact that the analyst is not required to specify conditions for direct replication of cases in their entirety prior to the investigation. There are considerable advantages to be gained by adopting either a sequential approach whereby an entire case study is completed before another one is started or a multistage approach which involves


several rounds of data collection and comparative evaluation in the course of the investigation (Yin, 1981a, pp. 101–102). Even given these strategies, however, there are still major problems to be solved when making comparisons between cases. Yin describes two possible ways of resolving this problem, by using either the case survey or the case comparison. The first is most useful where isolated factors within a particular case are being examined and the number of cases is large enough to permit cross tabulation. He cites his own work (Yin and Heald, 1975), involving 269 case studies of urban decentralisation, to illustrate the application of this approach. Nevertheless, in his view, the second approach is likely to be more generally fruitful, as it is less demanding from the standpoint of data. In many respects there are close parallels between case comparison and the craft of detective work (Yin, 1981b, p. 63). This is because it is necessary to proceed step by step and to develop in the first place an adequate explanation for each case in its own right, before going on to evaluate the findings of several cases and then proceeding to develop a common explanation relating to the phenomenon. To carry out case comparisons successfully, it is essential that the chain of evidence is maintained so that each step in the process from the construction of internally consistent explanations for individual cases to a common explanation for a number of cases is made explicit (Yin, 1981b, p. 63; 1982, pp. 91–92). The full chain of evidence should cover not only the steps from the individual to the comparative stage but also separate steps in each case study so that outside readers are able to follow the argument and draw their own conclusions from the evidence. For this purpose, graphical representation and tables of events have been found to be particularly useful as a way of summarising complex information in a manner that facilitates comparison. For example: In the routinisation project the key link between the within and cross-case analysis was accomplished through the use of a table of events, which presented the chronologies of important within case events based on the individual case studies. The events reflect the occurrences of the ten passages and cycles at one of the 19 case study sites. The frequency of these events was later tabulated across all cases. Throughout, the reader could question or confirm the aggregate conclusions by following the full chain of evidence (Yin, 1982, pp. 91–92). THE DESIGN OF CROSS-NATIONAL COMPARATIVE RESEARCH PROJECTS The advantages of the case study approach are generally recognised in planning circles to the extent that it can be regarded as the predominant mode of investigation at the present time. Masser (1982, p. 8) has argued


Figure 1. The cross-national research process

that case study techniques are particularly appropriate for the study of planning processes, because they focus attention on the sequence of decisions that takes place over time and enable unique features of the particular case to be taken into account as well as features reflecting its general aspects. In practice, however, the range of case study applications in planning research is regarded by Cropper (1982) as being too restricted in scope. In his view, this approach has been used principally for inductive case research within generally similar conceptual frameworks. Such an approach is unlikely to lead to major theoretical advantages in the field. For this reason a more broadly based research strategy is required which enables planning processes to be studied from a number of different, yet broadly focused, viewpoints. Virtually all cross-national comparative research takes the form of case studies, although an important distinction must be made between those involving countrywide case studies (e.g. Bourne, 1975) and those involving local case studies within countries (e.g. Thomas et al., 1983), not only in terms of their richness of detail but also in respect of the kinds of generalisation that are being sought for the research. Whereas the first present a national perspective for comparison with that of another country, the second emphasise a local perspective that may not necessarily be generally representative of the country as a whole. Waterhouse’s (1978) examination of local planning cultures in Toronto and Munich is a particularly good example of the way in which local factors can distort and in some cases override generally perceived national differences. In either case the design of cross-national research projects consists of a number of tasks. These are summarised for two countries A and B in figure 1. The diagram distinguishes between the separate fieldwork in each country, during which data are collected, and the research design, the monitoring of the fieldwork, and the comparative evaluation are undertaken jointly. In the discussion below, fieldwork is considered before


the joint tasks, and the comparative evaluation is considered in detail before guidelines for overall research design and management are set out. Fieldwork The extent to which research based on case studies involves a wide range of quantitative and qualitative techniques has already been emphasised in the preceding section. In practice, however, the choice of techniques is left largely to the researcher who is carrying out the fieldwork. Because of the relative flexibility of the case study approach in comparison with either experimental methods or survey research, a considerable amount of discretion must be left to the researcher not just in terms of the choice of techniques but also in respect of the selection of material. Given that the basic objective is to produce an internally consistent case study within the overall framework of the project, a great deal depends on the researcher’s competence to carry out this task. In Feldman’s (1978) view, the question of competence presents the most serious obstacle to the development of comparative research at the present time. In his view, there are no shortcuts to developing an ability to analyse events in more than one country, in that a considerable personal investment in terms of time and effort is needed to get to grips with other cultures before the benefits of these efforts can be realised. The extent of this problem depends very largely on the scale of the project and the number of countries involved. The difficulties facing the researcher can be considerably reduced where only two countries and one investigator are involved, particularly if one of these countries is the investigator’s home country. By drawing upon the investigator’s prior knowledge of his or her home country, and formulating the fieldwork task only in relation to a foreign country, the overall research strategy can be considerably simplified as can be seen from figure 2. At the same time, the task of comparative evaluation is also made much easier, as the researcher is able to refer back constantly to his or her experience while carrying out the fieldwork in a foreign country. There are also considerable advantages of such an approach in conceptual terms in that investigators have definite expectations about the similarities and differences that they are likely to find in the foreign culture. Almost inevitably, according to Becker (Campbell, 1975), these beliefs and theories are found to be wrong in some measure at least and, in trying to explain why they are wrong, researchers are compelled to reformulate them and by so doing extend their understanding of both countries. Such an approach does not automatically overcome the difficulties of developing a competence to carry out research in another country, as can be seen in the amount of superficial and often misleading presentations of


Figure 2. The foreign culture model

experience in foreign cultures that can be found in the comparative planning literature. Nevertheless, it simplifies the tasks of both fieldwork and comparative evaluation. The essential constraint that is imposed upon such studies is a personal one, and for this reason the approach is appropriate only for limited investigations involving the analysis of a general problem in a small number of countries or for the analysis of a specific topic in a large number of countries. In other cases where separate research teams are involved in carrying out the fieldwork with a view to replicating each others’ investigations. Yin’s suggestion for reducing the strain that this imposes on organisational resources by adopting research strategies whereby either an entire case study is completed before another is started or a multistage approach involving several rounds of data collection and comparative evaluation merits serious consideration from the standpoint of cross-national comparative research projects. Another way of reducing the strain might be to prepare one case study in advance of commissioning the others, so that it can serve as a model for subsequent fieldwork and also provide a target that can be revised in the light of the findings of subsequent studies. Comparative evaluation There can be little doubt that this task is by far the most difficult one from the methodological point of view in the design of cross-national comparative research projects. The literature abounds with examples of


extensive data collection exercises carried out in several countries which produced internally consistent case studies without any serious attempt at a comprehensive evaluation in cross-national terms. Everyone is familiar with the comparative study which consists of almost entirely separate national case studies presented without direct reference to one another. Situations of this kind seem most likely to occur where a large number of countries are involved and/or when the case studies have been prepared by national teams interested primarily in evaluating their own experience. In cases like this, the task of comparative evaluation is often made even more difficult because of the need to take account of a large number of cultural standpoints and the inevitable problems of ambiguity and difficulties of interpretation that arise’ during the exercise. Because the number of failures is so great, it is probably most useful to consider the few successes in this field to identify the reasons for success. A good example of a largely successful cross-national comparative study involving teams from two different countries is the Leiden-Oxford project, which sought to compare ways by which development is promoted and controlled under the planning systems of Britain and the Netherlands. Its findings are based on more than 20 detailed case studies of local planning practice in the two old established university towns of Leiden and Oxford. The study was carried out by staff from Oxford Polytechnic in England and Delft University in the Netherlands (Thomas et al., 1983). The success of this project apparently owes a great deal to a favourable combination of circumstances which arose as a result of the movement of staff from Oxford Polytechnic to take up posts at Delft. As a result, the Dutch part of the study was directed by people living in the Netherlands who had direct experience of planning in Britain. As both teams shared a common British experience, it proved possible to develop the comparative dimension of the research in a much more sustained manner than might otherwise have been the case. In other words, there is a strong element of the foreign culture approach discussed in the previous section in the Leiden-Oxford Project, which accounts for its success. Not surprisingly, the most interesting insights that are gained from the project are those concerning the operation of the British development control system (Masser, 1984a). The essential problem in cross-national studies is that the task of replication of case study material is extremely demanding both in conceptual terms and also in terms of its practical execution. For this reason, it is worth considering ways of making this task less demanding in terms of the overall research design. The experience of the Trinational Inner Cities Project which involves teams from Britain, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the USA is of particular interest in this respect (Davies, 1980). This study differs from studies such as the Leiden-Oxford project, in that it is concerned principally with the transfer of experience from one country to another, with a view to improving the quality of


planning practice in the three countries. As a result, practitioners as well as researchers are involved in the project. From the outset it was clear to the researchers that, although the participating countries shared many similar policies dealing with common inner-city problems, there were crucial differences between them which made multilateral transfers impossible. Consequently, each country was asked to specify three transfer topics relating to their particular policy interests. For each of these topics, researchers in the other two participating countries prepared background papers and also arranged a programme of events to enable visiting practitioners from the country to explore these topics on the ground. The essential attraction of the trinational project is its inherent flexibility of operation. To all intents, it can be regarded as nine separate projects linked together by an organisational framework devised to facilitate the transfer process. Such a framework is capable of incorporating a considerable amount of diversity in practice, and it can also take account of the extent to which the original research design may need modifying during the course of implementation as a result of changes in the personnel and funding arrangements in the participating countries. When considering comparative evaluation, it is also importan to bear in mind Yin’s point about the need to maintain the chain of evidence so that the link between individual case research and comparative evaluation is made explicit to outsiders. In exceptional cases, this chain of evidence is automatically maintained by the use of a common accounting framework for both the national and cross-national elements of the research. A good example of this approach can be found in the seventeen-country demographic modeling comparative project carried out under the auspices of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Willekins and Rogers, 1978), which utilised a common multiregional accounting framework and employed standardised computing procedures for all the countries involved. Where qualitative rather than quantitative material is involved, however, it is much more difficult to preserve the chain of evidence. Nevertheless, it is felt that much more use could be made of graphical and tabular techniques for this purpose. In this respect, furthe consideration might usefully be given to the development of network representations of planning processes of the kind developed in an earlier paper (Masser et al., 1978). CONCLUSIONS From the evaluation of recent experience in the field, a number of guidelines have been identified which may help future analysts in designing cross-national comparative research projects. Some of the main organisational and methodological problems facing analysts have been


considered and a number of suggestions made as to strategies for overcoming them. It is hoped that the discussion will stimulate debate on these topics and lead to an improvement in the quality of research in this field. REFERENCES Bourne, L.S., 1975, Urban systems; strategies for regulation, a comparison of policies in Britain, Sweden, Australia and Canada (Oxford University Press, Oxford). Campbell, D.T., 1975, Degrees of freedom and the case study, Comparative Political Studies, 8, pp. 178–193. Child, J., 1977, Organisations: a guide to problems and practice (Harper and Row, London). Cropper, S.A., 1982, Theory and strategy in the study of planning processes— the use of the case study, Environment and Planning B, 9, pp. 341–357. Davies, H.W.E., 1980, International transfer and the inner city: report of the Trinational Inner Cities Project, OP-5 (School of Planning Studies, University of Reading, Reading). Faludi, A., 1973, Planning theory (Pergamon Press, Oxford). Feldman, E.J., 1978, Comparative public policy: field or method? Comparative Politics, 10, pp. 287–305. Friedmann, J., 1967, The institutional context, in: Action under planning: the guidance of economics development, ed B.M. Gross (McGraw-Hill, New York) pp. 31–67. McCallum, J.D., 1976, Comparative study in planning: explanations of the ‘political culture’ of planning in Britain and the United states, DP-7 (Department of Town and Regional Planning, University of Glasgow, Glasgow). Masser, I., 1982, The analysis of planning processes: some methodological considerations, Environment and Planning B, 9, pp. 5–14. Masser, I., 1984a, Review of Thomas et al., Town Planning Review, 55, pp. 112–113. Masser, I., 1984b, Comparative planning studies: a review, Town Planning Review, 55, pp. 137–160. Masser, I., van Hal, W., Post, W. and van Schijndel, R., 1978, The dynamics of development processes: two case studies, Town Planning Review, 49, pp 127–148. Strong, A.L., 1972, Planned urban environment (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. Thomas, D, Minett J, Hopkins, S., Hammet, S., Faludi, A. and Barrell, D., 1983, Flexibility and commitment in planning: a comparative study of

local planning and development in the Netherlands and England

(Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague). Waterhouse, A., 1978, The advent of localism in two planning cultures: Munich and Toronto, Town Planning Review, 50, pp. 313–324.


Willekins, F. and Rogers, A., 1978, Spatial population analysis: methods and computer programs, RR-78–18 (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria), Yin, R.K., 1981a, The case study as a serious research strategy, Knowledge, 3, pp. 97–114. Yin, R.K., 1981b, The case study crisis: some answers, Administrative Science Quarterly, 26, pp. 58–65. Yin, R.K., 1982, Studying phenomenon and context across sites, American Behavioral Scientist, 26, pp. 84–100. Yin, R.K. and Heald. K., 1975, Using the case study method to analyse policy studies, Administrative Science Quarterly, 20, pp. 371–381.

-4Translating theory into practice RICHARD WILLIAMS

In this chapter, I review a range of cross-national studies that have been undertaken in recent years, demonstrating the range of possible objectives and the wide variety of research structure and organisation that have been adopted, in order to draw from them some thoughts for discussion on the ways in which crossnational studies may best be structured. It is intended to strike a balance between methodological and practical considerations, and to draw attention to those issues which especially need to be taken into account in the case of cross-national studies. The general desire to enrich our understanding of urban planning has been in evidence on many occasions in the past, notably in the case of Horsfall and others from the UK, who in the early years of the century studied German practice and sought to promote at home the ideas thus generated (Cherry, 1974; Reynolds, 1952). However, cross-national planning research has attracted more wide-spread interest in recent years, as has the development of a research methodology for this branch of planning research, with the work of White (1978) and Masser (1981a; 1981b). From the mid-1970s many more research projects and studies in cross-national planning have been undertaken by British teams than before, and the variety of organisational structure and methods, discussed below, now provides a valuable range of experience. This review is oriented primarily to cross-national studies relating the UK to other European countries. Earlier examples involving the UK and the USA or other English-speaking countries are not uncommon, but the growth of interest in this field of study by British academics since the mid-1970s has focused primarily on Europe, influenced partly no doubt by the British membership of the European Economic Community (EEC). European comparative studies perhaps raise greater complexities and carry greater risks of misinterpretation than do Anglo-American studies, because the cultural and institutional differences are consider able and planning is, in Cherry’s phrase ‘culturally derived, and developing within political and institutional boundaries’ (Cherry, 1982, p. 133). The knowledge among British planners of the political culture of other European countries is frequently less than their knowledge of the USA. In


addition, there is a greater imperative to achieve an understanding of the different European planning systems in order to enter into effective negotiation in, for example, the context of proposals of the Commission of the European Communities. This Chapter complements that by Masser above by being oriented to practical and pragmatic aspects of structuring cross-national studies. It is based on the premise that any such study needs to be well thought out, not only in terms of hypotheses, objectives, and research methodology, like any other research project, but also in terms of practical organisation. For this type of research, it is argued here that practical organisation is much more vital to the success of the project, and at the same time much less straightforward, than is the case with domestic research. Indeed, the available evidence suggests that it is very easy to overestimate what can be achieved, and to underestimate the complexities of concepts and of practice with consequent implications for the achievement of the research objectives. I freely admit to being guilty of this in my own work. It is perhaps a reflection of the current state of the art that cross-national comparative research tends to be exploratory, leading in directions that are not entirely predictable in advance. Masser (1984) points out that the subject matter of cross-national research in planning differs from that of planning research as a whole, primarily in its cross-national component. However, it does have its distinctive character. Masser (1984) offers this definition: ‘the study of planning problems and practice in different countries in relation to the institutional context of the respective countries’ (p. 139). Within the scope of this definition, I would also include research whose only original element is the cross-national comparison of phenomena already understood in a national context, as well as research which involves original investigation in one or more countries. OBJECTIVES OF CROSS-NATIONAL STUDY Two basic categories of objective for cross-national planning study seem to be generally accepted, and a third is commonly proposed. The two basic ones are commonly stated as the improvement of planning practice and the advancement of planning theory (Faludi and Hamnett, 1975). As Masser (1981b) points out, there is a strong parallel between these objectives, and those acknowledged in the comparative study of government and public policy. Faludi and Hamnett (1975) propose a third objective: that of working towards the unification of the field of planning. This is discussed by White (1978), in terms of the need for an under standing of the variety of planning systems, and of a planning theory applicable to more than one national context, to support the development of planning measures at a supranational level of government.

TRANSLATING THEORY INTO PRACTICE 29

As a development from the work of White (1978), three objectives are proposed. The first is the improvement of planning practice. This includes improvement as a result of the stimulus provided by cross-national study and as a result of constructive criticism based on the perspective thus achieved. It also includes the explicit aim of transfer. In this respect, there is a development from the analogy of comparative government, since the objective of a comparative planning study may be the transfer not only of procedures and institutions but also of techniques and practices, from the country in which they have been developed into another where there is reason to believe that they will be of benefit. Transfer is, at least implicitly, an objective of very many comparative studies, although sometimes, where this is the case, it reflects an underestimation of the complexities involved. Examples are discussed below, and reference is also made to the major example of explicitly setting transfer objectives (Davies, 1980). The second objective is the improvement of planning theory. A deeper understanding of the nature of planning and of the scope of the planning process may be achieved by the study of the operations of planning in different political and cultural contexts. The study of the diffusion of planning ideas leads to the possibility that a predictive capacity may be generated from cross-national studies. Improvement of theory may also be achieved where ideas developed in theoretical terms in one national context, such as American ideas of advocacy planning, have been put into practice in another context, for example, on an experimental basis in Germany (Williams, 1978b). Included within the scope of this category is the educational value of drawing upon cross-national studies to develop an appreciation of planning as an international phenomenon, to overcome national cultural blinkers, and to develop in students a capacity to question the conventionally accepted practices of a planning system. Without this, there is an unhealthy tendency to believe that our own planning system represents the only, the best, or the most advanced way of doing things. An illustration of this tendency, from a somewhat improbable source, is provided by Boynton, writing an introduction to a report on an Anglo-German symposium on public participation, who was ‘frankly surprised to find the theme of public participation so well developed in Germany’ (Eversley, 1978, p. 1). The third objective is based on that of Faludi and Hamnett (1975) but is not expressed in terms of the unification of the field of planning, with its implication of convergence. Instead, it is given a more practical orientation, being expressed as the seeking of a common understanding of the nature and variety of planning systems and policies at a level of detail necessary for the formulation of planning politics and procedures by supranational agencies and governmental bodies. Land use planning, for instance, is a significant element of EEC environmental policy (Williams, 1982) as expressed in the Third Action Programme (Official Journal of the


European Communities, 1983), especially in the context of the Directive approved in 1985 concerning the environmental assessment of projects (official Journal of the European Communities, 1985; see also Williams, 1986). European regional policy also requires a substantial comparative understanding of national policies for its successful promulgation, and the same is true in various degrees in other sectors of EEC policy making. A number of research projects have been undertaken for the Commission as a basis for the co-ordination of financial instruments, and the development of Community Programmes to be introduced into regional policy. Without a comparative analysis of national policies and policy delivery systems, the chances of a successful outcome in the form of effective policy instruments is likely to be reduced. Other supranational bodies such as the Council of Europe (CoE) or the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) lack the legal powers of the EEC, relying on advice, example and the support of member governments for dissemination of their studies and recommendations. Both CoE and OECD undertake urban and regional planning projects, for instance, on the architectural heritage and urban conservation (CoE) and urban economic development (OECD). In the absence of legal powers, it is all the more important that these projects have a comparative base so as to provide the common level of understanding required for their recommendations to achieve credibility. This theme is explored more fully in chapter 16, below. REVIEW OF SELECTED STUDIES Having set three categories of objective, I briefly review a selection of studies conducted since the mid-1970s to illustrate the range of objectives, structures, and organisations. Two studies of my own are considered first. I have been interested in the urban renewal process in Germany for some years. This study has proceeded on the basis of one-man study visits, and reading, and was based on the initial perception that certain procedures and techniques, once sufficiently understood, could be proposed for transfer to the UK if they were found to be of sufficient value. As greater understanding was achieved, the possibilities of transfer seemed to retreat further into the distance. Although certain self-standing aspects of German practice could be readily reported to an English audience, such as the experience of advocate planners, the overall study served as an education in the complexity of cross-national study. (Williams, 1978a; 1978b). Sharpe (1975) has proposed two laws, or guiding principles, in the formulation of cross-national studies, the ‘law of maximum similarity’ and the ‘law of maximum discreteness of focus’. The other study of my own


was structured with these guiding principles, especially the second, very much in mind. This was a study of motorway planning and approval procedures in Germany and the Netherlands. By concentrating on the planning of a particular form of development that was readily recognisable and definable, I hoped that the complexities would be reduced, and the scope of the work would have clear limits, unlike the study of urban renewal where the scope could be extended to connected issues in many directions. Complexity was increased, however, by the incorporation of two non-British countries in the study. Transfer was again an ultimate objective in view of the dissatisfaction in the late 1970s with British motorway inquiries. This study was conceived as an exploratory examination both of procedures and of practice in selected case studies, and was conducted, in the main, by a research associate who was bilingual in English and German, funded by the Social Science Research Council. A thorough understanding of institutions and procedures was obtained, but the time was not available to pursue more than one case study in each country, and these in less detail than I would have wished. Even with the benefits of language and substantial residence abroad (two periods of five weeks), the fieldwork necessary for this type of study is very time consuming. In addition, it became clear that the level of penetration in the Netherlands study was less than in the German, because of inability to read documentation, public participation briefs, pressure group leaflets and so on (Williams, 1981). Hallett (1977) has made extensive studies of German policies on land and housing and urban renewal. His major comparative study is a detailed examination of the ways in which the housing and land markets operate in Britain and the Federal Republic of Germany. The study is very detailed, based on extensive study of the subject in both countries, and has an implicit transfer objective, since the work is designed to present evidence in support of the view that there would be benefits for Britain in adopting some lessons from German practice. The comparative analysis follows a very simple structure, consisting of three pairs of chapters, each pair comprising equally detailed but self-standing descriptions of German and British practice, with a concluding chapter. Hallett was able to describe the German situation in sufficient detail as a result of having spent substantial periods of Germany with the support of a Humbolt Fellowship. Needham’s work (1982) on local authority action to stimulate the local economy in the Netherlands and England is one of the most thorough cross-national studies to be undertaken by an individual researcher. He did have an advantage denied to most researchers: he undertook the study while permanently resident in the Netherlands and he became fluent in Dutch. The objective of his analysis was not primarily transfer,


but a deeper under standing of how the policies of each country were delivered, thus leading to recommendations for improvement. On the basis of single-person studies such as these, the suggestion made in the introduction that the level of knowledge of the political culture is a key factor seems to be supported, since the level of penetration and analytical detail increases in proportion to the level of knowledge of the non-British side of the comparative study. Since most researchers have to rely on relatively short study visits, and do not have the opportunity to get to know a country by means of extended residence there, a number of researchers have sought to overcome this disadvantage by setting up collaborative studies with researchers based in the other country with which they wish to make a comparative study. Two studies, both concerned with aspects of economic decline and economic policy making are referred to here as examples of collaborative studies of this type. Although both are Anglo-German studies, and are concerned with similar aspects of planning, they can be used to illustrate the situation where a study is primarily undertaken by two home-based teams meeting from time to time to agree on a common formulation of objectives and research strategy. The first of these studies is of economic policy making by local authorities in the Midlands of England and the Ruhr in Germany. It was conducted by teams based in the Universities of Oxford and Cologne (Johnson and Cochrane, 1981). The other study is of urban and economic decline, and community and public authority responses in older areas, conducted by teams at the University of Dortmund, Liverpool Polytechnic, and the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology, Cardiff. In both cases, the structure of the study was represented as being based on Sharpe’s first law, of maximum similarity. It is true, as Johnson and Cochrane claim, that local authorities in both Britain and Germany are now taking a variety of initiatives to stimulate their local economy, and that economic policy making of this sort has become an important feature of local planning authority work since the 1970s. However, the selection of authorities for the first study is taken from regions that are most accessible from the two research bases in Oxford and Cologne. The German team took Ruhr authorities, not surprisingly since they are faced with the worst problems in Germany and therefore have the best developed programmes to tackle them. The English team took mostly Midlands authorities, and Sheffield was the only major industrial city where economic circumstances might be regarded as similar to those of the major Ruhr cities. Thus the English selection omitted innovative authorities with worse problems, in the northwest or northeast of England, and all partnership authorities. Clearly, the choice of case study was based on practical criteria of accessibility and familiarity. Insufficient acknowledgement of this or allowance for the lack of close comparability were made in the analysis of the study, and key features of local authority


policy making typical of areas such as Tyne and Wear (e.g. Industrial Improvement Areas, loans and grants) were barely mentioned. Furthermore, explan ations of German municipal administrative practice were offered only belatedly, although this is an essential aid to understanding for many British readers. The Dortmund-Cardiff-Liverpool study was more ambitious. The main impetus for the study was provided by the Dortmund and Liverpool teams. Couch (1981) justifies the choice of cities ‘partly for pragmatic reasons’ (p. 2), but also because of their similar populations and economic declines. Both cities are suffering from much greater decline than other cities in Britain and Germany, but in other respects they are not so comparable. Dortmund grew as a centre of heavy industry in a coalfield, with steel as its traditionally dominant employer, but this is now in decline, presenting major problems of unemployment and restructuring the economy. Several British cities fit this description, and in some cases have large experience of these problems. Although Liverpool shares a problem of unemployment, its economic base has traditionally been dominated by the docks, commerce, and international trade, and not by heavy industry. Consequently, its decline is explained by different factors. This distinction does not invalidate the study of policy responses to decline in both places, but to base the analysis on the premise that the two cities are in similar circumstances in every way may lead to misinterpretation. There is nothing wrong with the admission that both these studies owe their structure and choice of case study primarily to practical considerations. Indeed, cross-national studies such as these would never be undertaken unless researchers took the opportunities which presented themselves, and it is clearly desirable to collaborate with people with whom a friendly relationship has already been established. The point is to recognise and acknowledge more openly, that for entirely justifiable practical considerations, they are not comparing cities that are similar in every way. The structure and analysis of such studies take this into account. With this proviso there is no evidence that comparing dissimilar cases need be any less satisfactory. On the contrary, the greatest stimulus may come from confronting contrasted problems and policy responses. The problem that was noted above with single-person or single-base projects, namely limited opportunity to study the ‘away’ country, is in theory overcome by having a parallel research team in the ‘away’ country. However, there remain problems of ensuring sufficient contact between the two teams, and ensuring that each has sufficient understanding of the context in the other country. There is a danger of each national research team concentrating on its own country, without achieving sufficient understanding of the other to pose the most important questions, or interpret findings. And there is a danger that the selection of data documentation and commentary by the


‘home’ team for the benefit of the ‘away’ team will be biased unwittingly, by the national perceptions and culture of the ‘home’ team, thus losing the freshness of approach which should be a prime characteristic of crossnational research. These and other issues are discussed by Couch in a candid appendix on the ‘Problems on international comparative research’ (Couch, 1981, pp. 33–38). Three projects which, in different ways, have sought to overcome these problems faced by single-base researchers and collaborative projects using home-based teams of limited exposure to the foreign country, are discussed next. Two are among the most elaborate, well-funded, and widely known comparative projects, the International Inner Cities Project by the University of Reading, the Institute for Contemporary Studies, Washington, DC, and the Deutsches Institut fur Urbanistik, Berlin; and the Oxford-Leiden study by Oxford Polytechnic and the Technical University of Delft. Before discussing these, however, I would like to refer to an example of a small-scale study undertaken with limited resources, which nevertheless overcame these problems. This is a study of public local inquiries in England and enquetes publiques in France, by MacRory and Lafontaine (1982). In this study, Sharpe’s second law, of maximum discreteness of focus, was followed by having a specific focus of interest on one particular procedure in each country. On the other hand, the chosen procedures did not obey the law of maximum similarity. The objective was understanding rather than transfer, and the structure of the study was simple: each researcher observed a selection of inquiries and interviewed actors in the process in each other’s country, relying on the home-based researcher for advice on documentation and for help with selecting examples to study. Each researcher spoke the other language, and was able to put the time in the other country to good use as a result of groundwork done by the homebased person. However, each was confronted by the stimulus of the foreign procedures to a degree not achieved in studies which rely on homebased teams. This study succeeded in expressing the differences between procedures in the two countries and in viewing each from a new perspective. It was therefore effective in spite of its small scale; however, its focus on one specific procedure means that it left all other aspects of planning procedures and policies untouched. In many ways the structure of the International Inner Cities Project was founded on a similar principle of directed exposure of well-briefed visitors to foreign stimulus. However, the scale was very different, as was the balance between briefing and fieldwork. Additionally, of course, three countries were involved: UK, USA, and Federal Republic of Germany. Davies (1980) has written a valuable report on the objectives, methodology, and outcome of the project. In essence, the project sought to stimulate diffusion and transfer of ideas by sending well-briefed transfer teams of experienced practitioners or policy makers from each country on


a tour of the other two to study the way they tackled the particular aspect of innercity policy which formed their transfer topic. By having research teams in each country who serviced the transfer teams by advising on the definition of their topics and on itineraries, and by preparing policy profiles as briefing for visitors to their own country, the transfer teams were able to have the benefit of advice from researchers with expert knowledge native to each of the three countries. The main stimulus to the transfer teams came from the programme of meetings and visits on the study tours, which normally lasted one week each, rather than from the briefing material. As Davies revealingly remarks, the policy profiles were of value chiefly to the researchers performing them, and were little used by the transfer teams (Davies, 1980, p. 30). Yet the benefit of briefing by experts in the countries to be studied was one of the advantages of the structure adopted, but in fact it operated at one remove, through the home-based researchers. It was felt afterwards that more time should have been allowed for the research teams to develop with the transfer teams the ideas generated from the study visits, in the light of their understanding of established policy, but in fact there was only limited opportunity for comparative analysis. The project was, of course, experimental, and a great many useful lessons about cross-national study were learnt. The third major study is the Oxford-Leiden study of the control of development and statutory planning practice in these cities. This is one of the most elaborate and detailed comparative studies to have been undertaken. It has generated a considerable literature (Faludi and Hamnett, 1979a; 1979b; Minett, 1979; Thomas et al., 1983), and is discussed by Masser (1984). There is no need, therefore, to describe it at length here, and only a few points need be made. The time scale was sufficiently generous to allow detailed work, since it operated over twoand-a-half years. During this time, several researchers had the opportunity to spend extended periods of six months or more in the other country, and two formerly British-based academics, Faludi and Hamnett were on the staff of Delft University and became fluent in Dutch. Last, the project was defined in such a way that only a limited and strictly defined part of the land use planning process was the subject of the research. Thus they had the advantages of a binational project integrating researchers in both countries, shared languages, a straightforward research design, and ample resources, enabling them to conduct their own empirical research. The teams concerned acknowledge that they learnt a great deal about the nature and methods of cross-national comparative study as their project was in progress, and their influence on subsequent thinking has been quite considerable. However, the resources to conduct such studies are not likely to be widely available now.


These three projects, in different ways, sought to overcome the disadvantages of relying entirely on home-based teams for collaborative work. The interest, and stimulus, of national study lies in exposure to foreign perceptions and practices. The trinational project set up an elaborate structure to facilitate this. However, if transfer and diffusion of ideas without undertaking original research is the objective, another category of project, namely that of expert symposia, offers advantages of involving a range of participants at moderate costs. I draw a distinction here between international conferences, where participants may have many different motives, interests, and perceptions, and a gathering of experts selected for their interest in a particular theme. In the second case, extensive preparatory work is necessary to define the themes to be studied; participants would be invited and would be well briefed on the theme and objectives of the symposium; the purpose would be to share experience and learn from each other; and delegates from each participating country would be roughly balanced in numbers and background. An early example is the symposium on the management of urbar change in Britain and West Germany which took place in 1973. Substantial papers were given, and edited for publication by Rose (1975), with a valuable concluding synthesis by Eversley (1975). This was at the time one of the very few detailed sources of Anglo-German comparative material. Eversley was agair involved in a later, more practice-orientated, Anglo-German symposium organised by Boynton in 1978 (Eversley, 1978). This should be considered with the trinational project (Davies, 1980) when studying, as Davies does, the means of facilitating crossnational transfer and diffusion. Another example of the expert symposium which possibly suffered from too great a range of subject matter and variety of participants, but which was clearly a successful and stimulating event, offered an interesting comparison of regional development programmes in northwest Englan and North Rhine-Westphalia. The proceedings and background to the symposium is described by Bowden (1979). All the comparative projects discussed so far have been concerned with only two or three countries. To make a comparative study of an aspect of planning policy of any complexity becomes extremely difficult to accomplish if more countries are added. On the other hand, to refer back to the third of the objectives of comparative study discussed above, policy makers in supranational institutions such as the Commission of the European Communities or OECD require advice based on analysis of more than two or three countries. A number of studies of several countries have been undertaken, including some work commissioned by the European Commission itself, for instance, a study of environmental assessment procedures by Lee and Wood (1978). However, many of these studies consist of a review of procedures in several countries, such as Wood and Lee’s (1978) review of physical planning legislation, or a review


of problems and policies in, say, regional development presented as a series of self-standing descriptions lacking detailed comparative analysis (Clout, 1981; Yuill and Allen, 1982), or they are concerned with phenomena such as urban change, analysed at whatever level the data allow (e.g. Hall and Hay, 1980). Studies of the Hall and Hay type are not really in the same category as the type of study of cross-national comparative planning with which this chapter is primarily concerned, since the analysis is concerned with trends measured as objectively as available statistics allow and not with comparative analysis of different planning systems. In studies such as these, comparability of data is a major problem, and this has tended to be discussed at some length. However, this is only one of several issues that need to be tackled in setting up a comparative study, where a much greater penetration of the political culture of a country is needed. CLASSIFICATION Only a selection of the studies that have been carried out in recent years have been reviewed above, to illustrate the range of structures that have been adopted. They have been grouped into single-person home-based studies; single-person away-based (e.g. Needham, 1982); collaborative integrated or away-based (e.g. MacRory and Lafontaine, 1982; OxfordLeiden); expert symposia; and multinational overviews. This is only one possible way to classify them. Objectives vary, and it is not always very clear whether studies are oriented towards the first of the three sets of objectives discussed above, that is, towards practice improvement, or towards the second, that is, towards development of theory. Several studies are related to both. A more clearcut distinction exists between those studies that are explicitly designed to promote transfer (Davies, 1980; Hallett, 1977) and those where transfer is not set as an explicit objective. Classification may also be based on whether a study was undertaken by native or non-native researchers; whether it was bilateral or multilateral; whether the comparison transfer was designed to feed ideas one way, or in both directions between two countries; whether fieldwork consisted of study tours, observation, and interviews with experts and key actors in the planning process; or used published research in the country being studied, or original survey and data collection by the cross-national project itself. PRACTICAL ISSUES AND CHOICES I suggested in the first part of this chapter that, in the case of crossnational research, considerations of practical organisation and structure


are much more vital to the successful outcome of a research project, and at the same time present much more complex problems than is the case with more conventional domestic research. It is hoped that the relationship between the organisation and structure of a project and what can be expected from it as a piece of research has become clear. In this section, I discuss a number of practical issues that have to be faced when translating a theoretically desirable cross-national research structure into some practical form which can be implemented. The first of Sharpe’s two laws calls for maximum similarity. This reflects the traditional maxim that one must compare like with like, and has been followed in the design of many studies. Any Anglo-Continental study must be capable of handling major differences of culture, legal system, urban structure, economic history and so on, as the attraction of doing such studies lies in the stimulation thus provided. However, many studies seem to feel the need to justify their structure on the basis of a great degree of similarity between the countries or areas concerned. In some cases, such as the Liverpool-Dortmund study, this may take the form of a somewhat spurious rationale for a collaboration that is primarily a marriage of convenience (Couch, 1981). Many collaborative studies in fact owe their choice of locations to fortuitous circumstances which allowed the comparison to be made (e.g. Needham, 1982; OxfordLeiden), and this is not necessarily detrimental. Excessive concentration on maximum similarity could lead to reducing the potential for the stimulus of totally new ideas: taken to its conclusion it may mean that English researchers should use Scotland for comparative study. I suggest that maximum similarity should be taken to apply only to a specific planning problem, the approach to which is being studied in a comparative way, and not to the national context. Indeed, there may be distinct advantage in having greatly contrasting cultural and institutional contexts. It is, I suggest, much more important to adhere to Sharpe’s second law, of maximum discreteness of focus, and my reinterpretation of his first law approaches this. MacRory and Lafontaine (1982), Needham (1982), and the Oxford-Leiden study all followed this principle, which possibly contributed to their success. Davies (1980) and Eversley (1978) both point to this conclusion as well in their discussion. Davies refers to the more successful transfer topics being those capable of sufficiently precise definition to avoid differences of interpretation by different national teams, and Eversley drew attention to the variety of perceptions of what was meant by the concept of public participation in planning. It is necessary to decide whether the main focus of attention is on procedures (e.g. MacRory and Lafontaine, 1982) or on the policy outturn (e.g. Liverpool-Dortmund) or on a combination of the two (e.g. OxfordLeiden; Needham, 1982). The last is highly complex, but possibly more satisfactory. A comparison of procedures may offer a more tangible focus,


and may be a realistic objective for shorter studies, but it is often necessary to be able to evaluate the operation of procedures in practice, at least on the basis of drawing on noncomparative evaluations already undertaken in the country concerned. Evaluation on the basis of case studies conducted specifically for a comparative project is likely to be difficult because of the limited number of cases that can be considered, unless extensive time and resources are available. There are clearly advantages to be had from collaboration, if a degree of integration or a programme of exchange and study visits can be accomplished. Collaboration in the form of two teams studying their own area and meeting occasionally appears to have been much less fruitful, since two vital ingredients may be missing: a shared understanding of the parameters of the problem being studied and the lack of exposure to the stimulus of the foreign country. Non-native researchers will notice features which a native misses and will not be channelled by orthodox attitudes. Choice of collaborators depends chiefly on the need to achieve good working relationships, on an agreed definition of the problem to be studied, and on cooperation from the employing institutions. Selection of an exactly comparable region of Europe is of much less importance, and there is no reason why a collaboration arising out of personal contact or institutional links such as twinning should not work well. Most collaborative studies arose in this way, whatever rationale may be offered. The issue of one-directional or two-directional comparisons is linked with that of collaboration and bilateral or multilateral structure. If a collaborative structure is adopted, there is likely to be a degree of symmetry on equality of treatment of both or all countries involved, and each team might seek to identify transfer opportunities. Single-person, or non-collaborative studies sometimes also seek this degree of symmetry (e.g. Hallett, 1977), although this is not necessarily appropriate. The question of how much description is necessary of the country familiar to the reader is one that exercises a number of writers (Couch, 1981; Johnson and Cochrane, 1981, preface). In fact, an asymmetrical structure or presentation of findings may be appropriate, since so much general knowledge of the home country can be assumed. Likewise, for a single researcher or a nationally based team, an asymmetrical structure for the direction of comparison may be appropriate, in the sense that ideas and possibly transfer topics are sought which will benefit the familiar, home situation. There is an analogy here with professional translators, who ideally work into their mother tongue rather than into a foreign language, however familiar it may be. Language is a major issue to be faced in comparative research. Researchers with both relevant languages (e.g. Eversley, Hallett, Needham, MacRory, Lafontaine) have a very great advantage. Couch


(1981) comments that there is surprisingly little discussion of this in the literature on comparative methodology, and Davies (1980, p. 17) notes that this issue caused some problems in his trinational project in spite of the adoption of English as the language of the project. It is undoubtedly true, as my own experience of the Netherlands and Germany showed, that the ability to penetrate fully into the operation of the planning system of a country, to read community group literature as well as official documents, to understand the nuances of interpretation and analysis by practitioners, does require a knowledge of the appropriate language. This point is well illustrated in a discussion by Eversley (1978, p. 10). Reliance on English-speaking contacts severely limits the level of penetration and of debate, and creates the risk of misunderstanding or dependence on other people’s perception of the problem being studied. I do not see any way round this problem other than ensuring that the appropriate language skills are available within the research team, but it is undoubtedly true that many British researchers rely on others’ knowledge of English, without fully appreciating the limitations this imposes. At a seminar in Birmingham on crossnational methodology, White (1978) noted that a glossary of technical terms was suggested by delegates as being sufficient to overcome language problems. All the evidence indicates that this suggestion is extremely naive. Language is only one aspect of the need to penetrate the culture of the country being studied in all its aspects: political, historical, legal, constitutional and so on. Effective study of the planning system of another country depends not only on analysis of the principal object of study, but also on a thorough understanding of the cultural and institutional context, as Masser (1984) points out in his discussion of the Oxford-Leide project. If this level of general knowledge is not already held, allowance must be made in the organisation of the project to acquire it. Dissemination of results is a major problem, particularly for those studies which seek to stimulate diffusion or transfer. Davies (1980) acknowledges that, if his research team had been kept intact longer, this would have facilitated more effective dissemination. Couch (1981) also is conscious of the problem of who is the audience for comparative research. The generally low level of knowledge of planning in other countries that is possessed by many planning professionals in Britain is such as to set apart comparative researchers by virtue of their much higher level of information. Considering the widespread adoption of the transfer objective, dissemination with practice is a problem which needs to be recognised, although strictly it is a separate issue from the question of research design and methodology.


CONCLUSIONS The crucial question underlying many of these considerations is resources: resources, for example, to set up research teams, to hold multinational meetings, to make study tours or research visits to other countries. This is a problem for cross-national study, not only because costs of travel are much greater but also because the pace at which research can proceed is much slower than for domestic work. The latter point does not always seem to have been acknowledged. Given resource limitations, it may not always be possible to design research projects around theoretically ideal comparisons. In fact, as this review has indicated, many successful projects have been built around opportunities and contacts that were created somewhat fortuitously. For reasons indicated above, I do not think this is in any way unacceptable. Some researchers clearly feel that they must justify their comparison in terms of a broad interpretation of the idea of maximum similarity. I question whether this is always necessary: focus on contrast can clearly be a valuable stimulus. Maximum discreteness of focus, on the other hand, is clearly a vital guideline. Transfer has been set as an objective in many cases, at least implicitly, but it is clear that much more thought needs to be given to the ways in which it might be achieved by dissemination and diffusion. Experience supports Masser’s view: ‘The potential for transfer, then, lies in encouraging innovation rather than in making carbon copies of foreign models’ (1984, p. 155). Transfer is a possible outcome of the first objective discussed above: improvement of practice. Likewise, prediction of the development of planning concepts in one country on the basis of experience in another is a possible outcome of the second objective: development of theory. This has not been discussed much in the West European studies reviewed here, although the question is raised in the conclusion of White’s Anglo-Soviet study (1979). Finally, I express the hope that the achievement of all three types of objective will become easier, and the dominant influence of practical considerations reduced, when a much higher general knowledge exists of planning systems, the institutional context, and the languages of the countries being studied. REFERENCES Bowden, P., 1979, Regional development in action (Anglo-German Foundation for the Study of Industrial Society, London). Cherry, E.G., 1974, The evolution of British town planning (Leonard Hill, distributed by International Textbook, Bishopbriggs, Glasgow). Cherry, G.E., 1982, The politics of planning (Longman, Harlow). Clout, H., 1981, Regional development in Western Europe, 2nd edition (John Wiley, New York).


Couch, C., 1981, Urban decay in Britain and West Germany (Department of Town and Country Planning, Liverpool Polytechnic, Liverpool). Davies, H.W.E., 1980, International transfer and the inner city: report of the Trinational Inner Cities Project, OP-5 (School of Planning Studies, University of Reading, Reading). Eversley, D.E.C., 1975, Britain and Germany: local government in perspective, in: The management of urban change in Britain and West Germany, ed R.Rose (Sage, London) pp. 227–267. Eversley, D.E.C., 1978, Report on Anglo-German conference on public participation (Royal Town Planning Institute, London). Faludi, A. and Hamnett, S., 1975, The study of comparative planning, CP-13 (Centre for Environmental Studies, London). Faludi, A. and Hamnett, S., 1979a, The promotion and control of development in Leiden, WP-27 (Department of Town Planning, Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford). Faludi, A. and Hamnett, S., 1979b, Flexibility in Dutch local planning, WP-28 (Department of Town Planning, Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford). Hall, P. and Hay, D., 1980, Growth centres in the European urban system (Heinemann Educational, London), Hallett, G., 1977, Housing and land policies in West Germany and Britain (Macmillan, London). Johnson, N. and Cochrane, A., 1981, Economic policy making by local authorities in Britain and Western Germany (George Allen and Unwin, Hemel Hempstead). Lee, N. and Wood, C., 1978, EIA—a European perspective, Built Environment, 4, pp. 101–110. MacRory, R. and Lafontaine, M., 1982, Public Inquiry and Enquete Publique (Environmental Data Services Ltd., 40 Bowling Green Lane, London EC1R ONE). Masser, I., 1981a, The analysis of planning processes: a framework for comparative research, TRP-28 (Department of Town and Regional Planning, University of Sheffield, Sheffield). Masser, I., 1981b, Comparative planning studies: a critical review, TRP-33 (Department of Town and Regional Planning, University of Sheffield, Sheffield). Masser, I., 1984, Cross-national planning studies: a review, Town Planning Review, 55, pp. 137–160. Minett, J., 1979, Local planning in the Netherlands and England, WP-37 (Department of Town Planning, Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford). Needham, D.B., 1982, Choosing the right policy instruments (Gower, Aldershot). Official Journal of the European Communities, 1983, C46, Third Action Programme on the Environment 1982–86, 17 February. Official Journal of the European Communities, 1985, L175, 5 July. Reynolds, J.P., 1952, Thomas Horsfall and the town planning movement in England, Town Planning Review, 23, pp 52–60. Rose, R. (ed.), 1975, The management of urban change in Britain and West Germany (Sage, London).


Sharpe, L.J., 1975, Comparative planning policy: some problems, in: Problems of comparative planning, WP-21, ed M.J.Breakell (Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford) pp. 26–32. Thomas, D., Minett, J., Hopkins, S., Hamnett, S., Faludi, A. and Barrell, D., 1983, Flexibility and commitment in planning: a comparative study of

local planning and development in the Netherlands and England

(Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague). White, P.M., 1978, Towards an improved methodology for cross-national comparative planning research, WP-62 (Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, University of Birmingham, Birmingham). White, P.M., 1979, Urban planning in Britain and the Soviet Union, CRS-70 (Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, University of Birmingham, Birmingham). Williams, R.H., 1978a, Urban planning in Federal Germany, Planner, 64(2), pp. 46–47. Williams, R.H., 1978b, Advocate planners, Town and Country Planning, 47, pp. 553–557. Williams, R.H., 1981, Motorway planning and approval procedures in the Netherlands and Germany, Proceedings PTRC Summer Annual Meeting, Warwick. Williams, R.H., 1982, Draft action programme on the environment, Planner News, 7, p. 9. Williams, R.H., 1986, EC environment policy, land use planning and pollution control, Policy and Politics, 14(1), pp. 93–106. Wood, C. and Lee, N., 1978, Physical planning in the member states of the EEC, OP-2 (Department of Town and Country Planning, University of Manchester, Manchester). Yuill, D. and Allen, K., 1982, European regional incentives (Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow).

44

-5The problem of comparative research: the case of France PHILIP BOOTH

Earlier chapters have developed the understanding of how comparative studies in planning have evolved and the sort of pitfalls that in principle await the researcher in this field. In this chapter I attempt to extend the discussion by looking in detail at the problems of comparing planning systems in Britain and France, and by trying to come to terms with the differences in the environment in which the planning systems operate. The aim is to get beyond a simplistic comparison of means and ends and to highlight the dangers of false analogy. The premise is that planning is not only bound up with the nature of the area planned but more particularly with the nature of the administrative and legal framework which sustains it. Population density and distribution might be a starting point in the comparison and here the differences between Britain and France hardly need repeating: the land area of France is four times that of England, although its population is much the same; even including the relatively sparsely populated Scotland and Wales the population density of the UK is still almost two-and-a-half times that of France. The low population density of France is coupled with a population distribution that is still ordered in a hierarchy of freestanding settlements from metropolis downwards, each with its recognisable hinterland like a Christaller diagram (Scargill, 1983). The main burden of national and regional planning has been to retain this ordered and rational model; its absence as, for example, in the northern region tends to disconcert professionals. The British reaction to being told by an official that Dunkerque is the only poly-nuclear centre in France is not so much one of surprise at the probable inaccuracy as at the fact that the occurrence should be thought worthy of comment at all. The urban region with its confused settlement pattern and its blurred edges, so much the staple of the British town planner’s work, is still the exception in France. A second contrast which has been equally well charted is the extent to which the French economy has developed in the past 40 years. It is well known that France emerged from World War 2 and the disatrous stagnation of the interwar period as a very backward country in comparison with the rest of Europe. Agriculture still accounted for 35% of


the work force in 1945, industry was still dominated by the small family firm, but under the guiding hand of Jean Monnet the economy was to take off and industrial growth was maintained at 5% per annum in the years of the Fourth Republic and indeed only began to falter after the oil crisis of 1973 (Ardagh, 1977; Hanley et al., 1979). The rapid development of the economy has been matched by rapid urbanisation, so that in spite of population densities that remain low by Western European standards, an increasing proportion of the population live in urban areas (Scargill, 1983). France has undergone a much greater change than Britain in a comparable period. Thus the circumstances for which the British planning machinery was developed in its mature form in 1947 could hardly be said to exist in France, except in a few specific locations. On the other hand, the British system was not subjected to the same degree of pressure for change and growth as was the French system in the 1950s and 1960s. We should not be surprised, therefore, if neither the means of land use control nor the objects were the same. But if these were the major differences between Britain and France which affect the practice of town planning, it would be theoretically possible to determine circumstances in which the experience of the two countries did in fact coincide and to compare the ways in which a response was made. The control of lotissements (housing estates) and, say, ribbon development might very well form a focus, in spite of the general differences. Nevertheless, this would be to overlook the very much more deep-seated distinctions that must be drawn between the administrative and legal systems of the two countries, and it is to these that we now need to turn. FRENCH LOCAL GOVERNMENT The simplistic British view of French local government is of a highly centralised system that is characterised by the fragmentation of its basic units of administration and the traditional, supposedly authoritarian, power of the prefect in each of the departments. As Lagroye and Wright (1979) make clear, however, even before the Mitterrand reforms, the pattern of French local government was more complex and less centralised than the popular view would have us believe. The important distinction they make between France and Britain is that, whereas in Britain local government has its own specific sphere of operations which is defined by statute and is appropriately described as a ‘residual domain’, in France the powers of local government have only grudgingly been conceded by a largely unwilling central government. Machin (1979) elaborates the traditional structure of French local government and discusses not one but four systems of local government each ‘based on four different ideas of legitimacy’ (p. 28). First, there is the prefectoral system stemming from Napoleonic reforms of 1800 which

THE PROBLEM OF COMPARATIVE RESEARCH: THE CASE OF FRANCE 47

ensured a proper chain of command from Paris through the prefects in each of the departments to the mayor of each commune in even the remotest areas of the Republic. It was a system that allowed also for the flow of information from the provinces to Paris. Second, there is the parliamentary system in which there has been a tendency for deputies to seek favours from the appropriate ministries, particularly where the deputies are also mayors of communes, thereby avoiding the prefectoral route for such requests. Third, there are the locally elected councils at departmental and communal levels, which date from the reforms of the Third Republic. For the conseil général of the department, the prefect became the executive officer. The conseil municipal of the commune elects its leader, the mayor, who once elected ‘wields most of the powers of the council’ (Machin, 1979, p. 36). Within the council there is no delegation of power to committees as occurs in Britain. The full council must approve a decision, and the mayor is responsible for its execution (Pugsley, 1982). Fourth, there are the field services of the technical ministries, a system of regional and departmental offices that again stem from Napoleonic administration. Their particular relevance to town planning is in the field service of the old Ministry of Works (Equipement). The planning function of the ministry is now handled by the Ministry of Town Planning, Housing and Transport, but the field services remain in place to provide the professional town planning skills for most communes. Fragmentation, then, is not just a question of more than 36 000 communes covering under a hundred, to several hundred thousand, people, although that is an important factor in the nature of the planning system. It is much more a question of overlapping systems of administration and competence. On the other hand, centralisation does not mean simply that all the power is held, and that all the decisions are taken, in Paris. But there does appear to be a lack of local accountability in decision making: the British concept of a local authority responsible to its electorate, and a corps of locally appointed professional officers serving the authority is absent. The French system, though evidently responsive to the needs of the local populace, is not fully accountable to it. Such a system has various consequences for the practice of town planning. The first is the extent to which plan preparation and control of development has remained a function of central government. The departmental field services, Direction Départementale de l’Equipement (DDE), provide most of the expertise, advising either the mayor of the commune or the prefect in the exercise of their functions. As Thoenig (1979) has shown, the setting up of the Ministry of Works, with its attendant field services, in 1966 was an attempt by central government to retain control of planning by the very fact of decentralising decision making. Such a move it would appear was generated by the threat of big cities—in particular Lyon—to start their own planning offices. Instead, urban communities were devised which were intended to


enforce cooperation between communes in the large urban areas and which were endowed with their own planning agencies whose officers were still partly funded by the state (Thoenig, 1979). In the field of town planning, central government remains an executant authority and not merely a policy maker, unlike its British counterpart (Sharpe, 1979). The second consequence is the question of technical experience. In Britain an identifiable planning profession has emerged, particularly since the War, whose membership is, in the main, local authority staff with functions distinct from the architects, surveyors and engineers, or sociologists and economists with whom they may nonetheless have shared part of their education. The reason for this lies in part with the fact that local administration delegates its statutory responsibilities in planning to a specific committee which therefore looks for a specific expertise to serve it. The emergence of chief planning officers with their own departments was a powerful incentive to the coherence of the profession. It is ironic, therefore, that France, which lays a far heavier stress on the education and competence of its civil service and which has therefore a tradition of professional groups that are considerably more powerful than those in Britain, should have a planning profession whose standing is considerably less than that in Britain. The answer lies in the fact that the senior civil servants in the DDE are engineers who are products of the grandes écoles1 and may automatically become civil servants. Planners, on the other hand, for whom in any case the educational opportunities are far fewer than in Britain, are accorded only contractual employment. They therefore remain subordinate to an older profession whose status is assured by the nature of the system itself (Wilson, 1983). The desire to put expertise in the right places at the right times is exemplified by the attempts to overcome the adverse effects of fragmentation. The use of the établissement public to combine professional skills with local representation and focus them on a given task, most notably the new towns, has been an effective way of ensuring speedy implementation: it has not, however, increased local control and accountability and it does not deal with the totality of the problems of an urban area. The same might be said of the mixed economy companies which in many ways are highly effective in combining private finance with public control. They nevertheless focus on discrete areas and on the implementation of policy through specific building projects. The effect of this has been twofold. On the one hand, the multiplication of agencies for dealing with given tasks has increased rather than decreased the fragmentation. On the other hand, it has led to an enviable ability to complete major projects quickly and competently. The rate of completions in the French new towns, for example, or the thoroughness with which the secteurs sauvegardés (conservation areas) have been tackled (Booth, 1978; Kain, 1982), are equally witness to their effectiveness. What is apparently lacking, however, is the ability to prepare strategies and


detailed policy for whole areas, which can be put into practice through the public regulation of private activity. FRENCH ADMINISTRATIVE LAW If we turn now to the French legal system, we once again find a series of differences that have important consequences for planning. Brown and Garner (1973) make a number of observations that are relevant here. The first is that the Napoleonic system has given a consistency and stability to French administration that has even been enhanced by political instabilities. The second is that discretion in French administration has been accorded not to politicians but to officials. In this context, the décrets of the executive and even the arrêtés of the prefects and the mayors have equal force with the lois passed by parliament, unlike delegated secondary legislation in Britain. The third is that a body of administrative law has been built up which ‘in spite of its totalitarian origins…has survived to provide one of the most systematic guarantees of individual liberties of the individual against the state known at the present day’ (Brown and Garner, 1973, p. 9). Thus the control of the administration is achieved by judicial processes through a series of courts, the Conseil d’Etat and the 25 tribunaux administratifs which cannot be compared with the administrative tribunals of Britain. The British legal profession thus regards the French control of administrative practice with some awe as providing safeguards in advance of those that obtain through the courts in Britain. Weil (1965) points to certain weaknesses, however, which have a direct relevance to planning. The first is the difficulty of ensuring the enforcement of judgements in the face of ‘an Administration which systematically refuses to execute a decision’ (p. 255), although we are told that this weakness should not be overdramatised. The second is that French administrative law ‘accords perhaps excessive importance to the judicial aspects and neglects other techniques which could ensure the smooth functioning of the Administration… It is more or less uninterested in how administrative decisions get taken, in the safeguards which may surround them or in the reasons for these decisions’ (p. 256). In Britain, where administrative law has always been far less highly developed, the individual has, in theory at least, been protected in three ways. The first is through the application of ultra vires which effectively delimits what local authorities may or may not do. The second is through the direct accountability of the elected representatives who take decisions to their electorate. The third has been through the use of the public local inquiry which does not investigate local rights or the infringement of legal rights, but has the power to decide whether the administration has acted reasonably and impartially in the exercise of its duties, given the facts that may be established at the inquiry. Almost fortuitously, therefore, the


British planning system has been presented with a forum for the debate of policy which has proved to be an important part of its effectiveness. We should note that the inquiry headed by an administrator was developed for circumstances quite different from those for which it is now in the main applied (Wraith and Lamb, 1971). We should also note that it stems from precisely the emphasis on the gifted all-rounder that distinguishes the British civil service from its French counterpart: the technical expertise that the French invoke to protect the individual from the excesses of the administration is judicial. THE CONTROL OF DEVELOPMENT IN FRANCE: TWO CASE STUDIES We have now assembled a series of differences between French and British practice in administration and law that surround the practice of town planning. We need to consider now how critical these differences are for the formulation and carrying out of policy and what difficulties they cause for research. For we must remember that both countries do engage in formal planning to determine the spatial distribution of development, and both seek to control individual developments in detail by issuing permits. There is even a degree of similarity in the two-level system of plans in each country, with the upper level outlining major strategies and the lower level concerned with the detailed application of strategy to relatively small areas. Here, however, the similarity ends. If we look at the way they affect the control of development, it is clear that a plan d’occupation de sol2 (POS) is a very different document from the statutory local plan. In the British system the control of development is carried out as a separate exercise from forward planning, purely because the law makes it clear that the plan is only one of a number of material considerations which could conceivably have a bearing on the decision to grant or refuse planning permission. The plan has force as an expression of political will; its preparation is governed to a limited extent by statute and to a far greater extent by central government guidance: but it is not itself a legal document. The POS, by contrast, is initiated and approved by decree. The very nature of these decrees ensures that it is a legal entity which ‘fixes legal rules’ (Jégouzo and Pittard, 1980), and therefore contains precise measures of acceptability in physical development. We should also note that a POS, once approved, takes the place of the nationally applicable règlement national urbain3 (RNU) for the area to which it applies. Whereas a British readership might have to be reminded that an approved local plan has statutory force, Jégouzo and Pittard find it necessary to remind their readers that a POS is also about policy making (p. 150). Once approved, the POS is legally binding; a refusal of permission within an area to which a POS applies cannot be challenged.


Nevertheless, ways have to be found to avoid the inflexibility that such a system presupposes. Two such possibilities exist. Firstly, clauses in the RNU and in most POS contain permissive as well as mandatory regulations: the simple arbitration of ‘many’ for ‘most’ ensures that administrators give themselves the freedom to interpret the rules according to circumstances and refuse applications if necessary. Such discretion is not equivalent to the political discretion that the British system accords local authorities, and which is only possible within the precise terms of the particular clause being invoked. It does, however permit administrators to confront and deal with the problem of uncertainty that is inherent in plan making and the implementation of plans through development control. The second possibility that existed until 1976 was the ability to permit dérogations (departures) to grant permission for development which would otherwise have been unacceptable. Such departures could only be granted with the approval of the prefect, and plans had to specify their nature and the extent which would be acceptable. Here the essential tension between a system dedicated to creating legal certainty and the problem of coping with uncertainty becomes apparent. In the early 1970s, dérogations had become something of a national scandal in French planning. The two case studies that follow, given by Prats et al., (1979), are not themselves scandalous but do make explicit the nature of the system. The first concerns the permission for an office block at Troyes (Aube). After an earlier permission evidently in accord with the plan then in force, a development company reapplied for permission to develop an office block that was 5.3 m in excess of the height limit. The mayor was predisposed to grant permission, but, because it was a departure, it had to be referred to the prefect who was prepared to grant a decree approving the departure. A local resident, M.Boban, whose house adjoined the office block site had already lodged an appeal against the first permission on the grounds that it deprived his house and garden of daylight. His first appeal had then to be substituted by an appeal against the prefect’s decree allowing the potentially more damaging departure, which was annulled only after the property company had counterappealed to the Conseil d’Etat, 18 months later. But, by the time the decree had been annulled, the prefect had neatly sidestepped the outcome by issuing a new decree which had therefore to be fought yet again. This time, however, M.Boban’s appeal was rejected by the Conseil d’Etat on the grounds that the departure conformed to a POS which was by then conveniently in course of preparation. The second concerns a proposal for a hypermarket at Pornichet (LoireAtlantique). Pornichet, part of the coastal resort of La Baule-Le Pouliguen, had more than its fair share of plans in force which reflected its status as a zone sensible (environmentally sensitive area). There was a


regional structure plan for the metropolitan region of Nantes in which Pornichet lies. Then there was a plan for the urban grouping of ten communes, of which Pornichet was one, on the north coast of the Loire estuary. Last, there was a local ‘seafront’ plan for the three resort towns of La Baule, Le Pouliguen, and Pornichet. Whereas the urban grouping plan allowed departures on a range of issues, the seafront plan limited the possibility of departures to plot size and building coverage. The mayor of Pornichet was inclined to approve the project on the grounds that it was much needed and would create employment and attract additional resources. But the project was being discussed at a time when the fate of small shopkeepers was much under discussion nationally and the then minister of trade was pledged to limit the spread of hypermarkets. The prefect therefore refused the application, and confirmed his opposition to the project during a visit of the minister to Nantes. The grounds he chose, however, were that road access was inadequate and that it was located in a green wedge advocated by the structure plan. The outcome of this case was a decision by the Conseil d’Etat to uphold the refusal of permission on the grounds that it exceeded the limits of plot size and building coverage, even though, as we have seen, the plan was prepared to countenance departures from these clauses. THE CASES ANALYSED These case studies illustrate graphically two ways in which French administrative law impinges on the practice of planning. The first is by imposing a rigid structure of rules on subject matter which one might argue is not susceptible to rule making. In practice of course the administration attempts to introduce flexibility by permissive clauses in both the RNU and the POS. Even so, much of the discussion in each case is not about the policy that the rules express but about whether the development is within or not within the determined limits. Much energy in these two cases is spent on finding legal loopholes which allow the administrators to implement their decisions regardless of the challenges to them. Because the plans express such limits, the debate on dérogations in France has become much more fraught than the question of departures in Britain. The second effect of French administrative law is on the wider public debate of policy. At Troyes the critical issue in British eyes would have been whether the effect on M. Boban’s property would outweigh the public benefits of an office block of the height proposed. At Pornichet, the effect of the hypermarket on existing shopping, the impact on the road system, and the desirability of the green wedge seemed critical. Yet the issues that worried the administrative tribunals and the Conseil d’Etat were whether the limits of the plan had been breached and the fact that it did conform to a new plan in preparation (at Troyes), and whether the


structure plan could be used as grounds for refusal, whether the developers had in fact a deemed permission, and whether the development could in fact be approved as a departure (as at Pornichet). Similar discussions do of course occur in British courts; the point to note is that in France the formal discussion that surrounds development proposals appears only to be couched in such terms. The case studies also give clear expression to the difficulties that French local government structure creates for the control of development. At Pornichet the fragmentation of authority and the lack of clear competences is telling. The mayor, with a small area under his command and in the knowledge of the political advantage to be gained from the employment and the resources that the hypermarket would bring, appears to have ignored the strategic effects of the development. The prefect, mindful perhaps of central government’s view of the plight of small traders, nevertheless chose to refuse permission for the development on the grounds of structure plan policy and the capacity of the road network. At neither level of government does there seem to have been an overt assessment of the relative merits of the conflicting arguments. The system does not appear to allow these arguments to be aired adequately or a decision to be taken in the light of all the facts. At Troyes both arms of government were minded to act together and the case at least appeared to present a rather unsavoury determination on the part of the prefect and the mayor to achieve their desired solution. In the face of this determination there was little that an individual could do to influence the outcome. The reasons the prefect may have had for supporting the proposal are not immediately obvious except that the departmental commission on town planning advised approval. Whether the developer was able to influence the decision is impossible to say, but the system potentially permits a degree of collusion that is not tempered by the response of a local electorate. We should note, too, the significance of the fact that opposition to the office block appears only in the form of a third party trying to protect his property rights rather than a general outcry against planning policy by, say, a residents’ group. CONCLUSIONS The events described in the two case studies date from the early 1970s. Changes in the law in 1976 have ensured that dérogations are no longer an issue in French planning. Article L123–1 of the Code de l’urbanisme now states that the only acceptable departures will be ‘minor adaptations made necessary by the nature of the soil, the configuration of the site, or the character of adjoining buildings’. The response of a system based on legal rules is to define the roles even more tightly, and thus, at least potentially, to reduce the flexibility of planners to respond to change. The old discretion recorded to the administration to grant permission where


the rules would otherwise have not allowed the development has, therefore, been replaced almost entirely by the discretion to refuse permission in” given circumstances that permissive clauses in the RNU and POS confer. A more far-reaching change in the planning system has come with the Mitterrand reforms of local government from 1980 onwards. In a first stage, the power of the prefect has been substantially modified to reduce ‘a priori tutelage’ in favour of a ‘a posteriori supervision’ and the prefect renamed the commissioner of the Republic to reflect the change (Flockton, 1983). The second stage has brought about the decentralisation of development control powers to mayors of communes that have an approved POS in force, and encouragement is being given by central government to mayors to take up those powers. For the first time it looks as though France may be moving towards locally accountable political decision making in town planning which could make the British and the French systems more nearly comparable than ever before. Yet to draw such a conclusion is to overlook the realities of French administration and law which still tend in quite another direction. The law still seeks to limit political discretion and therefore the signature of the mayor on the decision notice is far less significant than the power to process applications, a power which remains for much of the country in the hands of the DDEs and the old guard of civil servants. That fact alone is likely to give the lie to any thought that town planning is undergoing radical reform, at least in the short term (Booth, 1985; Wilson, 1985). However, the point of highlighting the major features of the French planning system and the changes that have been made to it in the 1970s and 1980s is not so much because of its intrinsic interest but because of the light that such a discussion sheds upon the difficulties of comparative planning studies. Certainly such comparisons pose major problems for researchers in plumbing the intricacies of the context. An ignorance of the context encourages facile comparisons which obscure rather than illuminate the nature of planning systems. There is no doubt, however, that comparative studies may also be rewarding because of the light that a proper understanding of planning in its context will shed upon the researcher’s own system. British planners work within an administrative and legal system which long before 1947—before 1909 even—was adapted to locally accountable decision making by authorities who were granted a fair degree of freedom to act as they saw fit in the interests of their electorate. The extent to which this has affected both the style and the contact of British planning is easy to ignore. Yet in France, as we have seen, the existing structure has created tensions unlike those observed in Britain and equally has permitted successes of a quite different order. The understanding of planning in its context allows us to find the questions that really are suitable for comparison between one or more countries. It is not enough to compare a POS with a local plan because the


two documents are different; but to investigate, as Wilson (1983) has done, how the structure and composition of the groupe de travail that prepares the POS affects the policies it contains makes a useful contribution to the wider understanding of how policies are made. A study of the very different types of discretion that British and French planning law give to development control decision makers would also be fruitful. It is in studies such as these, which emphasise the interpretation of the content of planning with its context, that the true value of comparative planning is to be found. NOTES 1. The grandes écoles are prestigious state-run schools of university level, with competitive entrance examinations. 2. A plan d’occupation de sol is a lower-tier land use plan. 3. The réglement national urbain is a set of legal rules for the control of development contained in the code d’urbanisme, the French town planning code.

REFERENCES Ardagh, J., 1977, The new France: a society in transition 1945–1977, 3rd edition (Penguin, Harmondsworth). Booth, P.A. (ed), 1978, Conservation in France, TRP-15 (Department of Town and Regional Planning, University of Sheffield, Sheffield). Booth, P.A., 1985, Decision-making and decentralisation: development control in France, TRP 60 (Department of Town and Regional Planning, University of Sheffield, Sheffield). Brown, L.N. and Garner, J.F., 1973, French administrative law (Butterworth, Sevenoaks). Clark, D., 1982, City of Paris mediateur: an ombudsman a la Francaise, Local Government Studies, 8, pp. 45–65. Flockton, C., 1983, French local government reform and urban planning, Local Government Studies, 9, pp. 65–77. Hanley, D.L., Kerr, A.P. and Waites, N.H., 1979, Contemporary French politics and society since 1945 (Routledge and Kegan Paul, Henley-onThames). Jegouzo, Y. and Pittard, Y., 1980, Le Droit de l’Urbanisme (Masson, Paris). Kain, R., 1982, Europe’s model and exemplar still? Town Planning Review, 53, pp 403–422. Lagroye, J. and Wright, V. (eds.), 1979, Local government in Britain and France (George Allen and Unwin, Hemel Hempstead). Machin, H., 1979, Traditional patterns of French local government, in: Local government in Britain and France, ed. J.Lagroye and V.Wright (George Allen and Unwin, Hemel Hempstead) pp. 28–41.


Prats, Y., Pittard, Y. and Touret, B., 1979, La Derogation d’Urbanisme (Editions du Champ Urbain, Paris). Pugsley, D., 1982, French local authority meetings, Local Government Review, 146, pp. 847–850. Scargill, I., 1983, Urban France (Croom Helm, Beckenham). Sharpe, L.J., 1979, Modernising localities: local government in Britain and some comparisons with France, in: Local government in Britain and France, ed. J.Lagroye and V.Wright (George Allen and Unwin, Hemel Hempstead) pp. 42–73. Theonig, J.C., 1979, Local government institutions and the contemporary evolution of French society, in: Local government in Britain and France, ed. J.Lagroye and V.Wright (George Allen and Unwin, Hemel Hempstead) pp. 74–104. Weil, P., 1965, Strengths and weaknesses of French administrative law, Cambridge Law Journal, 24, pp. 242–259. Wilson, I.B., 1983, The preparation of local plans in France, Town Planning Review, 54, pp. 155–173. Wilson, I.B., 1985, Decentralizing or recentralizing the state? Urban planning and center-periphery relations, in: Socialism, the state and public policy in France, eds. P.G.Cerny and M.A.Schain (Francis Pinter, London). Wraith, R.E. and Lamb, G.B., 1971, Public inquiries as instrument of government (George Allen and Unwin, Hemel Hempstead).

PART TWO The study of planning in other cultures

58

-6Introduction IAN MASSER

It is generally accepted that research is a personal as well as a general learning process and that one of the outcomes is that the researcher’s values and beliefs are likely to be challenged by what they have’ learned. At the same time, however, it is also necessary to consider the degree to which the outcomes of research are influenced by the values and beliefs held by the researchers. In other words, to what extent is what we see and learn conditioned by conceptual frameworks developed from our own previous experience and that of others? Questions such as this are of particular importance in cross-national comparative studies where it is usually necessary to get to grips with at least one other culture apart from one’s own in the course of the research. It is important, for example, for an Englishman to try to develop some understanding of how a Dutchman sees planning in the Netherlands, before he tries to make comparisons between the Dutch and the British systems. The best way to get this experience is to spend part of one’s life in the other country. Moving to another country makes one aware of the totality of the other culture, as I found myself when I moved with my family to the Netherlands in 1975 to take up an appointment at the University of Utrecht. As I struggled to develop some measure of competence in the Dutch language it was continually brought home to me that words themselves embodied concepts and values that were firmly rooted in Dutch culture, and that when these words were translated into another language and another culture they did not carry with them the same connotations as they did to a Dutchman. I found that it was necessary to revise many of my prior notions about planning in the course of developing an understanding of the Dutch planning system. This in turn gave me a new perspective on the nature of planning in Britain. As a result of this experience I developed a degree of awareness that enabled me to look at British planning from a Dutch perspective. Further, I could consider planning in the Netherlands from a Dutch as well as an English perspective. It was clear from this experience that many questions were never asked because of the difficulties of translating them from one culture to another.


In other cases, partially informed attempts to translate them only led to an angry response from the other side. I can well recall the sense of shock registered by a visiting British planner when my Dutch colleagues argued that the dual system of private sector development control and public sector housing in Britain was analogous to the apartheid system in South Africa because of the degree to which it promoted social segregation. I can also remember how surprised my Dutch colleagues were that British planners regarded the way in which the municipalities in the Netherlands used the population registration system to control the movement of population within the country an infringement of basic civil liberties. Experiences such as these only reinforce the importance that must be attached to considering planning in each country in relation to its institutional context before trying to make comparisons between them. At the same time, however, they raise a number of critical issues concerning the future development of research strategies in this field. How far, for example, is it necessary for those involved to immerse themselves in the other cultures that they are studying before they can begin to make fruitful comparisons? Or, how far are these findings likely to be influenced by the conceptual frameworks that exist in the researchers’ minds as a result of their previous experience in their native culture. And, at what stage do researchers stop trying to fit their own experience of other cultures into these preconceived frameworks and begin to develop new ones on the basis of their findings? The three contributions in Part II discuss these and a number of related issues. In the first of these Cherry describes the difficulties that he experienced in studying urban planning in Eastern Europe. In addition to the obstacles created by language in this case, he found problems of obtaining access to data, unravelling the decision making procedures themselves and appreciating the ideological environments in which planning takes place. Despite these difficult tasks, Cherry feels that the rewards for these efforts are considerable so long as the researcher recognises that comparisons between Eastern and Western European planning are more likely to be theory testing than theory generating. For this reason the main benefits of cross-national comparative research are likely to be obtained through holding up a mirror to one’s own system and culture which highlights both its strengths and weaknesses. In the second chapter, Cropper examines some of the methodological issues involved in cross-cultural comparisons. The basic objective of comparative researchers is not to ‘go native’ or to totally immerse themselves in another culture but to build up for themselves a position from which they are able to abstract from their experience in that culture elements that are also reflected in planning practice in other countries. The most serious danger for researchers in this field is that they will try to interpret other cultures narrowly in terms of the values and beliefs of

INTRODUCTION 61

their own culture. Ethnocentrism of this kind is particularly problematic from the standpoint of cross-national comparative planning research because of the influence that it exerts on the initial conceptualisation of the research project. As a result it may distort not only the way in which the findings are evaluated but also the selection of the subject matter in the first place. The last chapter by Qadeer develops this general theme with special reference to the relevance of Western theory for planning in the Third World. It draws upon the findings of the case study of Lahore which, like many other Third World cities, has been the target for a wide variety of planning activities on the part of international aid agencies. These embody an implicit assumption that the city has been neglected by national government and is devoid of private initiatives. These internationally initiated developments have had remarkably little effect on the overall quality of life in Lahore because they embody concepts and notions about phenomenon that have been abstracted from a Western context and transferred to an entirely different one. Consequently there is a need for comparative studies to counter this kind of ethnocentricism by identifying the operational-particularistic aspects of local planning practice that must be taken account of when trying to apply general principles based largely upon experience in other cultures. Taken as a group the three contributions can be regarded as a useful starting point for further discussion of the research strategies that must be developed for the study of planning in other cultures. They raise a wide variety of questions in general terms with respect to the methodological issues involved in work of this kind while at the same time giving a number of detailed examples which illustrate the implications of these questions for current research and practice.

62

-7Problems in cross-national research: an East European perspective GORDON CHERRY

This chapter is by way of being a set of personal observations from limited experience; they do not amount to anything as grand as a research agenda for others to follow, rather a commentary on episodic involvement through a number of East European contacts, bolstered by related reading. The background is no more than a simple curiosity about cities in Europe as a whole: their appearance, why they have taken their present form, and the post-war urban changes, both environmental and societal. In recent years I have been fortunate enough to have travelled a little in the USSR (Leningrad, Moscow, Tbilisi, Tashkent and Samarkand), Romania, Poland, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. The strongest and most sustained links have been with Poland where my University has an academic exchange agreement with Lodz, (Cherry and Regulski, 1981). On the other hand, the most serious examination of East European planning affairs with which I have been associated was that of White (1979) on his research into aspects of the Soviet planning system. Beyond these matters I have found a general interest stimulated by the writings of Musil (1981), Bater (1980), Pallot and Shaw (1981), and French and Hamilton (1979), the last with so many interesting case studies. Albeit limited, my contact with East Europe so far has led me to build up a set of general observations about the conduct of urban planning in those countries. In the first place it must be acknowledged that both the philosophy and practice of planning have many parallels in both West and East, since planning is an international movement with a common language in concepts and method, and East and West Europe share similar urban cultural traditions. The shared ideas are readily observable: the objective of spatial order, the pursuit of amenity and the search for convenience in city form and structure. The typical topics of twentieth century planning are replicated: garden cities, new towns, green belts, national parks, neighbourhoods, concepts of settlement hierarchies, and so on. However, the theme of commonality cannot be taken too far, because it is readily apparent that cities in the East do differ in form, appearance and ‘feel’ from those in the West. The question is of course: how far do they differ? But important Eastern features including the uniformity of physical form produced by the State


architecture of mass housing, the different city centre functions, and the relative absence of social disparities in spatial patterns of differing population densities, can readily be confirmed. Another general observation, but particularly so in respect of the USSR, is the continuity and historical momentum which typifies East European planning. Bater (1980) makes the significant point in respect of the histories of Leningrad and Moscow, for example, that very similar urban policies have been exercised under both the Czarist and Soviet systems. A common objective has been to control the movement of population into and between cities; and, moreover, to keep the population under close surveillance in either, or indeed, in any city. Elsewhere in the Eastern Bloc the historical momentum across political regimes is less in evidence, but since 1945 policies and planning fashions have been remarkably stable and pursued with single minded determination. Just occasionally, however, breaks in tradition can and do occur; the rebuilding of Tashkent after the earthquake of 1966 has introduced radically new design features to a city which first owed its form and function to that of an Islamic trading centre. A third general observation is that East Europe has been the recipient of planning ideas throughout the century; it has shown itself open to the transfer of concepts and practice, particularly from the West. For example, after the years of sterile debate in Moscow about the urbanist and disurbanist factions in Soviet planning and architecture in the late 1920s, the fact was that the General Plan for Moscow published in 1935 bore many resemblances to decentralist plans for Western capitals at that time, notably New York, London and Paris. Also we should note the influence of the Athens Charter to planners in the 1930s, both West and East; the plan for Warsaw in 1934 by Chmielewski and Syrkus was the first to be drawn up according to the principles of the Charter. Additionally of course we acknowledge the work of architectural pioneers like Ernst May and Le Corbusier in the Soviet Union. In recent years we have seen the maintenance of this important transfer of concepts and method, particularly in traffic planning, conservation and pedestrianisation of city centres. All these remarks are very general in tone. They could be added to, but the curious observer will wish to penetrate further and look for explanation. How different or how similar is planning in East Europe from our traditions in the West, and why is this so? There are a number of obstacles before any researcher in pursuing these enquiries much further and it will be useful to acknowledge these. OBSTACLES TO CROSS-NATIONAL RESEARCH 1. One major hurdle is language, and in certain cases the cyrillic alphabet. Reading and conversation in many East European languages

PROBLEMS IN CROSS-NATIONAL RESEARCH 65

will be difficult; perhaps Romanian with its Latin base may be the easiest for the casual observer; Russian may be taught in schools and language classes may be available; Hungarian may prove particularly difficult. 2. Access to data varies very considerably. With a certain language ability and a knowledge of how to use the system some researchers have found it surprisingly easy to obtain data; Poland, Hungary and East Germany are cases in point. The USSR is likely to be much more secretive. There is also the problem of mapping; accurate up to date maps are difficult to obtain. 3. The precise role of government departments and agencies, and the procedures for decision making are often difficult to establish. It is not easy to ascertain in centrally directed economies, where the processes of government are obscure to an observer or specifically concealed from public gaze, what negotiations actually take place in the planning system. It is difficult to identify where power and influence finally reside, who is acting on behalf of whom, what consultations occur and what compromises are sought. These are issues which reseachers in the West find it necessary to unravel in order to explain why certain things happen in the way they do. It is much more difficult in the East; quite apart from the language problem, it is important to be able to absorb a firm knowledge of the political culture of the governmental system. Without this there is danger that an observer will misread or misjudge a particular situation. Enquiry into the structure of the planning process is the hallmark of the cross-national case study; all the factors bearing both on process and outcome need to be clarified. In East Europe the interplay between ministerial and regional interest groups, enterprises, enterprise managers, professionals, the party and individual party careerists is hard to decipher. One particular surprise will be that cities, even the largest, appear to have little autonomy in the planning system. A centralist structure predominates and this serves to obscure the workings of the planning machine. 4. The ideological environment for planning in East Europe is strong and unmistakable. Adherence to an all-pervading normative planning process makes it very difficult for a Western researcher to ask the sort of planning questions which have been to the forefront over the last 20 years. Social science enquiry has led us to recognize that the various forms of urban development we experience today are the product of certain economic and social processes which stem from the behaviour of certain actors (individuals, groups and institutions) in the system. Questions therefore are asked of these actors and research paradigms are provided by them. In planned economy countries, however, because the state sector is dominant, policy is focused on the achievement of goals and objectives fixed by central political bodies. Development therefore has to be evaluated on the basis of criteria established by central authorities, not the variety of actors who actually operate the market economy system.


The command economies have their own key actors, but they are less observable, and a locational decision has often to be treated as a ‘given’. The point I am making is that this sort of normative planning simply does not permit certain questions to be asked, as they would be of Westernstyle planning. Most researchers will recognize these difficulties and obstacles. But cross-national enquiries do take place and we can record a number of important lessons to be learned from the exercise so far. We recognize that policies operate in different contexts, and of course it is important to separate the phenomena from the context. Somehow we have to identify if at all possible the elements which may be in fact comparable. SOME LESSONS FROM CROSS-NATIONAL RESEARCH 1. East European planning is strongly linked to an accepted ideology. This means an emphasis on standards and rules of thumb which are given a spurious accuracy by association with scientific criteria. This scientific base has long been eroded in Western planning. But we have to accept that adherence to fixed standards is not always bad; after all it can be argued that minimum standards in housing, for example, have been significantly raised in this way. On the other hand, inflexibility can be remarkable, as in forms of transport planning (attainment of the status of 1 million population for a city seemed to imply the introduction of a metro in Tbilisi, and perhaps other Russian cities too). 2. East European planning is linear planning—‘end-state’, blue-print planning characterised by a sequence from problem to plan to action. In the West, planning is much more an act of negotiation between and amongst interested parties, and is consequently much more pragmatic and incremental in process; the longer the time span between objective and result, the less likely that precise attainment will be realised. 3. It follows that East European planning is a slave to theory—even when theory patently is not leading to desired end results. Soviet planning, for example, has slavishly adopted norms of optimum city size, the accommodation of city population in microrayons (neighbourhoods), threshold theory in settlement structure, concepts of balanced regional development and ideas of single economic complexes (such as that which linked iron ore from the South Urals to coal from West Siberia, 1000 miles apart, in a scheme which failed, where the only link was the Trans Siberian Railway). 4. There is a lack of creativity in the East European system. So far the East has borrowed from the West and there has been little by way of a return flow. Simple ideas of rational planning of the kind popular in the West from the days of the Tennessee Valley Authority to concepts of land use planning in Britain in the 1940s have simply been copied. Since then

PROBLEMS IN CROSS-NATIONAL RESEARCH 67

Buchanan has become a household name in traffic planning, while architecture has grown more fluid since Stalinist days, but otherwise planning methods have become very stereotyped. Text books have a heavy, normative ‘feel’ to them: science based, strongly influenced by the drawing board disciplines rather than the insights of social science. One detects little evidence of intellectual movement in the development of planning concept or practice in the Eastern Bloc at the present time. This is in comparison to the West, where the situation is in ferment. 5. The researcher is almost put in the position of describing two different systems, West and East. Cross-national work becomes a matter of comparing the incomparable. Comparisons can rarely be ‘theory generating’; they are more likely to be ‘theory testing’. But this is not a negative judgement. East European planning may be different, but it is an instruction to planning in the West. Research of this kind leads to lessons about ourselves, as much as about the East. Cross-national research has the effect of holding up a mirror to our own system and highlights both its strengths and weaknesses. REFERENCES Bater, J.H., 1980, The Soviet city (Edward Arnold, London). Cherry, G.E. and Regulski, J. (eds.), 1981, Anglo-Polish conversations (University of Birmingham, Birmingham). French, R.E. and Hamilton, F.E.I. (eds.), 1979, The Socialist city: spatial structure and urban policy (John Wiley, London). Musil, J., 1981, Urbanisation in socialist countries (Croom Helm, London). Pallot, J. and Shaw, D.J.B., 1981, Planning in the Soviet Union (Croom Helm, London). White, P.M., 1979, Soviet urban and regional planning: a bibliography with abstracts (Mansell, London).

68

-8Do you know what I mean? Problems in the methodology of cross-cultural comparison STEPHEN CROPPER

While the practice of cross-national comparative research has blossomed in the field of urban and regional studies in recent years, the methodological basis for this activity has remained relatively unexplored. Many researchers are now beginning to reflect upon their experiences in the field and to examine ways of explicating and further developing their approach to research. Earlier in this volume, Masser noted that the predominant research strategy in the field is the case study approach. Yet it is only recently that the difficulties of comparison and generalisation across cases central to cross-national research have been debated. This chapter addresses a number of matters that bear directly upon the comparison of cases and the types of generalisation that may be admissable within such an approach. These include the type of knowledge that is sought and the focus of the research, the difficulties of conceptualisation where cross-cultural comparisons are being drawn, including the problem of ethnocentrism, and the presentation of research. CASE STUDIES AND COMPARATIVE RESEARCH Two distinct cognitive goals are generally recognised where the methodology of research into other planning systems is being considered. The first, commonly held, is solely to present the other system, and experience of it and in it, as authentically as possible—the result is generally known as an ethnography. The second, becoming more commonly held, is the goal of comparison—comparison for the purposes of developing or testing broad hypotheses or theories. Whilst this latter approach often results in a loss of authenticity, this is justified by the potential gains in terms of general rules about planning institutions and procedures that obtain despite differences of detail. There is much debate over the relative merit of each goal. There are, perhaps, two further goals which, although less widely recognised, are nonetheless legitimate research aims which have particular methodological implications. It is commonly held that the case study, as a research strategy, is appropriate only to an exploratory role, used prior to a more rigorous investigation of the subject matter. There


have, however, been a number of recent attempts to justify a broader role in theory development and testing for the case study and to expound the logic of the approach—that is, the case study as a mode of general explanation (Cropper, 1982; Masser, 1982; Mitchell, 1983; Yin, 1981). The fourth cognitive goal is reflected in an approach to comparison that attempts not to develop unbounded generalisations, but to retain the authenticity and particularities of the cases compared, that is, it requires a sensitivity to the details that are normally held to be unimportant given the search for general rules. Thus sensitive comparison involves the drawing of suggestive contrasts (or similarities) and is general only in relation to the number of cases contrasted. It is suggested that this goal of sensitive comparison is especially important in cross-national or crosscultural research, particularly perhaps where transfer of or learning from experience is the prime objective. Indeed, there have been a number of calls for such a strategy to be more widely adopted within the field of comparative urban and regional studies (Waterhouse, 1979; Wilson, 1983). This chapter attempts to set out a methodology appropriate to this cognitive goal. The methodology of comparison requires the researcher to postulate or to assert that there exist one or more resemblances between two or more cases. The function of theory is to provide the concepts through which common properties may be ascribed and differences noted. For the purpose of comparative research, then, generalisation (theory generation) occurs piecemeal, case by case almost, during which hypotheses and the concepts around which they are constructed are gradually, or perhaps occasionally drastically, revised. This view of comparison accords with well-known views of social scientific research more generally. Thus, as Barnes (1982) states: Scientific inference like empirical inference generally is not deductive. It proceeds from particular to particular on the basis of resemblance and analogy. Knowledge is built up and extended a bit at a time by the revisable clustering of instances and applications (p. 122). Self’s (1982) recent comparative examination, Planning the urban region is a good example of this approach. Points of comparison between different planning systems are sought through the development and imposition of concepts and categories in which resemblances between the different planning institutions and practices are grounded. The comparison is thus selective—cases resemble one another only in particular ways rather than in every way; that is, the resemblances drawn do not necessarily imply any shared overall logical structure. Thus he states:

PROBLEMS IN THE METHODOLOGY OF CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON 71

The book is comparative in a selective way. The main aim is not to compare, systematically, different national systems of urban planning, but to illustrate the achievements and problems of different organisations and types of policy. The comparisons and explanations are made valid only by adopting wideranging ceteris paribus conditions. Whilst many methodologists do advocate such a strategy, indeed see it as inevitable (Mitchell, 1983; Runciman, 1983), it is at a cost. Self (1982, preface) himself notes that ‘An obvious danger of this approach is that of under-playing the significance of national differences’. The imbalance is justified by Self as an inevitable cost of redressing a wider balance within the field of comparative urban studies where he feels that ‘Much attention has been paid to national differences, however, and little has been given to the common problems of organisations—striving to develop suitable regional organisations and policies’. As a methodological device such a concentration is legitimate. As Runciman (1983) states: The possible explananda cover, in principle, the whole range of events, processes and states of affairs reported across the whole range of human societies, all the types of explanation which they may require will vary not only in accordance with the institutions or practices chosen for study and the location of whatever is reported about them along the axes of time, place and generality, but also with the nature of the particular contrasts which the particular sociologist is concerned to draw (p. 145). Explanation, therefore, is relative to the purpose of the researcher and the selective eye that she/he brings to bear upon the phenomena in question. This explanation tends to rest at a particular level of inquiry. While points of comparison may be revealed at some level of inquiry, at other levels cases may not be comparable. Comparison, thus, involves a choice between levels of inquiry. Recently there have been a number of calls for engagement at a relatively unexplored level—the level of meanings. Concern for analyses of variations in institutional arrangements and practices has started to give way somewhat to a concern with cognitive and perceptual differences in the practice of urban and regional planning, across countries or cultures. The concern is not, however, just within the field of comparative policy but also within urban studies more generally. Mariss (1982), for example, has argued cogently for a shift in focus. The consequence of this discovery is that units of analysis that appear tenable at, for example, the level of institutional definition, may at a level of meanings in no way serve the purpose of comparison. Points and units of comparison are thus not


always clear-cut or self-evident; nor are they applicable across levels of inquiry. Waterhouse (1979) in his examination of city planning in Toronto and Munich has argued clearly that: The impression given by the actions described is that great similarities exist between the essence of planning in Toronto and Munich:—To the extent that it is possible to reveal general similarities between the two cities, this is true. But with respect to the precise behaviour of the planning apparatus, the details are supremely important, the local variation is such that an effective job of describing planning behaviour cannot be done just by reference to the generalisable commonalities (p. 321). More recently, Wilson (1983) has indicated the need for a greater methodological awareness of levels of inquiry when she states: Finally, one of the main difficulties of comparative research lies in the identification of the elements to be compared. A frequent pitfall is the tendency to compare ‘apples and oranges’. Actions and beliefs of participants which seem superficially similar may involve extremely different meanings. We must always, in comparative research, beware of the problems of ethnocentricity, both in our perceptions and our interpretations (p.168). TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE, LEVELS OF INQUIRY The general thrust of the argument above has been taken forward by Runciman (1983) in his examination of the methodology of social theory. In it he distinguishes four levels of inquiry as types of knowledge which may guide and constitute research. These form a chain of knowledge from reportage through explanation and description to evaluation. As he explains: Even in the study of so relatively apolitical a topic as, say, the family, reportage, explanation, description and evaluation lead into each other…to give an account of any chosen system of kinship and family relations is, at the minimum, to report it under a designation which raises the explanatory question why it is of this type and not another; this raises in turn the descriptive question what a system of this type is like, either in particular or in general, for those who are brought up within its rules; and this raises in turn the evaluative question about the merits or demerits of it (pp. 35–36).


In the terms of this framework there is, clearly, a growing concern in comparative planning studies in focusing more rather than less upon description at the expense, perhaps, of the current concentration upon explanation. Thus the questions that are being asked are of the type: what is it like for those involved in a planning matter, institution or practice? What is the significance of this rather than that? How do ‘they’ make sense of ‘their’ practices? What do ‘they’ intend or understand by that? The central concern is thus with precisely those meanings and beliefs, the precise behaviour that comparative research has shown to be critical to an understanding of cross-national differences and similarities in urban and regional planning systems. This concentration, as Wilson (1983) has pointed out, refers us to the differences that exist between the conceptual structures and the ways of seeing and acting of planners in different cultures and the need to be aware of the dangers of ethnocentrism. ETHNOCENTRISM IN COMPARATIVE RESEARCH There are two aspects to the problem of ethnocentrism as originally elaborated by Sumner (1906) in Folkways. The first is concerned with the cognitive basis for comparison of in-groups and out-groups as different cultures. That is, the world is divided conceptually in different ways from culture to culture; attention is paid to different aspects of social life and different aspects are more or less significant. Meanings of actions are thus quite different across cultures. The second aspect derives, in part, from the first and is to do with evaluating the institutions and practices of other cultures as opposed merely to knowing them. The values and beliefs (derived in part from the peculiar conceptual structuring of the world) of the local culture are used to evaluate the workings of other cultures. These values may frequently be inappropriate as criteria and evaluations may, as a result, be unfavourable. Recent research, for example, into cross-cultural differences in the operational definition of social justice (Tornblom and Foa, 1983) lends support to Waterhouse’s (1979) observation that care must be taken in comparative evaluation to ensure that comparisons are not inappropriate, mistaken or spurious. Whilst knowing and evaluation are closely related, methodologically, the two may be kept distinct. That is, it may be possible to disagree with an evaluation and yet concur with the description presented by the researcher. That there are differences between the conceptual structures used by different cultures to inform or form practices is thus relatively well documented. Even the most fundamental conceptual units are not as straight-forward a basis for comparison as would be hoped. Thus concepts which are critical to the practice of urban and regional planning and to the understanding of that practice are simply meaningless when


translated. The concept that has driven much of recent Tanzanian development, ujamaa, for example, has no adequate parallel in British planning experience and terminology. The problem is more perverse where concepts appear to translate simply from one language to another but where that translation hides differences in conceptual structuring. So, whereas English-speaking countries distinguish clearly between policy and politics, the same is not true for example of French- and Germanspeaking countries where politique and politik respectively encompass both concepts (Heidenheimer et al., 1983). If the conceptual structures, ways of seeing, interpreting and acting on the world are so different, on what basis can we seek to compare and to generalise across cultures? And how, operationally, can we tease out these comparisons and rules? In anthropology, where there has been established an expertise in the study and comparison of cultures (Douglas 1978), it is generally held that for a researcher to gain an understanding of, for example, the customs and practices of a culture, it is necessary for him/her to become immersed in the day-to-day life of the culture in question—that is, he/she will take the role of a participant/observer. This is, indeed, what a number of comparative methodologists have advocated, and the quality of the research is expected to improve in some way related to the level of involvement in and knowledge of the other political culture(s) (chapter 4, above). The accumulation of research findings and experience thus supports Masser’s point (chapter 6, above), that a considerable personal investment in terms of time and effort is needed to get to grips with other cultures. What does this imply? What are the aims of getting to grips with other cultures? Is to understand the native also to become one? In a classic critique of prevailing orthodoxies in anthropological research, Geertz (1976) argues clearly that cross-cultural understanding relies upon maintaining a distance from the foreign cultures. To ‘go native’ is thus to defeat the purpose of cross-national comparative study. We are not aiming to write a report of, for example, Balinese regional planning as would a Balinese regional planner, nor a study of French amenagement du territoire in the language of the DATAR, although their accounts will form the primary data for the study. Rather, we are attempting to abstract from those experiences, structures and processes which are reflected in or which contrast with the practice of planning in other cultures. So, whilst we would wish to retain the feel of Balinese or French planning, it will only be possible to compare and describe if we express the practices in ways that are not trapped within the local conceptual apparatus. There are two related aspects to this abstraction. On the one hand, we are trying to move from the language of everyday life—experiencenear concepts (Geertz, 1976); typifications (Berger and Gellner,


1981)—towards bringing theoretical or experience-distant concepts to bear. As Berger and Gellner (1981) state: the meanings of ordinary life have been transposed into a different world of meanings, namely that of the social scientist. This transposition is at the core of sociological interpretation. It also constitutes an incipient explanation of the situation in question: the sociological interpreter now not only understands something, but under stands it in a new way that was not possible before the transposition took place (p. 47). At the same time, we are also attempting to move from the context of one culture, or from culture specific terminology to culturally non-specific imagery. However, this does not necessarily imply that the concepts used are seen as universal, merely that they transcend the horizons of a single culture. Runciman (1983) has contrasted the different types of concept used in explanatory and descriptive theories and the ways in which each may be brought to bear in comparative research. He states: The ideal types of descriptive theory are generated by extracting, or even forcing, a similarity between observations which, as reported, could not be seem of themselves to fall under the common rubric…. But where the typical concepts of a good explanatory theory will be broad in scope, general in content, free in operation and simplifying in effect, those of a good descriptive theory may, but need not, be any of these. To serve the purpose of conveying a resemblance between one event—and another as experienced by the persons involved in it, ideal-typical descriptive concepts may be at the same time parochial in scope, specific in content, restricted in operation and complicating in effect (p. 293). It is at the point of conceptualisation and comparison that the problems of ethnocentrism loom large. The use of an inappropriate analogy in comparison will, no matter how good a knowledge of the culture the researcher has, cuase the account to fail or to mislead. Masser’s example (chapter 6, above) of the analogy between our dual system of development control and public housing and apartheid is a case in point, even if it may cause us to think. Of course, knowledge is an essential prerequisite, or usually is, but good comparative research is the product also of able and appropriate conceptualisation. There are two matters to consider here: firstly, despite the move away from experience (new or everyday concepts), the subjects of the study should in principle be able to recognise their actions, practices and so on as described by the researcher; secondly, the audience or readers of the account must be able to grasp the characterisations that lead to comparison. I shall examine this latter


point, to do with the communication or presentation of comparison, before concluding with a brief look at the former task—the avoidance of ethnocentrism. As Runciman (1983) again reveals, effective description ‘can only be done by appealing at some point and in some form to what the reader is presumed already to understand’ (p. 249). Thus he argues, the use of analogy, metaphor and simile are critical to the practice and presentation of descriptive comparison. As an illustration of good descriptive writing, Naipaul’s (1980) account of the document that has sapped political culture in Tanzania will suffice, for although it is perhaps more literary than literal, this is perhaps a blessing given the formality of much academic work. The author draws upon analogies which he assumes will be familiar to or have meaning for his audience and thus be helpful to them in understanding the nature of the document and the political philosophy it expounds. He starts his description thus: The pleasant northern Tanzanian town of Arusha has lent its name to the ‘Declaration’ that is generally considered the theoretical font of Tanzanian socialism. It is a small document—about the size of the Communist Manifesto—but lacking the latter’s stark apoclayptic appeal. The prevailing tone is inspirational, not chiliastic. It reads in some parts like the American Declaration of Independence, in others like a Sunday-school homily, in others like a stern missionary tract. Sometimes it is sweetly reasonable; sometimes a naked authoritarianism breaks the surface. Now the pastoral vision of a virtuous, hardworking peasantry dominates; now incipient Third World paranoia. It is a thoroughly African piece of work veering as it does between realism and fantasy, between piety and tyranny (p. 199). There are a number of lessons we may draw from the passage. Firstly, the power of a metaphor and its related tropes in drawing suggestive contrasts is evident. Metaphor—in this case the metaphor of ‘Africa as a melting pot from which arises contradiction’—is used as the implicit backdrop for the drawing of analogies which build up and illustrate the contradictory forces at work and which reveal the Arusha Declaration as but a single instance of the way of African affairs in general. The reasoning or reasonings from the analogy are left implicit here but could be made explicit in the form, for example, of: the Arusha Declaration ‘is like’ the American Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence is x, y and z. Therefore the Arusha Declaration is x, y and z, with x, for example, being the concept ‘not chimerical’ or ‘grounded’. Whilst Naipaul is not engaged in comparison of contemporary phenomena, it is not a great step to move to the use of selective but direct analogy


between cases or to the use of metaphor in drawing together in a more general way two or more cases. There is, however, a danger where large numbers of cases are being compared. As Runciman (1983), states: There may not always be parallels as close as these. But there will always be a parallel of some kind. The danger is merely that where it isn’t a close one, the researcher may pitch the analogy at so general a level that tertiary understanding (that which descriptive theory promotes) will not be enlarged at all (p. 255). Direct comparison of different planning systems will not always be possible. Yet this does not rule out comparative work in the pursuit of descriptive theory. As Winch (1970, p. 250) remarks on the possibility of comparing alien systems with our own ‘The question is not whether we can do this, but what sort of comparison is involved’. Thus it will be necessary to seek and develop analogies from outside the boundaries of our or their planning activities; and it may well be that indirect comparisons of planning activities by the contrasting of the different guiding metaphors is a fruitful approach (e.g. Schon, 1979). Secondly, the passage beautifully supports a description by Naipaul of actions, or inactions, on the ground in Tanzania. But descriptive writing is never the whole story—it will always be relative to a particular purpose and view. Thus the contradications that the author sees and emphasises as the essence of the Arusha Declaration may be peripheral to the point of another description, for example, one based on a similar but less harshly critical metaphor; ‘Africa as a melting pot from which results creative eclecticism’, perhaps. Nonetheless, that of Naipaul, whatever one may feel about the evaluative tone, is valid. It is valid since it remains authentic. Authenticity, or lack of it, is closely related to the problem of ethnocentrism. The aim of description is to be both authentic and representative. Runciman (1983) identifies a number of hurdles which must be avoided or overcome before these dual criteria can, at least minimally, be met. These include incompleteness, over-simplification, ahistoricity, suppression, exaggeration and ethnocentricity. None need be dishonestly pursued to take effect; indeed it is likely that they will creep in unknown to the researcher. It is the last-named that is perhaps the most insidious, certainly in the context of this discussion. It arises at the point of conceptualisation, that is, the starting point of comparison. It affects not just the act of interpretation, but also the way we perceive and what we perceive. As Runciman (1983) notes: Ethnocentricity—typically arises where the assumptions of the observer’s own period or milieu are read into the experience of the


member of another in which they do not in fact have any place—what these researchers have done is not merely to fail to add or to include what ‘they’ would have added or included if the description had been checked with ‘them’. They have done more; they have imputed to ‘them’—whether they realise it or not—a theoretical presupposition of their own which ‘they’ would disavow (p. 248). CONCLUSION This has been but an initial foray into the methodology of cross-national comparative description. The following points have emerged. There is in the field of comparative planning research a growing recognition of the importance of descriptive theory, that is, theory which takes as its central task the identification of the meanings, ways of working and so on, that are held in particular planning cultures. Understanding the differences between planning systems, the ways in which they are operated and how they derive from the cultural contexts in which they are set, is the primary aim. This requires a different methodology to that which is used to develop and test explanatory theory containing general propositions about planning regardless of context. The argument, above, suggests that one way forward is through a strategy of sensitive comparison in which the use of, for example, metaphor and analogy plays a prominent role. Theory accumulates on a case by case basis through the drawing and development of suggestive contrasts. It is at the point of conceptualisation and comparison that the dangers of ethnocentrism, whilst considerably lessened by this strategy, nonetheless becomes problematic. There are a number of operational plays and rules of thumb which can serve to control for ethnocentric tendencies. Masser and Williams have considered them in some detail in their contributions to Part I. However, more needs to be done at this methodological level in exploring the nature of description as an act, descriptive theory as a product and the relationship of each to the problem of ethnocentrism. It is hoped that the arguments above will be helpful in outlining some of the issues involved. REFERENCES Barnes, B., 1982, T.S.Kuhn and social science (Macmillan, London). Berger, P.L. and Gellner, H., 1981, Sociology reinterpreted (Penguin, Harmondsworth). Cropper, S.A., 1982, Theory and strategy in the study of planning processes— the uses of the case study, Environment and Planning B, 9, pp. 341–357. Douglas, M., 1978, Cultural bias, 35 (Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, London).


Geertz, C., 1976, From the ‘Natives’ point of view, in: Meaning in anthropology, ed. K.H.Basso and H.A.Selby (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque). Heidenheimer, A.J., Heclo, H. and Adams, C.T., 1983, Comparative public policy (Macmillan, London). Mariss, P., 1982, Community planning and conceptions of change (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London). Masser, I., 1982, The analysis of planning processes: some methodological considerations, Environment and Planning B, 9, pp. 5–14. Mitchell, J.C., 1983, Case and situation analysis, Sociological Review, 31, pp. 187–211. Naipaul, S., 1980, North or South (Penguin, Harmondsworth). Runciman, W.G., 1983, A treatise on social theory, volume 1 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge). Schon, D., 1979, Generative metaphor: a perspective on problem-setting in social policy, in: Metaphor and thoughts, ed. A.Ortony (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge). Self, P., 1982, Planning the urban region (George Allen and Unwin, London). Sumner, W.G., 1906, Folkways (Ginn, New York). Tornblom, K.Y. and Foa U.G., 1983, Choice of a distribution principle: crosscultural evidence on the effects of resources, Acta Sociologica, 26, pp. 161–173. Waterhouse, A., 1979, The advent of localism in two planning cultures: Munich and Toronto, Town Planning Review, 50, pp. 313–323. Wilson, I.B., 1983, The preparation of Local Plans in France. Town Planning Review, 54, pp. 155–173. Winch, P., 1970, ‘Comment’ on Jarvie’s paper, in: Explanation in the behavioural sciences: confrontations, ed. R.Borger and F.Cioffi (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge). Yin, R.K., 1981, The case study crisis: some answers. Administrative Science Quarterly, 26, pp. 58–65.

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-9Comparative studies to counter ethnocentric urban planning MOHAMMAD QADEER

There can be little argument about the necessity and usefulness of comparative studies no matter if they are cross-national or intertemporal. They counteract the ethnocentricism of theories and perceptions inspired by a particular social milieu. By being submitted to comparative scrutiny, such formulations are refined and validated. In this respect, the investigative practice follows the folk wisdom which holds that ‘to understand oneself one must observe others’. A comparative study is a social analyst’s equivalent of travelling abroad. It sharpens one’s perceptions and deepens one’s understanding of a phenomenon. So the issue often raised in discussions about comparative studies is not as to why they should be undertaken; rather it is as to how they may be carried out. This pre-occupation with how is evident in the substantial literature about the methodologies of comparative studies. Discussions about methodology tend to get enmeshed in abstract rules of interpretation and criteria of admissible explanations. The literature on comparative methodologies is no exception. It also tends to revolve around topics such as logic of valid comparisons and control versus experimental variables. These discussions remain at fairly abstract levels (e.g. Holt and Turner, 1970, pp. 1–5). At broad methodological level, it appears that comparative studies are not much different from other types of social inquiries. After reviewing methodologies of comparative research in political studies, Holt and Turner maintain that in principle ‘there is no difference between comparative cross-cultural research and research conducted within a single society. The difference lies rather in the magnitude of certain types of problems that have to be faced’. (Holt and Turner, 1970, p. 4). Smelser (1976, p. 3), in asserting that ‘the methodological problems facing comparativists are the same as those facing all social scientific investigators’ affirms the undifferentiability of comparative studies on methodological grounds. The surprising fact is that after taking this position, Smelser goes on to write a book of 250 pages probing logic of comparison employed by Durkheim, Weber and Tocqueville. It shows that there is no inherent contradiction in maintaining that comparative studies do not constitute a distinct methodology and yet regarding them necessary to refine perceptions and


concepts. They may be viewed more as strategies to resolve some particular conceptual issues rather than being regarded as problems for which special methodological devices are to be devised. This chapter addresses one such issue that presently agitates the intellectual scene. It is the question of the relevance of Western theory to the Third World. It is asked if social analysts are not fitting preconceived categories to Third World situations instead of finding categories which apprehend them accurately.1 This issue can be fruitfully examined through comparative studies. By critically examining the applicability of specific Western concepts and theories to Eastern situations, their claim to universality can be tested and their cultural biases, if any, may be identified. This would be a case where comparative studies could demonstrably provide methodological solutions to a conceptual problem. The issue of the transferability of Western explanations and experiences to Third World problems takes on greater significance in normative disciplines such as policy development and urban planning. Every practical proposal (meant to alleviate a problem) assumes a causal model and its effectiveness depends on the relevance of the underlying assumptions. It is, therefore, necessary that the relevance of the underlying assumptions and concepts be examined before borrowing policies and programmes fashioned in the West. Thus comparative analyses become investigative tools in policy disciplines rather than being only methodological procedures. At this juncture, the question arises as to what forms such analyses assume? FORMS OF COMPARATIVE STUDIES In order to describe various forms that the comparative analysis can assume, it is appropriate to start by pointing out the distinction between a phenomenon and its context (chapter 3, above). On the basis of this distinction comparative studies in urban planning can be categorized into four groups. 1. Holding the phenomenon constant and varying the context. This strategy allows comparing the intensity and structure of a phenomenon under different conditions. From such comparisons a causal hypothesis or a structural model begins to emerge, but such models identify only broad (common) contours of a phenomenon, almost its universal features. Although useful for explanatory purposes, these universalistic models or descriptions seldom fit any particular situation to the degree that appropriate policies could be based upon them. For example, urbanization studies have identified natural population growth and migration as the factors contributing to rapid growth of cities. Yet attempts to formulate effective policies to bring about balanced urban growth on the basis of urbanization models have met with little success. There seem to be enough situationally specific factors affecting the urbanization process

COUNTER ETHNOCENTRIC URBAN PLANNING 83

of a country that broad explanatory categories have little practical relevance. So abstracting general laws about a phenomenon through comparative study may be enlightening but this approach may not necessarily be fruitful in planning or policy making. 2. The second analytical strategy is to examine different phenomenon while holding the context constant. Though not well recognized in the methodological literature, it is a common practice in academic disciplines such as history and anthropology and in various fields of public policy such as master planning and economic development. This approach essentially explains various phenomenon by reference to the characteristics of a particular social system. Here the intellectual effort is directed at modelling the contextual system and then tracing its conditioning effects on specific phenomenon. Neo-Marxist approaches generally make use of this strategy to explain relative incidence of poverty and backwardness in various countries. 3. The third strategy is to formulate a hypothesis/model about a phenomenon predominantly based on observations in one setting and to test it in other contexts. This strategy is commonly used in social sciences. A set of preconceived propositions guide the probe and constitute the framework of interpretation. In comparative studies of urban planning, this approach, like the rest of social analysis, has been the most common. Whether it is testing the dependency theory in Rabat or modelling of distance-decay functions in Calcutta, there is an abundance of comparative studies using this approach (e.g. AbuLughood, 1980). 4. Another approach frequently followed in comparative studies is a case study of a particular phenomenon in a specific context. The advantage of a case study is that it offers a holistic view of a phenomenon. In a case study the interaction of contextual and experimental variables is observed over a period of time or space. Yet case studies are not openended intellectual excursions into a phenomenon. Often a guiding hypothesis or an analytical framework underpins a case study. This approach has proven to be particularly fruitful for comparative studies of decision making and planning processes. Hirschmann (1963), Meyerson and Banfield (1955) and Hardoy and Scatterthwaite (1981) exemplify this approach. Three conclusions emerge from the foregoing typology of comparative studies. First, comparative studies come in a variety of forms. Even the four types identified above appear in many permutations of mixed forms. Second, it is evident that comparative studies are not always duets where two matched situations have to be analysed in tandem. This fact is borne out by the fact that most of what is included under the rubric of comparative literature consists of single country (or context) studies.2 A comparative study is as much a matter of transposing notions, hypotheses or models abstracted from one situation to another and examining their applicability as of matching two situations to observe


experimental variables. Third, as comparative studies involve hypothesis testing, it stands to reason that they should be judged on the same methodological criteria as any other analytical enterprise. It, therefore, is no surprise that closer examination of methodologies of comparative studies leads to the conclusion that they are a genre of a common species of studies. Comarative studies are a methodological craft to fashion illuminating explanations or abstract patterns by using contrasting situations. ADAPTING THE URBAN THEORY: INTERNAL DYNAMICS OF LAHORE, PAKISTAN3 An illustration of this craft is presented to suggest a strategy of refining and extending Western theories in the field of urban studies. The author’s study of Lahore, Pakistan (Qadeer, 1983) was inspired by the new urban theory emerging from the formulations of Frank (1972), Geertz (1963), McGee (1971) and Santos (1979), among others. This theory consists of a diverse body of concepts and propositions based on notions such as dependency, dualism, World System and modes of production. It is neither an integrated theory nor a consistent set of propositions. For example, dependency as an explanation for the poverty and underdevelopment of the Third World is contrary to the notion of dualism. Yet in this diffused urban theory, the two notions are combined to explain urban development in the Third World. This theory can be viewed as a general outlook which arose as a counterpoint to the notions of stages of growth and dynamics of modernization. So the study began with a general idea of what to probe. Apart from the above referred stream of academic urban theory, the literature encapsulating practical experience of city planning and housing constitutes another body of knowledge about Third World cities. The United Nations’ Human Settlement Centre, the USAID and the World Bank have published literally hundreds of reports, articles and handbooks suggesting ready-made solutions to the problem of Third World cities. There is a periodicity about these ideas. Almost every five years a new set of programmes promising panaceas for the Third World’s urban problem are put forth. If roof-loan schemes were the solution of the Third World housing in the 1950s, sites and services are the recipe for the 1980s. On examining this literature in preparation for the Lahore study, a few themes were found to be almost universal. There is alarm and consternation at urban development in the Third World. Problems are recounted in endless ways to the point that one begins to wonder as to how those cities are existing when the conditions are so bad. Also in the literature on practice, there is a consistent but implicit suggestion that those cities have been neglected by their governments and are devoid of private initiatives. On further reflection, these themes appeared to be


half-truths in the light of Lahore’s development. Lahore had all the problems of the Third World cities, yet it could not be described as the victim of public inaction and private neglect. This realization gave a new focus to the study. The question that came to be raised was: why the more things change, the more they remain the same? This is the matter of internal dynamics. It does not mean that externally induced dependency or peripheral status of Pakistan in the world system were considered unimportant. Rather the question turned out to be how these external forces structure the internal organization to render it ineffective in the face of massive challenges. Once it became obvious that in Lahore one was dealing with a city which has had master plans, institution building, self-help housing, water and sewerage development projects, legislative control of land prices, sites and services and so on, the notion that as a Third World city it was suffering from neglect and inaction could not be sustained. Also it was evident that the city was a vibrant and alive community, despite the fact that almost two-thirds of the houses continued to have wood/mud roofs and about half lacked bathrooms. There had been much growth as well as development. So the question coming forth was not why there has been so little development but why the development has had so little effect on the overall quality of life of the city. This refocusing of the initial question came about by counterposing empirical facts to the theoretical assumptions and concept and then applying a good dose of scientific scepticism. This counterposing was possible because concepts and notions about a phenomenon abstracted from one set of contexts were applied in another context. This procedure heightened the contrasts and brought out implicit assumptions that normally would have escaped attention. This process continued through all the subsequent stages. Refining Concepts and Extending Theories Many concepts and propositions of the new urban theory provided the framework for organizing observations and interpreting data. But as more thought was given to their validity, their limitations began to be obvious. Often these notions had to be revised to accommodate the local reality. For example, the Formal-Informal dichotomy of economic organization was demonstrably inadequate in a situation where the so-called informal sector included jewellers and grain agents who though operating in the traditional mode were making millions. It seemed that the conceptualization of the informal sector had been too much influenced by the Western observers’ fascination with hawkers in the Third World. They had overlooked the hierarchy of circuits within each sector and not given enough attention to the fact that the informal sector is really the indigenous mode of operation.


For this study, at least, Geertz’ initial formulation of the Firm-Bazaar dichotomy had to be resurrected. This model was further extended by postulating an illicit (corruption) sector as the third member of a tripartite structure of the local economy. Even a cursory examination of Third World cities reveals the pervasiveness and regularity of corruption. Many ills of the city are directly the result of corruption, yet the urban theory is silent about it. Western scholars and international agency experts neither apprehend the role of this sector nor feel comfortable in discussing it. Whatever the reasons, a veil of silence surrounds the economic effects of corruption. A theoretical framework that evolves from the reality of Third World cities would be incomplete without identifying the role of an illicit sector. It should be obvious that these conceptual modifications did not mean ad hoc theorizing; they meant combining existing concepts and notions in more meaningful theories. It can be said that the pre-existing notions and categories were combined together somewhat uniquely to enhance relevance and meaningfulness of the theoretical formulation. The Function Versus the Structure Often comparative studies tend to look for parallel or contrasting structures in a phenomenon. Such a search is guided by a theory or structural description and the task consists of observing the existence of postulated elements in comparable situations. This approach tends to bring out a universalistic account of the structure of a phenomenon. For example, it is typical to look at the traffic pattern in the Third World and not find the order normally associated with the behaviour on a road. In Third World cities, road maintenance is poor, lanes are unmarked, traffic weaves in and out on both sides of the road and bullock-carts share the roadway with trucks. The situation is described as chaotic and prescriptions to remedy it come forth immediately. In Lahore, visiting World Bank experts pronounced banning of slowmoving tongas (horse-drawn carriages) as the urgent policy because they slowed down the traffic flow. This is a structural view of the problem where a situation not conforming to expected behaviour is to be remedied by bringing the behaviour in line with norms of a preconceived structure. The Lahore study points out that the more useful approach is to postulate a function (manifest or latent) and then look for arrangement (structures) through which it is being realized. The question about the traffic situation in Lahore is not why it is chaotic but what is the intrinsic order in it and how it is being sustained. After all, thousands of cars, tongas and bicycles manage to negotiate their way every day. They could not be operating entirely randomly. What is more revealing is to ask why traffic behaves the way it does. This is an example of how beginning from the function


one can unravel the structure of a phenomenon without unduly sacrificing relevance of the context. Operationalizing Concepts and Categorizing Facts Any transplantation of concepts abstracted from one context to another results in some divergence between facts and their descriptions. On this score comparative studies paradoxically can both exacerbate as well as bridge the chasm between facts and theory. What makes the difference is the way in which concepts are used to apprehend facts. Social concepts transposed to another context if treated as hypotheses or first cut abstractions leaving open possibilities of their affirmation and modification serve as good observational tools. This procedure also makes a comparative study an instrument of uncovering (cultural) biases of a concept, whereas, regarding a concept as the irrevocable yardstick for observing and measuring a characteristic may result in the fallacy of reification. An example from the Lahore study illustrates this point. Lahore’s land uses have been mapped according to textbook classifications. Large sections of the land use map are bathed in single colours showing residential or commercial or industrial districts distinguished by the intensity of the use. The Lahore study also began by applying the standard classificatory concepts, primarily forged in the West where segregation of land uses has become a rule. Soon it was discovered that these categories were very poor approximations of reality. How can a housing estate be described as a residential area if there are buffalo herds which supply milk to all surrounding neighbourhoods? Or, how can an upper class commercial centre be classified under a single use if behind fashionable jewellers and clothiers’ shops are furniture workshops and workers’ shanties? In Lahore apparently disparate uses mix at block level, not to speak of the variety of activities at a neighbourhood scale. Obviously it is not only Lahore’s reality that is out of line with land use categories but also the concepts are not applicable to the facts. The study modified the classificatory schema and introduced the notion of two-level uses, namely dominant and subordinate. The uncovering of the implicit assumptions of a concept and its suitable modification to accommodate the empirical reality is the dividend that comparative studies offer. Particularizing the Universals The main purpose of any scientific inquiry is to explain a phenomenon by discovering some rules or laws of its behaviour. In this endeavour, discovering of general (universal) laws is the mark of fulfilment. To offer a specific explanation for a phenomenon which may not necessarily be applicable to the whole class of the same phenomenon is called


particularism. In the culture of science, particularistic explanations are considered a lowly achievement. For someone’s work to be branded as particularistic is a put down. The pride of achievement lies in the high tradition of the scientific inquiry and that implies discovering universal laws from particular observations. Yet particularism is both necessary and unavoidable in applied disciplines. Paradoxically in practical problem solving, one takes universal explanations of various facets of a phenomenon and forms a particularistic view or model of a specific situation to design a solution. For example, a civil engineer mixes and matches in situationally specific ways the existing knowledge about, for example, soils, structures and materials, to design a building on a particular site. The design in such a case is the concrete manifestation of a particularistic theorizing of how various elements would behave in relation to each other in a specific situation. The practice of almost every profession is a process of particularizing the universals. Urban planning is no exception. Comparative studies in urban planning can focus on institutions and structures of the compared situation and thus bring out parallelism of the two situations. Bater (1980) on the Soviet city is an example of this type of comparison and White’s (1980) paper is another case in point. These two publications show that the planning systems of the two countries, Britain and the Soviet Union, are similar—a reassuring proof of the neutrality and universality of planners’ craft. Yet the same situations could turn out to be divergent if the focus of attention was actual operations of planning, that is, how land use issues are identified or how enforcement of a master plan takes place. And such an account would be particularistic. At the operational level even such similar systems as that of Canada and the USA turn out to be highly individualistic. While the institutional-universal focus has its utility, the analysis at the operational-particularistic level is more relevant if effectiveness and appropriateness of urban planning is to be determined. The Lahore study is an example of the attempt to identify patterns of operational-particularistic aspects of the planning practice. When only about 12% of the houses are built with permission from town planners, the question to be raised is: what is the appropriate form of land use control in Lahore and what would be its objectives? and not whether Lahore has a zoning map and how it is enforced. In fact the difficulty in Lahore, and other Third World cities, is the permeation of imitative institutions in the name of modernism with little regard to their appropriateness. Comparative studies of urban planning should aim at illustrating the relevance and appropriateness of various institutions and structures rather than merely comparing their form.


CONCLUDING REMARKS The ‘thesis’ of this chapter is that comparative studies offer a possibility of bringing out covert assumptions and culture-bound perceptions underlying social theories and concepts. Undoubtedly comparative studies are amenable to the same rules of logic and criteria of admissible explanation as any other inquiry, but they are distinguishable on their promise to test the credibility of theories and concepts. Four main types of comparative studies have been identified. They range from the classical experiments in matching and control of variables to testing of hypotheses formulated in one context in other settings. A major concern of this chapter is the question of relevance and adaptability of urban planning theories and planning practices, generally conceived in the West, to the Third World. The question of relevance is significant in view of the accelerated diffusion—under aid aegis—of Western institutions and ideas in the Third World. The spread of superficial modernism makes it possible to find some evidence of the existence of structures and patterns that bear resemblance to Western practices. Yet such structures serve different functions and have unsuspected meanings in Third World contexts. The challenge lies in penetrating behind the appearances and identifying their meanings and functions. Demands for Islamic economics and Japanese sociology are not merely nationalistic slogans. They are expressions of the need for relevant theories and concepts inspired by the same considerations as the demand for making British social science independent of American influences. Whether Islamic economics will ever come about is a separate question. The limitations of the current economic or urban theories are contemporary facts. Comparative studies may not give rise to African urban theory but they have the possibility of making the extant theories relevant. NOTES 1. The relevance of Western social sciences to the Third World remains a moot point despite their diffusion almost everywhere. Witness the demand for African sociology or Islamic economics. These sentiments do not indicate an imminent emergence of new paradigms but they do express an underlying scepticism about the relevance of existing knowledge. 2. An extensive bibliography on comparative urbanization has been provided by Friedmann (1973) and it largely includes single country studies such as city life in Japan or Yoruba towns and cities. 3. Throughout this paper, ‘the Lahore Study’ is a reference to Qadeer (1983).


REFERENCES Abu-Lughood, J., 1980, Rabat (Princeton University Press, New Jersey). Bater, J.H., 1980, The Soviet city (Sage, Beverly Hills). Frank, A.G., 1971, The development of underdevelopment, in: Dependence and underdevelopment, ed. J.D.Cockcroft (Anchor, New York). Friedmann, J., 1973, The comparative study of urbanization: a preliminary assessment, in: Research traditions in the comparative study of urbanization: towards an interdisciplinary approach (School of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of California, Los Angeles). Geertz, C., 1963, Peddlers and princes: social development and economic change in two Indonesian towns (University of Chicago Press, Chicago). Hardoy, J.E. and Scatterthwaite, D., 1981, Shelter: need and response (John Wiley, New York). Hirschman, A.O., 1963, Journeys toward progress (The 20th Century Fund, New York). Holt, R. and Turner, J. (eds.), 1970, The methodology of comparative research (The Free Press, New York). McGee, T.G., 1971, The urbanization process in the Third World: explorations in search of a theory (G.Bell, London). Meyerson, M. and Banfield, E., 1955, Politics, planning and the public interest (The Free Press, New York). Qadeer, M., 1983, Urban development in the Third World (Praeger, New York). Santos, M., 1979, The shared space (Methuen, London). Smelser, N.J., 1976, Comparative methods in the social sciences (PrenticeHall, Englewood Cliffs). White, P., 1980, Urban planning in Britain and the Soviet Union, Town Planning Review, 51(2), pp. 211–226.

PART THREE The diffusion of planning ideas: the case of new towns

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-10Introduction RICHARD WILLIAMS

The four chapters in Part III relate specifically to the theme of new towns. This topic has been selected to illustrate the theme of Learning from other countries because the concept of a new town is an example of a planning idea which has travelled the world. New town projects have been promoted in countries with very different regimes, at very different stages of economic and urban development, and of great cultural diversity. The following contributions illustrate the fact that projects with very widely ranging characteristics may be given the title ‘new town’. In spite of this variety, the concept is a meaningful one in a great many countries, representing the whole range of economic circumstances from the developed countries of both East and West Europe to the Third World. The basic notion of building a new town is simple to grasp, and is capable of capturing the imagination of the public and politicians. This factor undoubtedly explains in large measure why the concept has been so widely adopted. In spite of the attractive simplicity and vision associated with the concept, new towns are nevertheless phenomena of infinite complexity, built for many different purposes, and displaying a great variety of objectives, design principles and solutions to planning problems. It is clear that there is not one single model for the new town concept. Britain is sometimes perceived, and perhaps perceives itself, as the source of ideas on new town development. This is partly a result of the nineteenth century generation of theoretical ideas by Robert Owen, James Silk Buckingham and especially Ebenezer Howard’s Garden cities of tomorrow, and also of the utopian urban developments of that time, such as Port Sunlight, Saltaire and Bourneville. It is also a result of the experience of the post-war new towns programme, and the generally favourable attention given to this by the professional press in many countries. However, the idea has not only been substantially modified in many other countries; it has also clearly developed independently within a variety of cultures. One could argue perhaps that Britain’s contribution has been to demonstrate that new towns can be created in the context of an already urbanised environment.


Clearly, Britain is by no means the only source of inspiration for the concept of new town development. It is not a case of a single learning tree, disseminating the new town concept from one common root in Britain or anywhere else. This is true even in the European context, since new towns have been promoted in a number of circumstances not paralleled in Britain. An obvious example is the new towns on the Dutch polders, discussed by Ramsay. A more fundamental case of separate development of the new town idea, though not of the idea itself, is illustrated by Wilson’s contribution on France. Undoubtedly the concept of new towns, and the reputation earned by them, came to French attention from the UK, inter alia. However, the development of the French programme took place largely independently of the British, as a matter of deliberate policy. The Polish programme, discussed by Wawrzynski, was also implemented largely independently not by choice but because of political circumstances beyond the control of the planners. Also, of course the concept has been widely applied outside Europe in many different cultural and economic contexts, including colonial settlements and new capital cities, as the contribution by Healey exemplifies. As far as Britain is concerned, the wheel may have come full circle. Although the UK pioneered new towns such as Letchworth as private ventures, it is ironic that the idea of a private new town has been most widely adopted elsewhere, especially in the USA, and that the UK is only now returning to this idea. Proposals for private developments of this nature, such as that at Tillingham Hall in Essex, are confronting the planning authorities with a major challenge to traditional established planning attitudes and policies. This type of new town project is associated in the mind of many British planners more with American than British practice, and therefore represents something of a culture shock. Ramsay reviews the extent to which the new town concept has become a world-wide feature of planning policy, and discusses different manifestations of the concept including the special case of new capital cities, referring to examples of where learning from other countries has or has not taken place. The chapters by Wilson on the French new towns, and Wawrzynski on Poland, offer two European cases in contrasting circumstances as indicated above, and were selected to complement the earlier chapters on researching French planning by Booth (chapter 5, above) and East European planning by Cherry (chapter 7, above). Finally, Healey considers the nature of the new town concept in the context of the developing world, and offers a general view of why developing countries are attracted to this idea. This is illustrated with particular reference to Venezuela, thus providing a distinctive perspective on some of the points raised by Qadeer (chapter 9, above).

-11International exchange of ideas about new towns ANTHONY RAMSAY

Thousands of new towns have been built this century. It is impossible to keep totally up to date with plans and programmes throughout the world, but an international selection of new towns is included in a recent topicguide (Ramsay, 1985a). Given the significance of this development effort in a world context, what have been the main lessons of twentieth century experiences in building new towns? The solutions adopted tend to vary from one country to another. Some conscious attempt to learn from other countries and even copying undoubtedly occurs, but nevertheless modifications are often made, reflecting the specific objectives of the promoters and the particular circumstances in which programmes have been launched. Furthermore, no new town is a total success in everyone’s eyes: any project can be praised in one respect and condemned in another; or its planners congratulated by one critic and berated by another. EUROPEAN NEW TOWNS The essence of the British success story in new town development, at least in the 1950s, was the establishment of organisational structures ad hoc with an adequate budget and the necessary statutory authority (Osborn and Whittick, 1977). In the subsequent period, however, some of the general failings began to emerge: the neglect of external transport links and the weakness of public transport; the inadequacy of community facilities and social support systems; the paucity of geological survey data; the lack of local democracy; the failure to build up the tertiary sector of industry; over-concentration on public sector housing; and the effect of house-letting policies in exacerbating abnormalities in the age structure. In later designations, attempts were made to rectify some of these deficencies, for instance with Runcorn’s busways and the policy in the 1970s to base new towns on existing cities such as Peterborough. The French new town programme is discussed in Ramsay (1985b) and by Wilson (chapter 12, below). One particular feature is noted here. In many of the French new towns, storage ponds for temporary retention of heavy rainfall run-off are a conspicuous feature of the urban landscape. The incorporation of such devices in a drainage system is especially


economical in flatter sites such as Melun-Sénart, although unfortunately the natural sites for these ponds sometimes fall in awkward locations in relation to the patterns of building density as conceived by the town planners. In the hydraulic respect, these ponds represent simply an advance in sewerage theory and practice internationally. Where the French have excelled is in their enlightened approach to the related ecological questions of water condition and planting strategies (Sauveterne, 1975). Similar devices have been used to good effect in some of the new towns of southeast England. In the Scandinavian countries, new towns have been planned mostly as satellites of the capital cities. Tapiola in Finland is famous internationally for the sensitivity of the layout to its natural landscape setting. In its day the Greater Stockholm plan was held up as a model especially in the following two respects: the public transport strategy whereby the new communities were heavily focused around the stations on a radial system of railways with regular express services; and the avoidance of inflation in land prices through speculation by the gradual accumulation of a municipal land bank (Holmgren, 1965). At Vallingby, northwest of Stockholm, the development agency tried to use proximity to workplace as a precondition in house letting, in order to achieve a situation where most people could walk to work. This proved impractical, however, since it resulted in an unacceptably large increase in the waiting period for housing (Pass, 1973). The so-called finger plan for Greater Copenhagen was based on a public transport strategy somewhat similar to that for Stockholm (Merlin, 1971). It also emphasised the value of retaining green wedges for recreation and landscape amenity between the radiating fingers of urban development. Another aim of the plan was to protect from development pressures the fine landscape to the north of the city by promoting large-scale linear development around Køge Bugt (Koge Bay) to the southwest. In the ensuing period the planners succeeded in these aims to a degree, but even after the creation by a 1973 statute of a metropolitan planning authority, effective from 1974, and the revision of the now outgrown finger plan, significant deviations from the strategic zoning have occurred. The Dutch have had great success with their ambitious schemes to reclaim land from the IJsselmeer (Merlin, 1971). The settlement strategy originally was to create a hierarchy of market towns and agricultural villages in broad accordance with the Christaller-Losch theory, to serve a predominantly agricultural community (Dutt et al., 1985). Lelystad was to be the principal town of the Flevoland polder. As Lelystad grew, however, the residents maintained strong links with Amsterdam. Planners began to recognise the opportunity to use the south-western corner of Flevoland to accomodate overspill from Amsterdam, as part of the strategy of preventing urban expansion inwards from the ring of

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Randstad cities. Hence Almere was proposed, and development started there in 1975 (van der Wal, 1985). The new towns in the polders have been planned by a public development agency attached to the Dutch water authority (Rijkswaterstaat), a major government agency. The Netherlands is a very densely populated country in which agricultural land is scarce and the older conurbations densely developed and overcrowded. Thus the prime motivation for the polder programme of new towns was to relieve this situation. HONG KONG Hong Kong is virtually a city state with an even higher population density than the Netherlands. This density problem has been exacerbated by a very high rate of natural increase in population (now abating) and until recently by a huge influx of refugees. The government has a very ambitious programme for developing new towns, mostly in the New Territories (New Territories Development Department, 1984). In executing this programme they have reached prodigious rates of housing construction (over 36 000 dwellings in 1984, for instance). The New Territories Development Department, responsible for the new towns programme, and the Hong Kong Housing Authority may well hold an unofficial world record for their rate of housing completion in new town projects. Can this be regarded as a model by other countries? The organisational achievement has to be admired. However, the situation represents a rather unique combination of circumstances: the government structure is for the time being unitary, combining central and local government in one nonelected body; the government is in a monopolistic situation regarding land development policy in the New Territories; the economy is booming; and labour is relatively cheap. Furthermore, existing housing conditions for a substantial proportion of the population are primitive: in 1984 the authorities demolished almost 18 000 shanty dwellings which had been erected illicitly, and the horrendous densities obtaining in Hong Kong City (Victoria and Kowloon) make it politically acceptable to build at gross residential densities averaging more than 100 dwellings per hectare or 350 persons per hectare (O’Rorke, 1985). One can anticipate a lessening of the political will to sustain such a frenetic rate of development as the additional accommodation in the new towns effects a general reduction in overcrowding. As time goes on the residents in new towns may well become more aware of the shortcomings of life in densely developed high-rise estates. With reforming measures to inject an element of local democracy, increasing opportunities should arise to voice any such discontent.


Much could turn on the obsolescence factor. One problem with public sector housing in the UK new towns has been underfinancing in respect of maintenance and long-term management strategies for refurbishment. Similarly, unless the flats in Hong Kong’s New Territories are of sound construction and their conservation assured by adequate finance and management, they could present great problems and be a political embarrassment in a decade or two. Furthermore, even if construction and estate management are adequate, there is still a grave risk that they will exhibit major social problems, in the same way that many British public housing estates (admittedly more often municipal overspill than new town estates) have become problem estates with ‘hard to let’ housing within 20 years of completion. NEW CAPITAL CITIES The planning of new capital cities represents a special case of new town planning, and one in which international influences and cross-national transfer of ideas are very strongly exhibited: indeed the emulation of other countries has been a very widespread motive behind such projects, and new capital planning teams normally embark on a deliberate strategy of learning from other countries at a very early stage in their work (Ferebee, 1983; National Capital Development Commission, 1970). L’Enfant, who planned Washington DC, had been educated in France where civic design was strongly influenced by the layouts of central Paris and Versailles. More than a century later an American, Griffin, put a similar stress on axiality in his layout for Canberra, and so did the group of English planners including Lutyens who prepared the layout for New Delhi (Hussey, 1984; Irving, 1981). Architectural experiments with reinforced concrete and other new building technologies prompted the establishment of CIAM, a series of international congresses by the modern architecture movement in 1928. Le Corbusier, the Swiss-born architect who was a founder member, publicised his radical ideas about high-rise building and high-speed travel grids (Le Corbusier, 1960). His revision of Mayer’s plan for Chandigarh featured a hierarchical transport system which was revolutionary for its time, and it also continued the axiality principle in the siting and layout of the government zone. In 1929 and again in 1936, Le Corbusier visited Brazil where his ideas impressed the architect Lucio Costa. When the latter produced his prize-winning design for Brasilia in 1957, his design philosophy was in sympathy with Le Corbusier’s, though the plan assumed a quite different general shape (Evenson, 1973). By the same token, similarities to Brasilia are evident in the general conception of the plan for Abuja in Nigeria (International Planning Associates, 1979). The planning, building and management of new capital cities raises a number of special issues. It seems that all national governments who


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have promoted such projects retain administrative control of the site and surrounding land sine die, through an agency of their own. Such land is often designated as a Capital Territory or something similar, and Washington DC is probably the original model. The functions of such an agency change dramatically through time, from large-scale planning, land acquisition and development in the formative period to control of land use and building works, with an interest in security and amenity in the later phases of the development cycle (National Capital Commission, 1982). Such an arrangement tends to create serious tensions. In the preliminary planning stages, the strong personal interest invariably taken in the project by the promoting politicians can create severe frictions in their dealings with the planning and design consultants over such basic decisions as general location, precise size and boundaries of designated area, siting of governmental zone and the principal buildings within it (Hussey, 1984). Likewise in the subsequent stages of development, potential conflict exists between the capital territory authority and the provincial and municipal authorities operating in or adjacent to that territory. Latter-day projects such as Chandigarh, Brasilia and Abuja have a common problem of unofficial development in the form of shanty housing and sometimes also casual petty trading in retail and craft services (Badmus, 1984; Evenson, 1973; Sarin, 1982). In some cases part of this problem is created directly by the development process itself: that is to say, some of the shanties which have appeared in certain capitals were construction camps by default, erected by the construction workers themselves to provide temporary accommodation while they were employed locally. Partly the problem has arisen because of the strong traditions of seasonal migration of farm workers to industrial jobs in the former colonial centres of mining and manufacturing. Such migration could be deemed voluntary in the political sense even if there is an economic imperative behind it. By contrast, new ‘towns’ were being used until recently to initiate forced migration in the reverse direction within South Africa, in pursuit of apartheid. A new satellite called Panchkula is being constructed southeast of Chandigarh in the adjoining state of Haryana, which should take care of the shanty problem. At Brasilia and Abuja, official ancillary programmes had to be undertaken to deal with critical build-ups of shanty-type development. More generally, the voluntary nature of migration in most countries represents a technical difficulty for town planners in attempting to predict the amount and rate of attraction of people to new towns. In the USSR, new towns and town expansion are being strongly promoted in pursuance of internal colonisation policies (Golany, 1978); and conversely attempts are made to limit the flow of migrants to the largest established cities (Bater, 1980).


Quality of housing has a marked effect on its cost and hence on its price. There has been a tendency for developing countries (often poorly advised by Western-based consultants) to adopt housing standards similar to those in advanced economies. If, as a consequence, too much of the housing is in a high price range, a sizable proportion of migrants will be unable to afford it without a large subsidy, which would in turn put undue strain on government financial resources. Often these situations have been exacerbated by the continuation after independence of a colonial tradition of providing separate estates for civil servants as priority projects, disposing of houses to them on favourable terms. In some countries, the problem of non-affordability of housing can be overcome by cooperative self-build projects. PRESSURES FOR CHANGE In the UK, in a major shift of policy in the last decade, the government has run down the new towns programme, arguing that resources for inner-city areas should take priority, and that the new towns have siphoned off both resources and the most enterprising citizens from the old cities. Throughout the operation of the new town programme, UK governments have shied away from new towns of the sort where the urban economy is based on a single industry (with the sole exception of Corby, where designation was to facilitate the quick provision for housing for workers in a steel plant already built). It is contended that a multiple economy will be more stable. Such a policy stance would be regarded as untenable in expansive countries such as Australia, Canada and USA where there is a strong and continuing tradition of creating worker’s settlements in relation to major mining projects (Corden, 1977; Golany, 1978) and where there may be little point in trying to exploit the country’s natural resources in any other way. On the other hand, it can be argued that this mode of development is against the interests of the public at large, or at least against those of the town’s residents. For example, the town may be no more than a work camp, with no accommodation available for worker’s families. If all development is controlled by a single company or group, the worker’s life-styles and economic circumstances may be unduly circumscribed by it. Furthermore, it has been claimed that some such ventures have exploited the aboriginal populations in whose territorial reserves the projects are sited. In these resource-rich countries with liberal capitalist traditions, it would be politically impractible to obstruct such developments. In USA, a federal programme of support for social integration in new communities has been recently terminated (US Department of Housing and Urban Development, 1984). In addition, regulations designed to prevent projects based on dirty industries such as mining could have the unintended consequence of obstructing high-amenity projects such as holiday and


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leisure complexes simply because a single developer might wish to control almost all aspects of the development. Conversely, in expansive communist countries with substantial mineral resources, the objection to a single industry town would be less valid since the industrial operations may in any event be a part of a state corporation. In recent years the government of India has decided to support the proper equipping and expansion of small and medium sized towns rather than assist in the creation of new towns, arguing that their experiences have shown new towns to be too expensive a solution for India. Perhaps this was because the programmes for these early new towns included inordinately high quality housing. Nevertheless, new towns continue to be promoted by some states in India, for example, Haryana. The other extreme is represented by the so-called ‘new towns’ developed by the government of South Africa in the existing or prospective homelands. Official shanties would not be too inaccurate a name for their tin-roofed huts laid out in rows, without evidence of any modern sanitation or other domestic facilities, and remote from any established work centre. Thankfully, increasing political pressures against apartheid will probably put an end to their programme as presently conceived. CONCLUSION As this review has shown, there is around the world a vast range of developments to which the title ‘new town’ has been attached. The concept of a new town is a planning idea which has truly travelled the world. However, the variety of projects realized in the name of this concept, and the multiplicity of political and planning purposes which they are designed to serve, is immense. In special cases of new town, such as new capital cities, the most overt process of learning from other countries has taken place. In these cases the political and planning objectives are more or less constant in the different countries which have promoted such projects, while individual countries normally undertake such a scheme only once. In the remaining more numerous categories of new towns, objectives are as varied as the regimes which are responsible for new town projects, and a less visible cross-national learning process therefore takes place. It is the basic concept which has crossed the world and generated such a variety of forms. Through the medium of the channels of technical and professional communication, however, considerable transfer of ideas does take place, as the examples of the Radburn layout of housing schemes and the science park idea illustrate. The new town concept has come into some disrepute in recent years in countries in very different economic circumstances in various parts of the world, ranging from the shift in policy in the UK away from new towns in the last ten years to the difficulties encountered in Third World projects such as Abuja in Nigeria. Also, it is clear that new towns are evaluated


from a great variety of positions and accredited with very different degrees of success, as the chapters by Wilson, Wawrzynski and Healey illustrate. However, I believe that the case for new town projects being badly executed is not an argument against new towns as such, and that it is not valid to blame new towns for denuding parent cities of their best residents: many would have moved in any event. REFERENCES Badmus, J.D., 1984, The influence of Abuja on Suleja (Nigeria), Unpublished MSc thesis (Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow). Bater, J.H., 1980, The Soviet city: ideal and reality (Edward Arnold, London). Corden, C., 1977, Planned cities: new towns in Britain and America, Sage Library of Social Research, 55 , (Sage, Beverly Hills and London). Dutt, A.K., Costa, F.J., van der Wal, C. and Lutz, W., 1985, Evolution of land uses and settlement policies in Zuiderzee project planning, in: Public planning in the Netherlands , ed A.K.Dutt and F.J.Costa (Oxford University Press, Oxford) pp. 203–230. Evenson, N., 1973, Two Brazilian capitals: architecture and urbanism in Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia (Yale University Press, New Haven and London). Ferebee, A. (ed.), 1983, Three new world capitals: Canberra, Ottawa and Washington DC, Urban Design International, 4(2) , (Institute for Urban Design, State University of New York, Purchase, New York). Golany, G. (ed.), 1978, International urban growth policies: new town contributions (John Wiley, New York and Toronto). Holmgren, P., 1965, Integration of public transport with urban development,

Proceedings Town and Country Planning Summer School, St. Andrews

(Town Planning Institute, London). Hussey, C., 1984, The life of Sir Edward Lutyens (Antique Collectors Club, New Delhi). International Planning Associates, 1979, Master Plan for Abuja (Federal Capital Development Authority, Lagos). Irving, R.G., 1981, Indian summer: Lutyens, Baker and Imperial Delhi (Yale University Press, New Haven and London). Le Corbusier, transl. J.Palmes, 1960, My work (Architectural Press, London). Merlin, P., transl. M.Sparks, 1971, New towns: regional planning and development (Methuen, London). National Capital Commission, 1982, A very special mandate: shaping Canada’s capital (NCC, Ottawa-Hull). National Capital Development Commission, 1970, Tomorrow’s Canberra: planning for growth and change (Australian National University Press, Canberra). New Territories Development Department, 1984, New Territories development: Hong Kong’s new towns (NTDD, Hong Kong).


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O’Rorke, B., 1985, New approaches to new towns: Hong Kong, Paper to 9th INTA International Conference: New Partnerships in Urban Development, Glasgow, 8–14 September (Proceedings forthcoming, INTA, s’Gravenhage, Netherlands). Osborn, F. and Whittick, A., 1977, New towns: their origins, achievements and progress (Leonard Hill/Routledge and Kegan Paul, London). Pass, D., 1973, Vallingby and Farsta—from idea to reality: the new community development process in Stockholm (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London). Ramsay, A., 1985a, Planning new towns. Topic Guide No.6 (Capital Planning Information, Edinburgh). Ramsay, A., 1985b, Planning aspects of new towns in France, Modern and Contemporary France Review, 22, pp. 20–29. Sarin, M., 1982, Urban planning in the Third World: the Chandigarh experience (Alexandrine Press/Mansell). Sauveterne, 1975, Secretariat-Général du Groupe Centrale des Villes Nouvelles, Approche écologique des retenus d’eau fluviale (La documentation francaise, Paris). US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research, 1984, An evaluation of the Federal New Communities Program, HUD-PDR-934 (Washington, DC). van der Wal, C., 1985, The new towns of the IJsselmeerpolders, in: Public planning in the Netherlands, ed. A.K.Dutt and F.J.Costa (Oxford University Press, Oxford) pp. 231–250 .

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-12The French new towns IRENE WILSON

In the French new towns programme certain ideas may have been imported from Britain but, by and large, their programme is different if not unique. Thus, the bulk of this chapter will be devoted to understanding why and how new towns developed in France and, in addition, will attempt to identify any known and inferred ideas and/or practices which might be ascribed to transfer of the British experience. CONTEXT OF FRENCH NEW TOWNS Clear differences in context emerge in looking at the socio-economic and political circumstances in France this century and particularly since World War 2. The country was late to urbanise; in fact, it was only during the 1930s that 70% of the population were regarded as town dwellers (House, 1976). There had been little nineteenth century industrialisation; thus agriculture still dominated the country in the early twentieth century. Urban neglect and lack of public intervention by successive governments this century meant that even as late as the 1950s, there was very little public housing despite a substantial short-fall; what was evident was a reliance on an ageing, rapidly decaying housing stock dominated by private rented tenure. Finally, the lack of an effective planning administration to deal with urban problems exacerbated the situation. Clearly, the two World Wars had had serious consequences for the country not only in social, economic and physical terms but perhaps more importantly in psychological terms. It was with great courage and determination that the post-war transformation of France took place; this lifted the country out of the doldrums and established the fastest growing economy in northwest Europe (Ardagh, 1983). Naturally, a rapidly changing economic base coupled with high rates of natural increase of population and in-migration from former colonies intensified the existing urban problems. The salvation came in 1958 in the form of Charles de Gaulle, first President of the Fifth Republic. Thanks to the de Gaulle administration, public housing and urban planning became an important concern of government for the first time this century, and the period of


this administration, 1958–1969, saw an impressive number of planning instruments being developed as well as an administrative and statutory planning framework. Whilst planning legislation, as part of other legislation, existed before 1958, little heed was taken of it and few plans were produced. The 1958 Planning Act resulted in the production of a few plans. Until the 1960s, planning had no administration, but planning instruments and an administrative structure of Directions Departmental de l’Equipement (DDE), that is local field services of the Ministry of Equipment, were set up during de Gaulle’s period of office. Whilst the programme of the existing new towns emerged in the Gaullist period, it must be appreciated that this programme represented only one element in the array of new policies and programmes introduced. Even so, and notwithstanding the decline in importance of the programme today, it is nevertheless one of the few Gaullist programmes which achieved continuity of support over the 1970s from successor governments. The general context of the French new towns programme is distinctive, primarily in political terms. In addition, it is one which developed both at a later stage and more quickly than that of Britain. Looking more specifically at France’s political and socio-economic circumstances in the Gaullist period we can perhaps begin to understand more fully the distinctive characteristics of the programme. De Gaulle was driven by an intense sense of patriotism; a desire to see the country as one of the leading Western powers; a strong belief in the state; the central control, initiation and provision of all change; and a desire to maintain the prominence of Paris as the leading urban centre. His beliefs were grand, as were his policies and programmes. Critics of his administration have substituted ‘grandiose’ for grand. Indeed in reviewing the new town idea in France as originally conceived and to some extent as physically manifest on the ground today, ‘grandiose’ might slip off the tongue but the perjoritive overtones of the term belittles the achievements. Although the chief concerns of government in the late 1950s and early 1960s at the national scale were foreign and economic in nature, within five years housing, urban and regional planning problems were firmly included in the Fourth National Plan (1962– 65) and an important policy making body, La DATAR1, had been established to deal with decentralisation/regional imbalance as well as the urban problems of Paris and the provincial cities. In the Paris Region and in the provinces, La DATAR set up study missions, OREAM and OREAV2 (figure 3). It was the work of the Paris Study Mission, the Institut d’Urbanisme et aménagement dans la Region Parisienne (IAURP), which produced the 1965 Paris Region Plan containing a proposal for eight new towns around the capital. Thus French new towns were born. Four main roles can be identified for those new towns. First, a decentralising force in the region,

THE FRENCH NEW TOWNS 107

Figure 3. Location of new towns and DATAR study areas in France

part of an axial polycentric growth strategy; secondly, as complementary rather than autonomous urban areas to the parent cities; thirdly as an alternative to the unpopular predecessor programmes, the grand ensembles (large peripheral public housing developments housing up to 40 000 population), and finally as large regional centres of half to one million population providing strong urban core functions. For a detailed discussion of the Paris region new towns see Tuppen (1979; 1983), Allen (1982), and, in their national context, Ramsay (1985). Little more can be said of the aims of these first new towns. In summary they were a political and technocratic solution to the urban problems of the conurbation developed in an administratively pragmatic way by central government through IAURP’s schéma plan. It is certain that Abercrombie’s plan for Greater London was considered by IAURP in


the course of plan preparation although there was no direct transference of strategy, What was probably more important in terms of transfer was the well known success of British new towns world wide. De Gaulle is much more likely to have seen political merit in backing a popular urbanisation strategy of this name. Also in terms of political impact, scale and very large scale at that, was probably of equal importance in the adoption of new towns. However, given the regional imbalance in the country and, in particular, the gap between Paris and the provinces, it was inevitable that some provincial dimension to the new town programme had to be developed for reasons of political expediency if nothing else. Subsequently, this took shape and new towns were proposed in the subregional plans for Marseille, Lyon, Lille and Rouen, at Rives de L’Etang de Berre, L’Isle d’Abbeau, Villeneuve d’Ascq and Le Vaudreuil, respectively (see figure 3). Whilst it has been argued that these latter new towns developed through the initiatives of and pressure from politicians in the provinces, they were nevertheless a product of centrally controlled study missions. What is more likely as an explanation of their location, with the exception of Le Vaudreuil where a strong regional commitment existed, is the traditional opposition to the Gaullist party in these other regions. What became apparent in the last few years of de Gaulle’s office was the misplaced beliefs which were central to the new town programme. The first, that of large-sized towns, was quickly demonstrated to be unrealistic given the slowing down of population growth in the Paris Region by the late 1960s. Indeed, in 1969 this led to an amendment of the regional plan which reduced the number of new towns from eight to the present five and reduced their population targets substantially. Secondly, whilst the new towns were seen to be a solution to the unpopularity of grands ensembles, public reaction to them was negative. In particular, the growing desire for detatched and semi-detatched housing (le style anglais) was in complete contrast to the high density, high rise developments carried out in the first phases of the first new towns. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the centrally controlled pragmatic strategy of new town designation began to meet with local opposition from communal mayors. Whilst the mayors had always seen the new towns as an imposed decision lacking in local accountability and participation, this was not uncommon in France. Of increasing concern to them was the additional financial burdens which new town status was likely to result in. Related to this issue the mayors became sceptical of plans and plan making subsequent to the substantial reduction in population projections which had been necessary as a result of over-estimated growth. There was little political mileage to the mayors in committing themselves to a regional plan which in any case had no statutory status. It is hardly surpising that


soon after the end of the de Gaulle administration, the balance of power in all of the French new towns shifted dramatically to the left. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NEW TOWNS PROGRAMME The mechanics of implementing any programme in France which spatially extends beyond the limits of a single commune are extremely complex. The country is covered by a mosaic of over 36 000 communes each with its own elected mayor and council yet very few with their own planning staff. In fact none of the communes in the designated areas of the nine new towns had a planning staff. By contrast each had its own communal administration and few had any experience of working with adjacent communes in communal groupings. Whilst it might have been expected that, given central initiation of the new towns programme and given the complexity of local communes, a model such as the British New Town Development Corporation might have been seen to be appropriate, this was not the case and was specifically rejected because such a model was regarded as lacking local involvement (Lacaze, 1972). Yet when we look closely at the timescales of French new towns it is obvious that the strong central control apparent in their designation in 1965 was carried through to the local level for the first few years of implementation, and in most cases until the early 1970s. Multidisciplinary teams working for new town study missions carried out all of the initial groundwork and planning. The staff were employed by central government on short-term contracts. What was obvious was that these teams approached their work enthusiastically and with a sense of adventure. In fact, the atmosphere in the study missions of the new towns closely resembled that of their British counterparts a decade earlier. Whilst it is very difficult to provide an objective comparison of this similarity, personal experience in both French and British new town environments and, in addition, comment from French planners at the time, would indicate that the British new town staff environment (both physical in terms of offices and social in terms of atmosphere) was what they hoped to emulate. This was achieved despite the newness of creating such a multi-disciplinary team in France and in complete contrast to a very different working environment in the Directions Départmental de L’Equipement (DDE), the decentralised ‘field services’ of the Planning Ministry (Thoenig, 1973). Yet, notwithstanding the success of the work and working environment in the new town study missions, they were not accountable to local politicians. In theory this situation was changed by the introduction of a dual system of administration, politically accountable at the local level. The Etablissement Public d’Aménagement (EPA) and the Syndicat


Communautaire d’Aménagement (SCA) comprised the two bodies set up locally. The former, New Town Public Development Bodies took over the functions of the study missions to form the technical and professional body for new town development. Their responsibilities included land purchase, plan preparation, organisation of infra-structure through the DDE for the sale of land to the private sector or to public/private partnerships for development. Thus, their role unlike British New Town Development Corporations was to act as facilitators or enablers of development. They carried out no development themselves. Whilst the Administrative Council of the EPA comprised seven local politicians, the state was equally represented by the same number of council members. Clearly then, in practice central influence remained in the EPA management committee and centre power could also veto the approval of new town plans (ZAC3 ) and veto the provision of infrastructure through the DDE. The second body to be formed, the SCA, took the form of intercommunal syndicates comprised of local politicians from the communes within the designated area of the new town. This body was responsible for all finance and administrative decisions concerned with new town development. In practice a major issue of concern to the local politicians of the SCA was the variation in boundaries between their Council area and that of the EPA. The latter controlled a much wider area than the SCA which only covered the designated area. SCA members believed that their communes were paying a high price for the new town whilst those adjacent communes in the EPA benefitted without financial sacrifice. In addition to financial wranglings cooperation amongst communes within the SCA itself was difficult. The administrative and political problems of implementing the new towns were important but progress in implementation was more seriously affected by the timing of the new towns programme. Effectively, the period of potential maximum growth in the early to mid-1970s corresponded with further reductions in population growth, a national economy suffering from the consequence of the world recession, and reductions in loans and grants for new town development. A quantitative review of French new town progress up to 1981 (Tuppen, 1983) rightly demonstrates a poor record of achievement. Whilst such a record emphasises the problem of commitment to large-scale, in that growth targets appear correspondingly and excessively over-exaggerated, the impact of over exaggeration is also obvious in physical terms. With the exception of Evry and Cergy Pontoise in the Paris Region which have successfully developed town centres and look like ‘towns’ and Villeneuve d’Ascq, which is successfully nearing its projected size, the remaining new towns are only partially completed. On the ground, they often reflect isolated or partial islands of development in different communes (this is perhaps best seen at Melun Sénart and St. Quentin en Yvelines). It is


difficult, for example, to identify the development concepts articulated in the master plans on the ground. However, it is at this small scale that the achievements of French new towns are visible. These will be mentioned below together with an assessment of the British transfer or diffusion of ideas. TRANSFER AND DIFFUSION The French new town master plans show distinct similarity to their British counterparts in both style and presentation. The similarity results from the dominance of Buchanan road hierarchies and pedestrian/ vehicular segregation which above all else must be the principal concept directly transferred from the British experience. During the first decade of the implementation of these road hierarchies at the lowest level, they were adapted in that mixer courts and pedestrian courts dominated. Recent evidence in the Paris Region (at Evry, St. Quentin en Yvelines and Melun Sénart) shows a movement back to the traditional street at this lowest level of road hierarchy. No other dominant concepts are openly acknowledged as deriving from British new towns. Four other principles, however, may have been transferred. First, on the face of it, the ideas for large urban shopping centres at Evry and Cergy Pontoise seemed to come from the United States but interviews in these new towns gives the impression that both Cumbernauld and Milton Keynes were studied in some detail. Whilst the resultant town centres are aesthetically and functionally successful, it must be remembered that both centres are substantially bigger than their projected user population. Financial difficulties have emerged as a consequence of this factor and of all the new towns in the Paris Region, Evry and Cergy Pontoise have benefitted substantially as a result of the location of new préfectures in these towns. The public sector has therefore subsidised these successful schemes. By contrast, at Marne la Vallée, the town centre is much smaller and still being developed whilst Melun Sénart and St. Quentin en Yvelines have no equivalent town centres. Similarly, only Villeneuve d’Ascq in the provinces has a well developed town centre. So the aim to create large multi-functional urban centres is only partly achieved. Low density British housing style is currently in demand in France and whilst the desire for this type has existed since the French new towns began the towns which developed first used high density high-rise styles. In only three towns is the dominance of detached and semi-detached housing evident; Villeneuve d’Ascq, Melun Sénart and the second phase of Marne la Vallée. In addition, Cergy Pontoise has substantial areas of housing designed by British architects. By contrast in the other Paris Region new towns much of the housing reflects what the critics have called the ‘grandoise’ flavour of French new towns. Large monumental or


monolithic housing developments dominate at Evry (les Pyramids) at Marne la Vallée’s first phase at Noisy le Grand (les Arenes de Picasso and le Palais d’Abraxas/Theatre) and at St. Quentin en Yvelines (les Arcades du Lac). Yet irrespective of housing style, density or layout three important and successful characteristics are evident in housing areas. First, the degree of integration of social and community facilities at neighbourhood level is excellent. Secondly, the nature and quality of soft and hard landscaping exceeds that in most British new towns and thirdly much of the architecture and housing layouts are more adventurous and stimulating than their British counterparts. Finally, and rather less successfully, the French introduced substantial ‘animation’ programmes, primarily as a result of being impressed by the degree of community involvement and general social activity in British new towns (and perhaps in new towns elsewhere). However, the failure of these initiatives in France probably lies more in the differences of British and French social life than in the measures themselves. Participation and community interest and involvement have always been much more important in Britain. CONCLUSIONS The new towns in France demonstrate only a modicum of success in quantitative and in broad physical terms. Yet, given the background to them that has been discussed above, it is commendable that they were established in the first place. The swift administrative rather than legislative lead adopted by de Gaulle was perhaps the only method which could have made an impact on the large numbers of communes. Possibly the greatest tragedy for the implementation of the programmes was the recession. It is impossible to speculate as to what might have been achieved if its impact had been less severe on the French economy, but even if higher growth rates had persisted, the traditional centre/periphery disputes would probably still have emerged. Indeed, it is hard to imagine how any form of spatial management can be successful with over 36 000 local communal councils in a country of only 52 million population. Yet the current French government have recently given more power to this level of administration through the Decentralisation Acts of 1982 and 1983. It is too early to say what the consequences of this transfer of power will be, but it is already evident that communes may wish to resist communal groupings even more than before; there are indeed already signs of communal withdrawals in Parisian new towns. Moreover, at the present time, the strong legislative lead adopted by Mitterand for the new system of local government suffers from vague notions of how it can be achieved administratively at the local level (Wilson, 1985). Perhaps at some future date a new government in France will introduce adequate and effective legislation and administration at the same time.


Going back to the question of transfer or diffusion of British new town experience, this chapter has shown that this was limited. In fact it is probably true to say that planning influence from one country to another can only be limited given the very different contexts of planning in every country and given the varying degrees of legitimacy, feasibility and support for new ideas from elsewhere. However, it is encouraging to see the ready acceptance and implementation of Buchanan in France, but it would also be encouraging for British planners and architects to look at, for example, primary school or housing design, public open space or landscaping in housing areas or the way in which public art has been incorporated in open spaces in French new town planning. Lessons from elsewhere can often be learned but evaluation in their own context and then in their potential foreign context is a necessary prerequisite of success. NOTES 1. La DATAR—Delegation d’aménagement du territoire et a l’action regional—was established as a interministerial coordinating committee in 1963 to decentralise industry from Paris to the provinces and in addition to develop growth strategies for eight counterbalancing provincial capitals: Aix/Marseille, Lyon/St. Etienne, Nancy, Metz, Lille/ Roubaix, Tourcoing, Nantes/St. Nazaire, Bordeaux and Toulouse. 2. OREAM—Organisation regional d’études de l’aire metropolitaire (regional study organisation for the metropolitan area); OREAV— Organisation regional d’étude de l’aire de la vallée (regional study organisation for the valley area). 3. ZAC or zone d’aménagement concerte are the lowest tier of plans in France. These are used by new towns for land development. Essentially they resemble design guides/development briefs.

REFERENCES Allen, L., 1982, British and French new town programmes, in: Comparative social research, ed R.F.Tomasson (Aijai Press, Greenwich, Connecticut and London) pp. 270–297. Ardagh, J. , 1983, France in the 80s (Pelican, Harmondsworth). House, J.W., 1976, France: an applied geography (Methuen, London). Lacaze, J.P., 1972, The role of French new towns in regional development and regional life (Ministere de l’Equipement, Paris). Ramsay, A., 1985, Planning aspects of new towns in France, Modern and Contemporary France Review, 22, pp. 20–29. Thoenig, J.C., 1973, L’Ere des technocrats (Les editions de l’Organisation, Paris).


Tuppen, J.N., 1979, New towns in the Paris Region: an appraisal, Town Planning Review, 50, pp. 55–70. Tuppen, J.N., 1983, The development of French new towns: an assessment of progress, Urban studies, 20, pp. 11–23. Wilson, I.B., 1985, Decentralising or recentralising the State? Urban planning and centre/periphery relations in France, in: Socialism, the State and public policy in France, ed P.G.Cerny and M.A.Schain (Francis Pinter, London; Methuen, New York) pp. 186–201.

-13New towns concept in Poland JACK WAWRZYNSKI

The new towns initiative in post-war Poland was the product of many socio-economic and spatial factors as well as the political decisions prevailing at the time. During that period the stringent and inflexible observance of political dogma in the country undoubtedly led to decisions which contradicted the principles of economic policy and, in time, made spatial and social development more difficult and less cost effective. Almost all the Polish new towns are located in the south of the country, in Upper Silesia. Most of these territories, although ethnically Polish, were under German administration until 1922. To understand the complexity of the problem one needs to begin by examining the spatial and economic structure of the Upper Silesian Industrial District (GOP) as part of the Regional Plan for Upper Silesia. THE AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE REGIONAL PLAN (1953) The economic development of Upper Silesia began in the nineteenth century when coal, which is the main raw material, became the basis of power for industry. During the last century and at the beginning of the twentieth century the region established itself as the richest and most rapidly developing industrial area in Poland. Simultaneous with the growing rate of population was a rapid expansion of settlements, for example, Bytom and Gliwice. The development of the region until the 1920s was not governed by any plans, resulting in spontaneous housing sprawl and devastation of the countryside along with air and water pollution (Fisher, 1966). The scale of the problem which planners were facing was enormous. In short, the extensive exploitation of coal resources resulted in a very high density of habitation and a chaotic communications network. Acute conflicts between the development of housing and mining (both not governed by any by-laws), accentuated by a severe water shortage, produced the disarrayed urban structure. To remedy the existing situation, as well as to promote economic, spatial and social integration of the area, the Regional Plan of 1953


suggested the concept of deglomeration of housing and industry from the central area (with a residential density of 2000 persons per square kilometre) to the peripheral area (density of only 182 persons per square kilometre) (Kotela, 1966). It was assumed that this process would achieve both passive decentralisation, based on limiting further development in the central area, and active decentralisation, as a result of relocating housing and industry and the creation of new settlements in the peripheral area (Figure 4). The principles of this policy were quite rightly argued on the basis of disparities in the residential and industrial densities in the district (Fisher, 1966). It was at this point that the concept of new towns was initiated. The most important new towns were: Nowa Huta (target population 200 000); Jastrzebie (60 000); Tarnowskie Gory (60 000) and Nowa Tychy (120 000). THE OBJECTIVES OF THE NEW TOWNS PROGRAMME On the basis of the 1953 Regional Plan it would be difficult to argue that the creation of new towns was for any other reason than to relieve overcrowding in the Upper Silesian Industrial District and provide dormitory towns for the growing population. In subsequent years, when the plan went through the process of evaluation and revision (1956) and the detailed local urban development plans were drawn up, it became apparent that the emphasis had switched towards achieving more selfcontained and balanced communities within the new towns—housing and industrial structures would complement each other in order to achieve a balanced socio-economic composition. The substantial investment to create jobs in new industries would provide a desirable ratio of jobs to resident workers thus eliminating the necessity to commute. Theoretically, these objectives were not dissimilar to the recommendations of the Reith Report on which the 1946 New Towns Act in Britain was based. To what extent Polish new town policy was influenced by the Reith Report is difficult to establish. Any conscious adoption of the British idea was politically inadmissible and the exchange of information extremely difficult. Even if such a link could have been documented, the implementation of the policy and the way in which the concept was carried out, was different in both countries. In Poland, where the socio-economic concept of new towns was conducted almost independently of external influence, and only the physical structure of urban development was vaguely modelled on the British experiment, most of the original objectives of the Regional Plan were not realised. The majority of the new towns which started their existence as dormitories have never had an opportunity to develop into self-contained units.

Source: Fisher, 1966

Figure 4. Polish new towns strategy.

NEW TOWNS CONCEPT IN POLAND 117


The most important factors were probably determined by the distance to the nearest well-established town or city, and the variety of job opportunities within the new town. The towns created as dormitories have been lacking in industrial investment and residents have had no alternative but to commute (causing the inefficient public transport system to become more congested). Even if a new town received a substantial allocation of industry (e.g. Nowa Huta), the proximity to the nearest urban centre made it impossible not to amalgamate, thus eliminating any potential for self-identity. For this reason, most of the newly created towns never reached the levels of self-containment seen in their British counterparts, although any serious analogy can only be made here with respect to the British Mark 1 new towns which initially contained a similar percentage of public rented accommodation (about 90%), and were also situated near the existing conurbations (average distance less than 50 km). In attempting to limit the scope of this chapter, two contrasting examples of new towns are discussed: Nowa Huta, as an apparent fiasco in achieving the goals of the ‘balanced’ and ‘self-contained’ urban community; and the Nowa Tychy, which is probably the most successful example of post-war urban development in Poland. NOWA HUTA Nowa Huta is the oldest ‘new town’, located near Cracow. Its construction began in 1949 well ahead of the first Regional Plan (1953). According to the original idea the town was to be a self-contained unit dependent on the new steel works complex (Heuer, 1958). Soon it became apparent that the location of the new town, as well as that of its principal industry, was the result of a purely political decision. The designated area for the development of the town was chosen too close to Cracow (only 6 km) and the location of the steel plant was most unfortunate because of the cost involved in the transport of raw materials from the nearest base. The proximity to Cracow was not accidental. Cracow was the centre of Polish heritage and culture with the majority of the population comprising the intelligentsia and white collar workers. The authorities had long regarded this social composition as unbalanced and, indeed, unwelcomed. In order to achieve a more even balance in the social structure it was decided to develop a major heavy industry at the outskirts of the city attracting large numbers of unskilled workers, and to build a first ‘socialist city’ as a counterbalance to a conservative Cracow. At the beginning of the 1950s the rapidly expanding Nowa Huta became amalgamated into the spatial structure of Cracow. The original target population of 100 000 people was exceeded and by 1965 the suburb reached the figure of 130 000. Since then, the population has continued to

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increase and at the beginning of the 1980s reached 200 000 (Ostrowski, 1970). The social, economic and spatial effects of this policy on Cracow were disastrous. The rapidly growing population faced with an insufficiently developed infrastructure in the new town, made a considerable impact on the inadequate public services and shops (making them even less adequate). The fast developing heavy industry and the consequent pollution of air and water soon resulted in the irreversible destruction of many listed buildings of national importance. Yet, the two main political goals were met: Cracow has ceased to exist in isolation, and Nowa Huta (as its suburb) has laid down the first principles of socialist realism in Polish architecture and town planning. NOWA TYCHY Following the principles of decentralisation outlined in the GOP regional plan, the new town of Tychy was designated by government decree in 1953, 18 km south of Katowice, with a target population initially set at 120 000 (Wejchert, 1970). The development, however, started three years earlier and in 1950 the first estate was built following the principles of socialist architecture outlined earlier for Nowa Huta. The spatial composition was based on rigid, geometrical axes and the style of housing was heavy and oppressive. Subsequent developments were based on the master plan finalised in 1953. Modelled on two compositioned axes, the plan attempted to provide a coherent urban structure with separate housing neighbourhoods linked to recreation and industry. The spatial concept, accentuated by a dominant town centre in the middle and linked to the railway, was reminiscent of the idea of British Mark I new towns. However, more emphasis was given to the prominance of the railway as a basic form of transport in Poland. The town started to develop near the old city of Tychy (population 10 000) taking advantage of the existing infrastructure. In the mid-1950s construction was moving towards the centre. The next estate had been supplemented by the development of infrastructure, services and shops near the central square, thus shifting the nerve of the town from the old settlement towards its new designated centre. This provided a unique opportunity for a more flexible phasing pattern as the concentrated infrastructure allows for different alternatives. In 1965 the population reached 50 000 (Wejchert, 1972) and by the end of the 1970s the town reached a figure of over 100 000. In view of the successful bid for a new car factory (Polski Fiat), consultations began with a view to expanding the population to 150 000. It is envisaged that this figure will be reached in 1987, but due to the current economic recession it is doubtful whether this will be realised.


THIRTY YEARS ON: THE CRITIQUE OF NOWA TYCHY Delays in implementation The master plan for Tychy was partly based on the Malisz’s (Polish economist and planner) theory of ‘thresholds’ which delineates the territorial and technological limitations of a development in relation to the cost per capita for each new inhabitant (Malisz, 1966). This theory, and the subsequent phasing of development, does not, however, take into account any bureaucratic delays in granting a detailed development permit. The main impediment which, for many years, has prevented the envisaged development taking place has been an apparent inability of the planning authorities to act promptly to release land for housing in the southern part of the town in accordance with the master plan. The local authority was not clear which system of prefabrication should go ahead and the Ministry did not want to commit itself to a firm decision (Adamczewska, 1972). The lack of communication between the two tiers of government and their inability to provide any guidance to planners/architects resulted in the distraction of urban structure in the northern part of the town. Faced with the growing housing pressure and being locked into bureaucratic inertia, the local authority allowed all vacant sites in the north to become residential, thus blatently contravening the principles of the master plan which designated these sites for other uses. The blame for the delay in reaching the implementation decision should perhaps be attached to the ways in which the Polish centralised planning system operates, as it very often prevents local authorities from reacting positively and swiftly to urgent implementation issues. The results are too frequently disastrous in environmental terms. Ill conceived, hasty proposals replace thoughtful solutions. Too often the outcome is a disintegration of the plan’s principles and a poor environment for the inhabitants. The inefficiency of public transport (railway) Another example of an inexcusable delay impeding the development process is the non-completion of the Tychy Railway Ring. This principal railway line was designated to link the new town with the main places of work: the coal mines at Wesola, Holdunow and Ledziny as well as to provide easy access to major towns: Katowice, Cracow and Oswiecim (formerly Auschwitz). In the 1970s the location of a major car factory in the east of the town exacerbated the problem and made it abundantly clear that the completion of the line (some 35 km) was an essential factor for the day to day functioning of the town and its future development.


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Ironically, the cost of completing the ring was less than the cost of running a special bus transport system that the industry had to provide for its workers, not mentioning the human costs of wasted time and tiredness reflected in lost production. To alleviate the problem of transport, the management of a number of coal mines built workers’ estates within the vicinity of the collieries, reminiscent of nineteenth century industrial estates. Similarly, the absence of a railway link to a large chemical factory in Oswiecim (18 km) made it necessary to develop residential sites for employees instead of Nowa Tychy absorbing this population. The location of these sites was contrary to the recommendations of the Health Ministry on the grounds of severe air pollution (Grzybowski, 1972). The evaluation of the development potentials in Nowa Tychy has clearly shown that, subject to an efficient public transport system (rail and road) being built, the town could probably have a capacity of about 230 000 people and could easily become a commercial and cultural centre in the southern GOP (Adamczewska, 1972). The structure and density of the residential development The master plan almost exclusively specified residential areas as highrise, system built, high density (155 ppa) developments. It was argued, as it was in Britain at that time, that this would allow the maximum use of open space and minimise the cost of services. The low-rise developments, although originally designated in the northern part of the town, have only partly materialised after 25 years. The unfavourable political climate, as well as the building by-laws stipulating the required minimum area of housing in relation to the infrastructure, prevented them from being built. In addition, at the time of notifying the master plan, one of the objections from the central authority concerned the number of the proposed low-rise units. The planners were asked to reduce this number by 50% and even then planning permission for the remaining half was withheld (Adamczewska, 1972). The reality of the situation, however, soon proved that market forces are difficult to control and certainly could not be ignored. In the late 1960s and especially in the 1970s, a rapid wave of new low-rise developments started, to the north of the town, on the dispersed private land adjoining the town boundaries. The spontaneous nature, as well as the chaotic character of these developments, resulted in the whole area being totally lost to any organised and cohesive approach complementing the architectural, urban and cultural structure of the new town. The municipal authorities were not interested in steering private low-rise development because such development was politically unacceptable for the public sector. Even today, this area of private land (some 300 ha) is not covered by the comprehensive local plan. Planning permissions are being granted on the basis of the information contained in the 1:5000 plan,


which does not help to alleviate the problem. It seems that the only way forward is for an urgent review of the present status quo and the drawing up of a detailed plan to cover the area. This would at least attempt to rationalise the spontaneous deve lopment and make it more cohesive and sympathetic to the character of Nowa Tychy. The spatial character of the town The spatial cohesion between separate neighbourhoods results in a harmonious and congruous character for the town. To what extent the implementation of Nowa Tychy has managed to achieve this aim remains to be seen, as the town has not yet been fully completed. It is, however, obvious that the planners were conscious of the relationship between the spatial character of the neighbourhoods (each containing 25 000 people) and the image of the town as a whole. Looking at the spatial structure of new towns in Europe and Great Britain, it is evident that achieving this harmonious balance is probably the most difficult task for a physical planner. A town, as perceived by its inhabitants, should have a definite and unmistakably unique character emphasised by the spatial relationship between various built forms which should culminate at the thriving town centre. The apparent indifference of the spatial fabric, together with the uniformity of the centre, results too often in a lack of character for the town and is perceived as a design failure. This also explains why well established old medium size towns, which are never a conglomeration of separate estates built within a relatively short span of time, enjoy their popularity. Perhaps the most interesting feature in the design of Nowa Tychy is the conscious attempt to achieve a progressive scale of urban character (which is so characteristic of older Polish settlements). All peripheral sites forming the boundaries are of relatively low density and are devloped with low- or medium-rise buildings. Coming towards the city centre the density increases and culminates in the high-rise estates surrounding the town centre. This transitional use of the urban form makes it possible to perceive the town as one entity and not as a conglomerate of spatial units. CONCLUSIONS What seems to be apparent in the history of Polish new towns is that some of the most interesting spatial concepts (e.g. Jastrzebie New Town) have never truly functioned as proper town organisms. The reason is that, in spite of their apparent quality of design, they lacked efficiency in their implementation. What seems to matter is the time factor from inception of a town to its maturity (or at least completion). It is vital that


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this maturity is achieved in a predetermined length of time stipulated by the master plan. The example of Nowa Tychy clearly shows how delays in the development process, frequent changes to the design, interference of political power and, above all, the uncertainty of economic policy, have all forced the implementation process to take much longer. This has led, in part, to changes in the original concept with deleterious effects, for example, spatial chaos at the northern boundary and non-completion of the railway ring causing new estates to be built next to heavy industry. It could also be argued that the planners should be aware of the relationship between spatial form and structure of the town on the one hand, and on the other, its envisaged time for implementation. The towns which grow more quickly should, perhaps, have different form from the towns maturing at a much slower pace, say for three to four generations. The development of new towns in post-war Poland cannot be judged by the criteria adopted in Western Europe. The concept itself, although technically not dissimilar to the British one, has been developed in relative isolation and has had to suit the rigid political climate prevailing at the time. The objectives of self-containment and balanced community were similar in Britain and in Poland, however, the different implementation of these issues and indeed their different interpretation have resulted in a large number of disparities. REFERENCES Adamczewska, H., 1972, Historia Optymistyczna, Architektura, 2, p. 42, (Polish Association of Architects). Fisher, J.C. (ed.), 1966, City and regional planning in Poland (Cornell University Press, New York). Grzybowski, A., 1972, Konfrontacje, Architektura, 2, p. 40, (Polish Association of Architects). Heuer, J., 1958, Neue Städte in Polen, Monatshefte für Neuzeitlichen Wohnungsbau, 8 , (Neue Heimat, Hamburg). Kotela, C., 1966, Silesian-Cracow Regional Plan, in: city and regional planning in Poland, ed. J.C.Fisher (Cornell University Press, New York) p. 113. Malisz, B., 1966, The theory of organising settlement networks (Arkady, Warsaw). Ostrowski, W., 1970, L’urbanisme contemporaine (Centre Reserches d’Urbanisme, Paris). Wejchert, K., 1970, Nowa Tychy, Deutsche Architektur, 6. Wejchert, K., 1972, Tychy New Town, Architektura, 2 , (Polish Association of Architects).

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-14Diffusion of the new town idea in the developing world PATSY HEALEY

The ideas about land use planning and town design in use today are closely associated with the processes of urbanisation and urban development which have arisen in association with industrial and related modes of production. The precise form of these processes is highly specific in time and place, reflecting the particularities of economic organisation, land tenure traditions, and cultural values about place and environment. Yet ideas about how to manage the processes of urban development have become increasingly internationalised as a result of the diffusion of expertise in the urban planning field. Within this body of ideas, that of the new town idea has been a particularly powerful one, with a significant impact on how we think about town design and urban management generally. Its power lies partly in its symbolism of the possibility of an alternative urban environment. New town schemes which are translated into an actual project involve substantial political commitment and resource deployment. They also represent a deliberate challenge to existing urban development processes and trends in spatial organization. They are thus change agents on a large scale. This chapter offers some suggestions as to how we should identify and evaluate the way in which the international idea of the new town as an approach to the problems of urban development has been put to use in the developing world. By the developing world, I am referring to those countries which have experienced rapid urbanisation in the past 20 years, and are therefore confronted for the first time, and often on a massive scale, with the problems of urban development. WHAT DO WE MEAN BY THE NEW TOWN IDEA? Once we come to look closely at the new town idea it is evident that it consists of a number of different elements. 1. The idea of a new town as a new community, with different ways of organising social and economic life. This has had a long life in


utopian literature, with interesting recent examples to be found in such writings as Doris Lessing’s Shikasta. 2. The idea of a new town within a regional spatial stategy, associated with such objectives as resource development, decongestion of metropolitan concentrations and regional equalisation of development opportunities. 3. The idea of the spatial organisation, or design, of a town, and the development of a body of ideas on appropriate design. 4. The idea of a different approach to town building, in particular the principle of combining the land, capital and building resources for town building under the aegis of a single agency. Each of these ideas has diffused around the world, but in different ways at different times. For example, in Ankara, the idea of a new town as a symbol of a different approach to political priorities in Turkey was not developed into ideas about town design and urban development management. Consequently, Ankara is a largely self-build new town (Payne, 1982). Within the USA, new towns are primarily large residential and commercial development projects, rather than a deliberate solution to spatial policy problems and the financing of urban development, unlike in the UK. In many capital city projects, the design of the new town has been more important than the approach to urban development management. In fact, in assessing the impact of the new town idea in the developing world, we are faced with a very wide remit, since these various ideas are not realised only in new town projects, but in approaches to urban development management generally. If, therefore, we are to explore the way the new town idea has been diffused, we must both isolate its constituent elements and assess how each has been adopted and adapted in particular situations. In this chapter, it is impossible to explore all of these elements and their potential impacts. I will therefore concentrate on new town projects and their assumptions and on the impacts of the urban development process. WHY ARE COUNTRIES ATTRACTED TO THE NEW TOWN IDEA? Whenever we analyse the way new town ideas have been used in individual countries, we must recognise the very specific political and economic conditions prevailing in each case. Nevertheless, a number of possible political and economic reasons can be suggested for the interest in one or other of the elements of the new town idea in a particular country at a particular time.

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Among the political factors, we may identify the following: 1. The desire for a physical symbol for a new nation (Dodoma in Tanzania, or Chandigarh in India), or of a new regime (Ankara in Turkey or Brasilia in Brazil). The latter may be encouraged where the power elite of a new regime is politically opposed to the elites which control major cities. 2. The search for a dramatic solution to the problems of existing cities. In many countries, a few cities have grown rapidly into multimillion metropolises, with inadequate services and layouts, and enormous problems of congestion, pollution and living conditions, with the incidence of these problems often very unequally distributed. In these conditions, building a new town may be seen as an easier solution than dealing with the problems of the existing one (e.g. Ajuba in Nigeria or the new capital city project being discussed in Venezuela in the early 1980s). 3. The promotion of regional development in areas without a tradition of urbanisation. The building of new towns in this context is often associated with growth pole strategies, as with Ciudad Guayana in Venezuela, despite the well-recognised inappropriateness of such an approach to areas without the economic institutions and urban places through which the impact of specific investment initiatives can filter (Gore, 1984). 4. The building of new towns in association with colonisation strategies, where new settlements are a tool to settle and obtain control over new territories. There are many examples of this, linked to the expansion of European civilisation into Latin America and Africa, and in earlier periods, within Europe itself. One of the characteristics of developing countries in the contemporary world is that rather than being pushed by economic imperatives, as in nineteenth century Europe, public policy on urbanisation strategies and management tends to be dominated by ideological concerns. This often means that issues concerning the economic and social viability of major projects such as new town building are quite inadequately explored. In any case, the professional tradition focused more on questions of design and management than economics. Nevertheless, countries may be encouraged to turn to new town ideas for economic reasons. Among such reasons, we may isolate the following: 1. The need to provide for massively increasing demands for urban space consequent upon large scale rural-urban migration and economic development. 2. More specifically, the need to provide for workers’ housing in a more appropriate form than the barracks often associated with


resource exploitation by international companies and colonial powers. 3. The search for economies in the provision of infrastructure, and the belief that large scale coordinated infrastructure projects could be more efficient than constant upgrading of inadequate systems in existing cities. 4. The rising costs of congestion in existing cities, as reflected in travel to work times where transport systems have not caught up with rapid urban growth, and also as reflected in rising land values, and hence rising costs for industrial land, and for housing. 5. As an approach to volume housing provision by house-building firms. This is only likely to arise where there is sufficient demand for housing for sale in the conventional Western manner, and where the housebuilding industry has some very large firms within it. The advantage of large new settlements in these circumstances is that the housebuilding firm can control the overall environment of individual projects and sell the environmental image as much as the individual property. In most cases, new town projects will arise from a combination of factors such as the above. Six types of new town project may thus be recognised: the capital city project; ‘overspill’ towns, or decongestion projects; workers’ towns; regional development projects; housebuilding projects; and colonisation projects. But what leads to the translation of an idea into a project and a project into actual building? Many projects have a brief existence as a flamboyant idea, disappearing with a change of government or a new political priority. Others continue a half life in the archives of public agencies. Among the preconditions for translating a new town project into action on the ground are strong and continuing political commitment, a large and stable supply of resources and some economic rationale for the project. However, the ability of political leaders in certain circumstances to amass sufficient resources for a grand project should not be underestimated. If this then leads to the building of a new town, this itself will create economic demands, for construction and service activities at the very least. NEW TOWN PROJECTS AND LOCAL URBAN DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES If realised into action, then, a new town project may have a significant effect on economic and social processes in an area, and on the spatial patterns and urban forms that may then arise. Conversely, the way a project is realised into actual development may reflect more the local


traditions of urban development as these are themselves changing, than the intentions of the town designers. Our problem about addressing the question of the relation between new town building processes and the processes by which other urban settlements are being constructed is that our knowledge of these latter is limited. We must attribute this to academic neglect; to the assumption within much planning thought that either the state would do the building or that the market would respond to the supply and demand conditions created by a plan; and to failure to stress the importance of the specific local conditions in which development projects are realised. Whatever the reason, for too long it was assumed that urban growth could be managed by imported mechanisms transposed into local building codes and zoning ordinances. Meanwhile, local people in most countries have been evolving their own solutions to getting access to land, funds and building materials and building the urban environment, from squatting and self-help building, to buying and selling tribal lands, and turning public assets into land markets in one way or another. The process of urban development involves the assembly of land, labour and capital to provide the space and buildings for individual activities. It also involves the organisation of activities in space, to maximise externality benefits and minimise costs; the provision of a range of collectively enjoyed or public goods, both physical and social; and the organisation of development and its allocation once completed. If we examine each of these, the developing world provides examples of processes which are very different from the assumptions embodied in the various versions of the new town idea developed in the Western world. Taking land first, the new town idea generally assumes the public or collective ownership of development land. In Howard’s original garden city model, such collective ownership was presented as a contrast to a well-developed private market in land. In many parts of the Third World today, such private markets do not really exist, although we can see them beginning to emerge in the way public lands inherited from colonial times are distributed and in the transformations of customary forms of land tenure. Where land markets and the private ownership of land do exist, as in Latin America, the form of land ownership may vary significantly. Where there have been land reform programmes, as in Mexico, the land market may be characterised by large numbers of small units. In Venezuela, in contrast, most rural land onto which urban areas are expanding is held in large estates, placing their owners in a monopoly position in the local land market. Mean while, thanks to the colonial Law of the Indies (Mundigo and Crouch, 1977), many Latin American cities still have reserves of communal lands which were set aside for the future farming needs of the growing settlements. These ejido lands provide one of the opportunities for the poor, who may aquire them by invasion under favourable political circumstances, as is the case in Venezuela (Gilbert, 1984). Elsewhere, the poor may have to rely on various forms of illegal


land subdivision, which provides plots without the standards and infrastructure requirements necessary for legal subdivisions. Where squatting develops as a way of getting access to land, any public lands may become vulnerable to invasion. Consequently the illegal invasion of lands set aside for new town building is a very likely possibility. Similar complexities arise when we consider the organisation of labour in the development process. The new town idea takes for granted a building industry with the capability for producing both large scale building projects and a considerable volume of output. In some countries, this would mean the creation of such an industry. It would be of considerable interest to research the effect of new town building projects on the organisation of local building industries. Only recently has the importance of using local building materials and local approaches to urban development become more widely recognised. New town projects in the developing world in practice encouraged large scale organisation in the construction industry, using international rather than locally available building materials and technologies, and were based on international standards for building structures and shapes. Such encouragement, reinforced by building codes for existing cities, served to suppress or drive into illegal channels much indigeneous building capability. Luckily, international thinking on this issue has now changed, but its legacy lives on in the attachment of local elites to imported standards. If implemented, a new town project will consume large amounts of capital. The new town idea assumes either that public subsidy of a sufficient size will be available over a long period, or that financial institutions will be prepared to invest on a large scale in the search for secure long term returns. In most parts of the developing world, political instability and severe pressure on local economies precludes any security about the scale of public resources that will be forthcoming. Meanwhile the financial institutions for investment on this scale may not exist. If they do, they are more likely to be geared to short term investment returns than long term ones, particularly where the political scene does not guarantee stability. And if funds were forthcoming for the major investments, where would the occupiers get the resources to buy or rent the space provided? In many cities in the developing world, most people cannot afford a sufficient rent for anything except a minimal amount of space with facilities that bear no relation to international standards. Those who do have more resources are often skilled in legitimate and illegitimate ways of avoiding payment for the space they occupy. Yet in existing cities, structures are being built, and space bought and rented. So who is investing, and with what? Self-help is of course one resource, but this cannot be considered as a costless input. Where people are investing their time, they are forgoing the opportunity to use that time for earning. Many families will hire neighbours to help with building.


In any case, it is usually necessary to purchase building materials. It is clear that hard-won personal savings are a very important resource currently being invested in the built environment. This may be supplemented by family savings, as is evident where migrants send money earned overseas for investment in buildings. This has for long been important in countries such as Turkey and Greece (Payne, 1982; Roe, 1979). We need to know much more about the way small capital of this kind is being circulated in the built environment and how these processes can be facilitated. The standard solution to encouraging private capital investment in the land and property has been to set up the paraphenalia of banks, mortgage lending and savings and loans associations. These tend to enable investment by a small middle and upper class only. When we look at the organisation of development, its spatial arrangement and the provision of infrastructure, the situation in existing towns may be hopelessly confused. Older larger cities will often have plans, but these may in practice only relate to the small amount of development that proceeds legally. Even here, avoidance of plan provisions is common, particularly because so much development is likely to be initiated by the public sector in one form or another. In the developing world as with the developed world, public agencies are typically the worst offenders in ignoring plan requirements. Where development does not take place within the organising framework of a plan, the spatial arrangements that evolve are likely to be the result of complex mixtures of land ownership patterns, political priorities and major investment decisions, producing a structure of relatively favoured and unfavoured locations around which land markets may slowly emerge. It is the major physical infrastructure decisions which are probably crucial here. However, these are rarely taken with any integrated view of overall patterns of urban development. The advantage of a new town project may be that it promises the possibility of integration. But in many cases the realisation of this hope has been undermined by the way the infrastructure provisions have been conceptualised. For example, in Dodoma in Tanzania, consultants proposed a water and drainage system which operated given a certain minimum level of flow. With lower rates of development and less investment in water supply than envisaged, the system actually clogs up. Even in new towns, major public investments of this kind may still remain in the control of big public agencies rather than the new town agency. The new town idea assumes that such an agency would have control over all the resources needed for development. It was thus an autonomous, decentralised agency. The agencies created for the management of new town projects in the developing world have taken many forms, but few have that kind of autonomy. The very political commitment that is needed to get them off the ground may be counterproductive to such an arrangement. In addition, many developing


countries are strongly centralised in their political and administrative arrangements, making such autonomy difficult to negotiate. This kind of analysis helps us to evaluate the desirability of a new town project in any specific situation, the likelihood of it being realised and how implementation might be approached. It also helps us to assess what the impact of a project might be on existing urban development processes. In other words, a sensitive understanding of local political and economic conditions as these are reflected in emerging demands for urban space and buildings and the urban development processes evolving to accommodate these is a prerequisitie for any assessment of how the new town idea might be used, if at all, to positive effect in a particular situation. For, while individual experts may have little control over the adoption of the new town idea as a political priority in any instance, they may very well have a significant input into how it is realised. A BRIEF EXAMPLE: VENEZUELA My own work on Venezuela has concentrated on urban development processes in rapidly expanding existing towns, not on new town projects. But this is perhaps a useful perspective from which to review the impact of the new town idea in a country. For a fuller account, readers are referred to Gilbert and Healey (1985). Venezuela is an oil rich country which has experienced very rapid urbanisation since the 1930s. The population is currently around 15 million. 84% of whom live in urban areas. This may be contrasted with around 40% of a much smaller population in urban areas in 1950. The country’s economy is almost totally dominated by oil, which has supported the development of a modern consumer economy. With large numbers of people moving to the cities, high rates of city growth, a concentration of economic activities in the centre of the country, and large scale resources available to governments through oil revenues, it is hardly surprising that new towns have been on the Venezuelan political agenda. As far as I can discover, the following new town projects have been discussed at various time in recent years: capital city projects ‘overspill’ projects regional development workers’ housing housebuilding projects colonisation projects

under discussion in the early 1980s; Tuy Medio; project/ Ciudad Guyana, Altagracia, (formerly El Tablazo); none, though there have been many large housing estates; and settlement programme for the South.


The only project which has been vigorously pursued is Ciudad Guayana. This project is well-known in the international literature as Rodwin and Associates of MIT were called in as advisers (Rodwin et al., 1969). While these academic consultants have made a lot of mileage out of the project over the years, they admit that for them it was largely a learning experience. The origin of the project lay in the commitment to exploit massive iron ore and hydro-electric resources in the south west of the country. This was a very sparsely inhabited area, whose poor soils had discouraged agricultural development. Its resource potential had been identified for many years, and there was some interest in development here by international companies in the 1950s. However, in 1958 a new democratic regime came to power in the country after ousting the dictator Perez Jimenez. This government had been strongly influenced by the ideas being developed within the Economic Commission for Latin America which stressed the possibility of nationally controlled economic development through planning. Regional development as part of a national planning strategy was also emphasised, partly because the majority of the government’s supporters lived outside the central region at this time (Friedmann, 1965). In this context, the development of the resources in the Ciudad Guyana area provided an opportunity to put the strategy of nationally controlled economic development to work in a way which also stressed a commitment to regional investment. Associated with a major resource development initiative, the necessary housing and services were not to be provided in the form of the workers’ barracks which were typical of the early days of oil exploitation, but incorporated in a new city of modern design. To manage the project, the Corporation Venezolana de Guayana was established. Lands for resource development and for the new town were vested in it, and it was allocated a substantial budget. Construction was to be largely carried out by the private sector, which in Venezuela was highly centralised and had already expanded considerably on the back of the many large scale development projects financed by the various dictators which had preceded the democracy. It was anticipated that earnings in the city would be high enough to support a substantial middle class housing market for sale, while the less affluent would be accommodated in public housing schemes. Meanwhile, physical and social infrastructure investment would be carried out by the major national agencies responsible for each service. Thus the project had all the ingredients of a successful new town project when seen from the perspective of a Western developed economy. But it rapidly became evident that the city was not going to grow as envisaged. Its greatest success was and is that economic resources were exploited and were associated with a considerable amount of localised development, even if iron and steel production were much less valuable in the international economy of the 1970s than had been envisaged. In


addition, large numbers of people have been attracted to the area. As a town building project, however, there have been major problems. The most serious was the failure to appreciate that those on low incomes would not be able to afford the public housing provided, even if it were made available in sufficient quantity, and that in any case large numbers of people with irregular sources of income would be attracted by the prospect of the opportunities created by so much investment. Conventional methods of providing housing were very unlikely to accommodate this influx. In any case, the Venezuelan poor were beginning to make extensive use of land invasion as a way of getting access to land. Before long, the thriving squatter community of San Felix was growing up beside the planned new town. This itself was designed on the lines of an American suburban subdivision, with streets, and infrastructure provided in advance. By 1971, many more people were living in San Felix than in the new town, and the residents of the latter went to San Felix for many of their services, since these were better and cheaper. Among the thriving services developing in San Felix were the various activities associated with self-help housing construction. Nevertheless, there were problems in getting access to building materials. Here the national construction companies were able to reap benefits by the control of the supply of metal sheeting which was used extensively for roofs and walls, at least initially. Meanwhile, the development agency faced considerable problems in coordinating the investments of the major infrastructure agencies, which had many competing claims on their resources and were certainly not noted for their efficiency. To the extent that the Ciudad Guayana project failed, then, the problem lay in the inadequate attention given to the way in which the public sector operates in a country such as Venezuela, and the lack of understanding of how people housed themselves. The project also had many inadequacies as a regional development tool. This was particularly evident with respect to agriculture. It had been assumed that the congregation of people would, by the simple workings of supply and demand, generate agricultural expansion. But poor soils and communications prevented such a response. For some time, food was expensively transferred out to the town from the capital. Local production did not start to increase significantly until major drainage works were undertaken in the estuary of the Rio Orinoco. Despite all these implementation failures, which will have a familiar ring to many with experience of new town projects in the developing world, the Ciudad Guayana project had another interesting side effect. It in fact increased interest in regional development and regional planning. This happened because other regions began to call for the kind of investment which the Guayana area had been receiving. By 1969, a government had been elected which was committed to a programme of regional development, and throughout the 1970s regional lobbies began to


play a significant part in battling for resources from what had been a highly centralised state, both politically and spatially. Two other new town projects have been under discussion, if in a somewhat desultory fashion, since the 1940s. El Tablazo (now called Altagracia), on the eastern shores of Lake Maracaibo, is another workers’ housing project, linked to the development of a petro-chemical works. Tuy Medio was an overspill scheme, intended to help relieve the increasing congestion around Caracas. In the late 1960s, Llewelyn Davies, Weekes, Forestier-Walker and Bor were hired as consultants on these two schemes, producing reports which were very similar in content and presentation to that for Milton Keynes. Both led to some land purchase, but there was major resistance to compulsory purchase for state purposes, since one of the reasons for the fall of the dictator was that he had evicted large numbers of people in Caracas in order to construct grandiose public projects. In any case, public lands were liable to be rapidly invaded. There had been little in the way of planned development in either location by the early 1980s as far as I am aware. During the early 1970s, the Venezuelan government was also interested in colonisation projects in its deep south. The reason for this is clear. Brazil had been opening up its northern Amazon regions, and Venezuela could not afford to neglect its southern boundaries. But since these areas are a long way from the urban civilisation and opportunities which most Venezuelans value highly, these settlement projects were rather like the colonies of classical Roman times. Soldiers were to be paid to settle in what were little more than military encampments. Again, I have heard little about these projects in recent years. Finally, in the early 1980s, the then government was attracted to the idea of moving the capital from Caracas to somewhere in the interior. The reasons for this were the extreme congestion costs now experienced in Caracas, coupled with the search for a symbolic programme to show a new regimes’s commitment to action for the capital, the previous regime having invested in a large metro project. The country’s financial crisis of 1982 linked to falling world oil prices removed this project from much serious consideration. So despite the considerable problems of expanding existing towns to accommodate the rapid increase in population, and despite the surfacing of new town projects at several times since the war, only the Ciudad Guayana project has been realised in a noticeable way. It is the only project to have had an impact both within its region and on thinking about regional development strategies and urban management. The reasons for the lack of progress on the other projects are not hard to find. Any new town project would involve the sequestration of private development rights, which is politically unacceptable in contemporary Venezuela. Ciudad Guayana did not encounter this problem because the land involved was at the time seen as having very little value. In most other


areas, private landowners are far too politically powerful and too well aware of the rising value of land to enable land assembly to proceed by negotiation on any significant scale. In any case, Venezuelans have evolved sophisticated development mechanisms of land invasion, land subdivision and estate development. These work most effectively in extending towns rather than new town building. In other words, the State’s ability to control the processes of urban development is currently too limited to make a new town project attractive to any of those who would have to be involved in its realisation. SOME IMPLICATIONS The kind of approach I have adopted here leads to the conclusion that we need to view the role of the new town in urban development with great caution. It is in fact a package of ideas about urbanisation policy, about spatial organisation, about how to develop and how to manage towns. The only common element in these ideas is the notion of creating a town from scratch, rather than managing change in existing ones. Far from being a progressive innovation, the idea of a new town can often be a form of escapism, a refusal to recognise the problems of the way urban development is proceeding in existing towns. Yet, if these existing urban development processes are not recognised, it is unlikely that a new town project will progress far in implementation, should it ever reach the stage of actual investment. A partially-built new town may lead to a lower quality of life and a less satisfactory economic environment than the expansion of existing towns. Such a conclusion does not of course imply that a specific new town project or a programme of urbanisation throug new town building is necessarily ill-advised. It merely means that the desirability of such projects and programmes must be sensitively evaluated against specific local conditions. The new town idea as we have understood it this century in fact arose out of the very specific economic and political conditions of European urbanisation. The developing world may be experiencing rapid urbanisation, but its scale and nature are very different from the European experience, and so varied are the conditions of the developing world that generalisation about its urban development experience must be approached with great caution. Yet as a community of experts, we spend far too little time specifying the conditions which give rise to the problems for which the various elements of the new town idea might be possible solutions. As I have argued elsewhere, we should not be spending our time polishing up the solutions. These will never be of much value unless invented and adapted to the specificities of local situations (Healey, 1985). It is to the real processes of social, economic and political change as reflected in evolving urban development processes and the real possibilities of affecting these that we need to turn our attention.


REFERENCES Friedmann, J., 1965, Venezuela: from doctrine to dialogue, (Syracuse University Press, Syracuse). Gilbert, A.G., 1984, Planning, invasions and land speculation: the role of the state in Venezuela. Third World Planning Review, 6(3), pp. 225–238. Gilbert, A.G. and Healey, P., 1985, The political economy of land: urban development in an oil economy (Gower, Aldershot). Gore, C., 1984, Regions in question (Methuen, London). Healey, P., 1985, Whatever happened to methodology in land use planning, Ekistics, 52, pp. 131–135. Mundigo, A. and Crouch, D.P., 1977, The city planning ordinances of the Law of the Indies revisited, Town Planning Review, Part I 48(3), pp. 247–268, Part II 48(4), pp. 397–418. Payne, G.K., 1982, Self-help housing: a critique of the Gekondus of Ankara, in: Self-help housing: a critique, ed. P.M.Ward (Mansell, London) pp. 117–139. Rodwin, L. and Associates, 1969, Planning, urban growth and regional development (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts). Roe, B., 1979, Settlements without planning: Athens, Ekistics, 46, pp. 82–100.

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PART FOUR The role of international agencies in promoting cross-national comparisons

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-15Introduction DAVID MASSEY

Cross-national exchanges of ideas are nothing new to modern town planning as Sutcliffe and Ramsay have discussed above. Characteristically, however, early comparisons were made informally—by search parties, for instance, such as that sent to Germany under the guidance of Horsfall by Birmingham City Council in the early 1900s, or by networks of personal communication between professionals/academics and charismatic individuals, such as those which sprung up between Britain and North America at much the same time and expressed in the work of Unwin and Adams (Simpson, 1985). These means of promoting comparisons are now well-tested and remain powerful and influential today. From a very early date, however, needs have been expressed for less ad hoc and more formal ways of undertaking comparative study and for advocating certain planning policies and transferring/adapting them to local circumstances. Hence the enduring role of such bodies as the International Federation for Housing and Planning (IFHP), and the growth of new mulilateral search parties, such as Managing the metropolis (Ogden, 1981) and systematised academic networks, represented most graphically in the last 25 years by the Regional Science movement. These formal academic/practitioner associations have been paralleled by the development of interest groups such as the International Real Estate Federation and multinational (or at least exportoriented) consulting and contracting firms (Chapter 19, below). A further dimension has been added by the emergence of international foundations such as the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the European Cultural Foundation. The development of international agencies (IAs) with specific concerns in promoting cross-national comparisons is more particularly a feature of the post-war period. In effect it is a constituent part of the growth of global and regional associations between nation-states as represented by their governments, a phenomenon which has further given rise to a few semi-autonomous supranational agencies, for example, the Commission of the European Communities. In this development a most significant role


attaches to the United Nations Organisation and its regional and specialist agencies. The pioneering work of its various committees on housing, building and planning/human settlements, both centrally and within the regional Economic Commissions, has been significantly strengthened since 1970. First, through the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Environment, then the 1976 Habitat Conference in Vancouver and, finally, the establishment of new United Nations IAs representative of specific human settlement and environmental planning concerns, not least insofar as they affect newly-developing countries. Other IAs with substantial international planning involvements include the World Bank International Development Association, mostly concerned with developed/ developing country transfer relationships, and, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Council of Europe (CoE) which are representative of the interests of the developed Western nations. Among these international agencies OECD has recently been most active in comparative study, notably with its ‘managing urban change’ programme. (Batty, 1984). Although the IAs have contacts with the informal world of search parties, individual and groups of researchers and consultants and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), in promoting cross-national comparisons, it is important for all those concerned to recognise that the differing elements typically have very different interests and roles. Similarly, although the accumulated cross-national comparative work of the IAs represents the single greatest investment of time, manpower and data resources, it is not necessarily appreciated as such by, for instance, academic researchers. Part IV explores some of these dimensions of cooperative tension represented by the role of IAs in promoting crossnational comparisons. By way of introduction to the four chapters which follow it is worth remarking on the general features of IAs which generate both cooperative efforts and conflicts. First, and central to the work of IAs, is the role of national governments. The interests of national governments may, for instance, lead them to promote their own ideas for comparative study as this may help advance a domestic policy; alternatively, they may wish to oppose such a study so as to avoid a potential threat to domestic policy issues. Furthermore although a comparative project or programme may be of no intrinsic interest to a national government, it may be opposed due to resource constraints elsewhere or it may be endorsed because the time involved in the study will be a convenient procedural step in deferring a domestic or international policy decision. Even where apparently cross-national comparative work is being promoted, the outcome may be more simply international, for example, a set of national snapshots of best practice without any real effort at comparison. Here national governments may be expressing the political desirabilities of reducing comparative perspectives so as to reinforce

INTRODUCTION 143

national self-images. Govern ments may also choose to act bilaterally (e.g. over the Channel Tunnel) or multilaterally (e.g. over policies for maritime regions and coastal zones) with regard to subjects which have at least an a priori comparative element, but may do so without a specific commitment to promoting comparisons. Effective promotion of cross-national comparative work by IAs involves an element of consensus among the recognised self-interests of national governments. These may be very different to those of academics interested in theory testing and development. Governments also tend to look to fairly short-term policy horizons in accepting subjects for comparative study or in giving to prioritizing projects within a study programme. Further, they are more interested in problem-solving rather than problem-seeking comparisons. There is thus a tendency to look for some form of transfer-learning in promoting comparative studies, which leads to a form of contract consultancy rather than research efforts for academics involved with IAs. Where the IA in question has developed a continuing life, a basis of technical expertise and perhaps a data source, the permanent officers/ secretariat may develop far more of an interactive relationship with national governments and NGOs. Through a form of self-generating bureaucratic growth they may be able to initiate projects and programmes within the broader consensus of politically-endorsed policy objectives. Bodies such as the Commission of the European Communities, which have a yet more independent status, may well be concerned to promote a wider range of basic and policy-related comparative studies as they develop their own policy fields, but perhaps lack adequate understanding and evaluation. Such considerations as those discussed above suggest that there is a double dilemma at the heart of cross-national comparative studies involving IAs. There is the dilemma of comparison itself and its formal expression in contingency theory and its commonplace expression in the question: are we comparing apples and oranges or different types of apple? This is perhaps a general problem of cross-national comparisons anyway, but more specifically, there is the further dilemma of crossnational and cross-cultural relationships between groups who may have fundamentally different interests and views. Concluding their discussion on the theme of ‘comparative study of policies for the improvement of the existing urban fabric’ in Paris in 1980, the representatives attending the Fourth UN Economic Commission for Europe Conference on Urban and Regional Research (UN, 1980) broke through the usual bland reportage characteristics of IAs with the rather plaintive comment that ‘a lively debate showed up the somewhat intractable communication difficulties that arise between researchers, planners and administrators, particularly where research is concerned’ (para.49). The dilemma was not resolved in this instance by the immediately following statement that ‘all the


participants stated that their common objective was to help to improve the quality of life’. A rather more practical step had been urged earlier where: In view of the rapid development of urban and regional planning research and the difference in definitions and terminology between countries and disciplines, it was recommended to establish a digest on the terminology used in human settlements planning in the three official languages of the (Economic Commission for Europe) (para.30). In the first of the four contributions which follow, Williams sets the scene by describing the functions of the major European international agencies and presenting some examples of cross-national research projects or opportunities. Secondly, Zetter describes OECD’s work developing internationally comparable urban data and draws in related work by academic researchers and by the UN. Davies then discusses the experience of a researcher involved in comparative studies. He concludes with a recognition of the inherent difficulties in such tasks and a suggestion that if the IAs can strengthen their technical autonomy, they will be better placed to promote a positive understanding and contribution to policy. Part IV is concluded with Masser’s chapter on the transferrability of planning experience between countries. An important feature being the attention it draws to the role of IAs in resource allocation both within Europe and the developed Western world to the newly developing countries. It is in the latter policy dimension of cross-national comparisons where the dual dilemmas are being most forcefully played out with the least understanding, knowledge and evaluation. To some observers this is part and parcel of a seemingly inexorable global diffusion of Western ideas and technology. That may be so, but when the most advanced IA representatives are only just bringing an international urban data set together for themselves and considering common definitions, the folk myth of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice might seem to many to be a surer guide to prudent cross-national studies and actions within the purview of IAs than most of those we currently have to offer. The four chapters presented here may tell us that the first step has been taken in a great endeavour, but such a recognition can only then make us aware of how far we have to go. REFERENCES Batty, M., 1984, Urban policies in the 1980s: a review of the OECD proposals for managing urban change, Town Planning Review, 55, pp. 489–498. Ogden, W., 1981, Managing the metropolis: studies of urban regions in north west Europe, Town Planning Review, 52, pp. 167–183.

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Simpson, M., 1985, Thomas Adams and the modern planning movement: Britain, Canada and the United States 1900–1940 (Mansell, London). UN, 1980, Committee on Housing, Building and Planning, Report of the

Fourth ECE Conference on Urban and Regional Research, Paris, 1980,

HBP/SEM.25/2 (United Nations, Geneva).

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-16Policy analysis and the work of supranational bodies RICHARD WILLIAMS

This chapter discusses the proposition that cross-national comparative research provides opportunities for theory or policy testing which are not offered by purely national research, and that by this means comparative research can therefore make a distinctive contribution to the work of supranational or international agencies. The concept of policy analysis within cross-national comparative research is considered first, followed by an outline of the interests and responsibilities of certain supranational agencies and a discussion of selected planning procedures or policy instruments of supranational interest which have been or could be tested by such research. Reference is made primarily to the West European context and to the three major agencies with planning-related interests based there: the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the Commission of the European Communities. THEORY AND POLICY TESTING Comparative research offers the opportunity for policy analysts to test and evaluate theories which underly planning policies or instruments adopted in one country as a basis for consideration by a supranational agency of the question of whether to adopt a similar policy or recommend its adoption in other Member states. Any comparative research that aims to move beyond superficial descriptive comparison and analyse policy is likely to involve theory or policy testing as part of the comparative evaluation. Cherry (1982) and Cropper (chapter 8, above) have drawn attention to the extent to which planning systems are culturally derived, and dependent upon their context. Theory testing is a vital feature of the process of identifying commonality and underlying rules of how planning principles operate in practice in different cultures. It is therefore an essential element of any analytical cross-national research which aims to probe under the cultural overlay to identify the essence of the operations of planning measures. Although this chapter is primarily concerned with the West European context, it is worth noting that research into planning in Eastern Europe


offers many opportunities to examine the consequences of putting certain theories into practice because, as Cherry observes: ‘East European planning is a slave to theory even when theory patently is not leading to the desired end results’ (chapter 7, above). In spite of the great differences of culture and political economy between Eastern and Western Europe, lessons could be learnt from researching into the wide-spread and often uncritical application of theory associated with the transfer of policies for green belts, new town design and urban structure, or the determination of the minimum size of city where construction of an underground rapid transit system is justified. Referring to the objectives of comparative research (chapter 4, above), theory testing should not be associated purely with advancing planning theory. It is, if anything, more important in research directed either at improving practice, possibly by recommending the transfer of policy instruments; or at providing the necessary understanding for formulation of policies by supranational agencies. In the latter two situations, theory testing merges with policy testing, and it is difficult to define the terms in a way that consistently draws a clear distinction between them. For present purposes, policy testing is considered alongside theory testing, not simply to avoid having to make a distinction, but for two other reasons. Firstly, on the basis that effective planning policy has some underlying theoretical basis, even if not overtly expressed, and secondly because the focus of the chapter is the contribution of the comparative research method to the work of cross-national agencies, whose business it is to deal in policy recommendations. Experience suggests that theory and policy testing rather than theory generation is a feature of comparative research. In some cases the original research design may not have had this objective in mind, but as progress is made in the research, it has become clear to the researchers that this is in fact, what they are doing. A good example of this is the Ruhr-Mersey project carried out at Liverpool Polytechnic and Dortmund University: ‘We are not attempting the development of theory per se, although of course our findings can be used to test the continuing validity of existing theory’ (Ruhr-Mersey Project, 1983, p.12). Theory testing need not arise, therefore, only when comparing two planning systems that are equally well developed such as those of Britain and Federal Germany, as Cherry has pointed out in the context of Eastern Europe (chapter 7, above). It is, I think, not too difficult to suggest reasons why comparative research should lend itself to theory testing. Firstly, there is the problem of experimentation in planning. It is not normally possible to test, or at least to test repeatedly in the manner of the laboratory sciences, the validity of particular planning ideas in advance of incorporating them in policy, or to simulate the absence of an existing policy. The comparative approach allows another country to be used as a surrogate in which these ideas may be tested within a research

POLICY ANALYSIS AND THE WORK OF SUPRANATIONAL BODIES 149

framework which establishes some common evaluation criteria. Secondly, the starting point may be a desire to seek new ideas, or new ways of tackling particular planning problems, by observing practice elsewhere. Having identified some policy or procedure in operation in another country which, at first sight, appears to offer advantages to one’s own country, comparative theory or policy testing research could provide a basis for suggesting possible transfer and adoption of the policy being studied (chapter 19, below). More likely in practice, it could stimulate the generation of new ideas for policy in the researchers’ own country. SUPRANATIONAL AGENCIES Many supranational agencies have an interest in urban and regional policy, human settlements and development planning, and are therefore potential customers of comparative research. The interest in some agencies, such as Habitat International, and the Centre for Human Settlements based in Nairobi, is evident from their titles. A number of agencies, such as the World Bank also play a major role in Third World development planning. As such they also have an interest in comparative research and learning from other countries. Likewise, a number of agencies are concerned, inter alia, with urban and regional policies in developed countries. These include the Economic Commission for Europe, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the Council of Europe (CoE). The European Communities are rather different, having legislative powers and quasigovernmental jurisdiction. The OECD is primarily concerned with economic development in the developed capitalist countries in Western Europe, North America, Australia and Japan. Its duties include the assembly of internationally comparable data (chapter 17, below) on various economic indicators, comparative analysis of economic performance, monitoring trends, and identification and dissemination of successful policies and practices. On these matters it advises the governments of Member states, but has no authority to advise local and regional authorities directly. Other projects commissioned by the OECD are discussed by Davies in chapter 18, below. The Council of Europe includes in its membership 21 West European countries. Its interests are primarily political and cultural, ranging from human rights to youth exchanges and architectural heritage. It promotes contact between local and regional authorities, and aims to publicise and disseminate good practice in such policy areas as urban renewal and development, transport planning, regional planning and conservation of natural and built environments. To this end it publicises demonstration projects and is responsible for events such as the European Campaign for Urban Renaissance in 1981. In its work it acknowledges that ‘the assembly of comparative data is often at least as important as original research’ (Hartley, pers. comm., 1984).


The Commission of the European Communities (EC) differs from the OECD and CoE because the powers and duties prescribed in the founding Treaties were designed to establish the Commission as an embryonic supranational government. However, it can be considered in the same context as the OECD and CoE for present purposes, since it shares with them the problem of handling cultural diversity in a cross-national context. Proposals from the Commission for community legislation need to be thoroughly tested for their applicability in different national circumstances. This is a very complex matter in the case of proposals relating to urban and regional planning policy, a sector of EC policy making of considerable significance (Williams, 1984; Williams and Crawford, 1984), especially through the Community’s regional, social and environment policies. Member-states have all experienced urban growth and pressures on land use, and have deemed it necessary to establish systems of town planning, but there the similarities end. These planning systems exhibit great variety, and any supranational planning measure must be tested in different contexts. The form of investigation undertaken is, in effect, theory and policy testing within the framework of cross-national comparative study. It can be seen from this review of the policy interests of these three organisations that there is a substantial element of cross-national comparative policy analysis involved in their work. Recommendations from the OECD and CoE are frequently explicitly based on some existing national practice, and the majority of EC Commission proposals can also be traced to national models already in operation. Much of the work undertaken when preparing their policies, recommendations and proposals takes the form of policy analysis by means of cross-national comparative theory and policy testing. OPPORTUNITIES FOR THEORY TESTING To illustrate the type and range of circumstances in which comparative research can provide the opportunity for testing the validity of theories and the outcome of policies based upon them, a number of examples are discussed below. The examples given here are not drawn exclusively from the work of the supra-national bodies, although they include topics of interest to them. In these examples, research involving theory testing has not necessarily been undertaken explicitly or in great depth. Some are examples of research opportunities which have not, so far as I am aware, been taken up.


Advocacy planning and the German experience The first example is not related to the work of any supranational agency. It is included first because it provides a straightforward illustration of how a theory can be tested on a cross-national basis. In the context of American planning in the 1960s, Davidoff developed ideas of the need for planning advice to be available to different sectional interests within society and identified the need for advocate planners. He developed the concept of advocacy planning in theoretical terms (Davidoff, 1965). His ideas concerning pluralism and articulation of sectional interests in planning contributed to the subsequent widespread adoption of the practice of public participation in planning. However, his central proposal, that advocate planners should be appointed to represent specific community interests, did not find ready acceptance in many cities because of the challenge it represented to the established authorities. Experimental appointments that were made in a few German cities in the 1970s came as close as any to the concept developed theoretically by Davidoff. Advocate planners were appointed to work with the residents of areas designated for urban renewal in Darmstadt, Hanover and Wiesbaden. These have been evaluated by a team from Institut Wohnen und Umwelt, Darmstadt (Brech and Greiff, 1978), and the link with Davidoff’s work discussed in Williams (1978). Although it was not designed explicitly to do this, the German work does offer an opportunity to test by cross-national comparative study the theories developed in the USA. The German advocate planners were originally appointed as neutral advisers (the German word berater was used in Hanover) to act as a channel of communication between local residents and the municipal authorities. However, as time passed, they became increasingly identified with residents’ groups, articulating their opposition to comprehensive redevelopment plans prepared by the municipality. Ultimately, this led to the termination of public funds to finance the advocate planners. Thus it could be argued that the German experience demonstrated the validity of Davidoff’s concept of a plurality of interests in planning, and his argument that there is a role for advocates to represent these interests. It also illustrates the political difficulties in practice which are likely to be found not only in Germany but also in many other countries. The OECD The Environment Directorate of OECD has conducted (1983–85) a major project on urban economic development. Case studies from 17 cities in 14-countries were commissioned. These studies were implicitly based on the theory that cities and regions in different Member states are following broadly the same economic cycle, although on different time scales, the UK being one of the first countries to promote urban economic


development policies in response to economic decline and inner-city problems. The UK case study, for example, was largely concerned with economic initiatives of local planning authorities in the Newcastle area (Goddard and Williams 1985), an area which was one of the first in the world to be industrialised, and which in the post-war period has also had extensive experience of policy measures designed to combat unemployment and promote economic development. The objective of this OECD project is to identify policy instruments which are achieving success in overcoming problems in the urban economy, and to promote wider knowledge of them. Although the study is not designed explicitly as a test of theory, theory testing will enter into the exercise as policies are analysed and especially as case study reports are selected for recommendations as being suitable for application in different countries. The policies reported on in the 17 case studies are based on a number of different theories concerning the conditions for economic growth and the respective role of public and private investment and intervention, reflecting the various ideological standpoints of member governments in respect of state intervention in the economy. The overall project provides the opportunity to test these theories in a comparative way, since any individual proposal for policy transfer is likely to depend for its success on understanding the theory underlying the policy in question. Very little comparative material has so far emerged from the project (de Jong and Goddard, 1985) but this will be necessary if the potential value of the project is to be realised. Among the wide range of individual policies which feature in the OECD project, two are selected from the USA and UK reports to illustrate specific theory testing opportunities. Urban Development Action Grants were introduced in the USA in 1977 to counteract the physical and economic deterioration being experienced in several cities. They are the direct model for the system of Urban Development Grants (UDG) introduced into the UK urban programme in 1983. Both are based on the theory that private capital investment can play a major role in inner-city regeneration, and that this will be realised following the stimulous of initial pump-priming public investment. In many respects, the UK and US schemes are similar both in objectives and in the principles on which they operate. Initial indications are that this can be regarded as a successful example of policy transfer, but that lower leverage ratios of private to public investment are being achieved in the UK (Boyle, 1985; Goodall, 1985). Although it is rather early for a proper comparative evaluation, the case of UDG does provide an interesting opportunity to study policy transfer and the alterations and adjustments necessary for effective implementation.


The European Communities Many of the interests of the EC Commission lie also in economic aspects of urban and regional development. The Regional Policy DirectorateGeneral DGXIV, has commissioned a number of studies, a major example being one based at the University of Reading and described by Davies (chapter 18, below). In this chapter I would like to illustrate the EC Commission’s interest in cross-national comparative research by reference to a regulative measure of a type which is only possible because the EC has legislative powers. In 1985, the Environment Council of the European Communities adopted a Directive concerning the assessment of the environmental effects of certain public and private projects (Official Journal of the European Communities, 1985). This is commonly referred to as the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive, and its genesis is clearly related to the US experience of environmental impact statements under the 1969 Federal Law establishing the Environmental Protection Agency (Haigh, 1983). Although transfer from the US to Europe has occurred, the Commission has been determined to propose a method which avoided the criticism levelled at the US procedure, that it required excessively detailed statements, provoked litigation and caused delays in the planning process. Extensive cross-national research was undertaken for the EC Commission prior to the presentation of the initial proposals for a Directive in 1980 (Lee and Wood, 1980). The Directive is drafted on the principle that the prevention of environmental pollution is both cheaper and more effective than seeking to clean it up after. It is also based on the theory that within a common market surrounded by a common external tariff, there is a tendency, ceteris paribus, for industry to locate in pollution havens, where controls are weakest. The first of these led to the proposal that environmental assessment should take place at the time of land use planning authorisation, and the second required that a common assessment and authorisation procedure be established throughout the EEC in order to eliminate pollution havens. In achieving the latter, little is added to the more comprehensive national planning systems, but the weaker systems will be significantly enhanced (Williams, 1983; 1986). The establishment throughout the EC of the procedure for the environmental assessment of projects is an example of transfer from the USA not just to one other culture but to all the cultures represented by the 12 Member states of the EC. As a Directive due to come into force in 1988, it is binding as to the means to be achieved and will be implemented in different ways in order to ensure that it is compatible with the existing land use planning procedures in each Member state. Thus there will be an opportunity for comparative analysis of procedures and practice vis a vis the USA, and also for the comparative analysis of the implementation of a supranational policy measure in 12 different national planning systems.


There will be some common parameters, but considerable variety is to be expected in practice, which could be due to differences in legal systems, existing planning regimes, political will and the strength of the environment lobby, or many other reasons. CONCLUDING REMARKS Cherry has concluded (chapter 7, above) that comparative work is useful as a means of testing existing theories, and Qadeer set out a typology of comparative studies (chapter 9, above). It is worth noting that crossnational research commissioned directly by bodies such as the OECD or EC tends to be in his first category; studying phenomena by means of data from several countries (e.g. all or most Member states) in order to obtain a consistent quantitative basis for analysis. The work of the OECD described by Zetter (chapter 17, below) and the research conducted by Cheshire for the EEC, described by Davies (chapter 18, below) are examples of this approach. I concur with Qadeer’s conclusion that these studies are ‘useful for explanatory purposes’, but ‘seldom fit any particular situation to a degree that appropriate policies could be based on them’. Studies initiated by independent researchers and academic institutes, rather than supranational organisations tend more frequently to be in his third (hypothesis testing) or fourth (case study) category. In both, a small number of cases only is appropriate, a more holistic approach is possible, and the factors leading to the success or otherwise of particular policy instruments may more easily be identified. Thus we have a dilemma for supranational bodies interested in policy analysis and formulation. On the one hand, bodies with ten or more Member states need to understand the whole picture, and make widely applicable recommendations. On the other hand policy analysis is less effectively achieved beyond two or three countries. A way forward may be found by identifying individual policies of potential interest from the overall analysis, which could then be subject to more focused comparative analysis, as suggested in some of the illustrations discussed. There is a growing body of comparative research to draw upon, but it still hardly scratches the surface of the number of issues or problems which could usefully be subject to comparative research. Comparative theory or policy testing is a necessary stage in the identification of planning ideas which may justifiably claim some universality or general applicability, and therefore can make a vital contribution to the work of supra-national agencies. However, it is frequently not acknowledged as a specific stage in the design of cross-national research projects for supranational organisations. Nevertheless, a body of experience of crossnational comparative research is being built up, enabling the complexities of the subject to be anticipated and handled more effectively. It is


believed, therefore, that policy analysis using a comparative research method can potentially make a very useful contribution to the work of supranational bodies. REFERENCES Boyle, R. (ed.), 1985, Leveraging urban development, symposium, Policy and Politics, 13(2), pp. 175–210. Brech, J. and Greiff, R., 1978, Anwaltsplaner (Institut Wohnen Und Umwelt, Darmstadt). Cherry, G.E., 1982, The politics of planning (Longman, Harlow). Davidoff, P., 1965, Advocacy and pluralism in planning, Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 31(11), pp. 331–338. de Jong, M. and Goddard, J.B., 1985, Key factors of success: case study experiences (OECD, Paris). Goddard, J.B. and Williams, R.H., 1985, Urban economic development in the Newcastle metropolitan region (OECD, Paris). Goodhall, P., 1985, Urban development grants—early assessment of regional implications, Planning Outlook, 28(1), pp. 40–42. Haigh, N., 1983, The EEC Directive on Environmental Assessment of Development Projects, Journal of Planning and Environmental Law, September, pp. 585–595. Lee, N. and Wood, C.M., 1980, Environmental impact assessment in the European Economic Community, Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 1(3), pp. 287–300. Official Journal of the European Communities, 1985, L175, 5 July (Office for Official Publications, Luxembourg). Ruhr-Mersey Project, 1983, Draft final report (Department of Town and Country Planning, Liverpool Polytechnic, Liverpool). Williams, R.H., 1978, Advocate planning, Town and Country Planning, 47, pp. 553–557. Williams, R.H. 1983, Land use planning, control and environmental assessment in the EC environment policy, Planning Outlook, 26(2), pp. 54–59. Williams, R.H. (ed.), 1984, Planning in Europe: urban and regional planning in the EEC (George Allen and Unwin, London). Williams, R.H. and Crawford, H.W.J., 1984, Why the EEC matters to planners, Planner, 70(10), pp. 12–14. Williams, R.H., 1986, EC environment policy, land use planning and pollution control, Policy and Politics, 14(1), pp 93–106 .

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-17Internationally comparable urban data JOHN ZETTER

INTERNATIONAL URBAN POPULATION DATA BASES As a preliminary to a review of the attempts so far made to present standardised urban population figures for different countries, it is necessary to understand the conceptual problem involved. Until the twentieth century it was broadly true that the administrative definition of a city or town provided a reasonable definition of an urban area. During the present century, however, as suburban growth has proceeded outside city boundaries in many countries, this has become increasingly untrue. The physical entity, in the form of the continuously built-up area, has extended beyond the administrative boundaries of may cities; while the functional area of the city, in terms of the commuter field or the field to which services (shopping, public services, entertainments, local media services) are provided, has tended to extend even more widely. Academics as well as official statisticians have therefore been impelled to try to produce working definitions of these other realities. Among the best known are the official Conurbations of the British Census in use since 1951, and the Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas and Urbanised Areas (SMSA) used by the United States Census since 1950. The central problem for international comparison is that the concepts developed by individual national statistical or Census offices may be based on different criteria and may therefore not be directly comparable. For instance, the United Nations annually publishes figures for the populations of cities and/or urban agglomerations over 100 000 in its Demographic Year Books. But concepts and definitions of urban agglomerations are based on very varied national criteria; they are therefore by no means directly comparable. Recently, however, the United Nations statisticians have published estimates and projections for agglomerations of 500 000 or more inhabitants, as of 1970, which approximate to a functional urban area (or SMSA) criterion; for this set Census figures or estimates have been published for 1950, 1960, 1970 and 1975, with projections to 1980, 1990 and 2000 (United Nations, 1980).


Besides these official efforts, since 1959 various attempts have been made by academic researchers to devise uniform statistics for urban areas in different countries, by adopting such standardised urban definitions. A pioneer attempt, by Davis and his colleagues at the International Population and Urban Research Unit at the University of California, Berkeley, was published in 1959. The United States SMSA was taken as a basis, and small administrative area statistics for other countries were combined into areas corresponding, as far as possible, to equivalents of SMSAs. Davis and his colleagues were able to produce data for most countries based on the 1950/51 round of Censuses, plus mid-1950s estimates. No attempt was made by the Berkeley team to update either these definitions or the data based on them, and a subsequent comparative study (Davis, 1969) switched to a different definition based on physically urbanised areas similar in character to the Urbanised Area (UBZA) concept employed by the United States Census. In 1980 revised urban definitions for much of Europe, based on the SMSA functional urban area concept, were published as the outcome of a joint study by the University of Reading (UK) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) (Hall and Hay, 1980) broadly compatible definitions for some Eastern European countries followed later. This work was based on a modification of the SMSA concept, extending it to the outer boundaries of the commuter field; the result was thus similar to Berry’s (1973) adaptation of Doxiadis’s concept of the Daily Urban System, as developed by him in a major study of changes in the American urban system. A definition had been developed by Hall et al. (1973) for a study of the British urban system and had been subsequently refined by workers at the London School of Economics in a major study for the British Department of the Environment (1976). Work in parallel to the Reading-IIASA study, by Glickman (1978) on the Japanese urban system used a spatial framework more closely analogous to the original American SMSA concept and was therefore not directly comparable. A similar spatial framework was developed by Klaasen and others (van den Berg et al., 1982) for a parallel study of European urban trends in the period since 1950. It can therefore be concluded that virtually all international studies have tended to use the SMSA concept or some extension of it. One exception exists to this generalisation. The study by the University of Reading for the Statistical Office of the Commission of the European Communities (EUROSTAT), submitted in 1980, is based on physically-defined urban agglomerations similar to the American UBZA concept, and depends on analysis of topographic or land use maps (Hall et al., 1980).

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THE CURRENT OECD URBAN DATA BASE The primary objective of the last phase of the OECD’s urban programme (1980–82) was to analyse recent urban policy experience, and to develop conclusions which might guide these policies in the 1980s. Data collection was a necessary first step towards this objective. The quantitative information sought had to cover a fairly wide range of urban concerns to feed usefully into the six projects in the urban programme. It also had to be compatible with data bases utilised by other OECD directorates cooperating in the programme. Thus an urban information survey was undertaken using a standard questionnaire developed by the Secretariat in consultation with Member governments. It was considered that the completion of this questionnaire by all countries would provide the OECD’s urban group with a comprehensive information base which could be used for: a) an assessment of urban trends and conditions in the OECD area; b) an understanding of the principal differences and similarities between Member countries with respect to urban change and urban problems; and c) selecting case study cities for the subsequent analysis of policy instruments and programme impacts. This data collection exercise was initially intended to support four projects in the programme of work: a) policies to address the problems of urban decline; b) policies to guide national urban growth in the 1980s; c) urban public finance policies; and d) the role of national and regional governments in urban policy. Accordingly, the variables requested in the questionnaire were chosen to relate as closely as possible to the basic data needs of these projects. On the one hand, information concerning total and urban populations, the distribution of urban population by city size class, and total local government public finance was requested to provide an overview of trends in urbanisation and finance at the national level. On the other hand, more detailed information on the population, employment and public finance situation was requested for individual urban areas with a distinction being made, where possible, between metropolitan areas as a whole and their centres. The data have been used by the Secretariat and by countries to examine urban economic change, suburbanisation trends, demographic differences between cities, and trends in urban public finance. These are broad tasks for any data base, and there are inevitable shortcomings. Some data is missing; some quite important indicators of urban trends


and conditions are not included (housing trends, environmental conditions); and public finance data are not disaggregated by type of tax or functional expenditure category. It is also necessary to stress that caution is required in the interpretation of the data. They have been assembled from 25 countries using a great variety of different national definitions of urban areas, and there are problems of comparability between one country and another. Thus in general, international comparisons must be made with great care and with due attention to differences in definitions. Selection of Urban Areas Countries were asked to select and provide information on up to 15 individual urban areas of any size that they considered typical and/or significant in terms of decline, growth and finance issues. The following criteria were suggested for allocating cities to these categories. a) urban decline: those urban areas that are considered typical and/ or significant in terms of a recent, present or possible future (in the 1980s) decline in central area or metropolitan area population and/ or jobs; b) urban growth: those urban areas that are considered typical and/ or significant in terms of a recent, present, or possible future growth (in the 1980s) in central area or metropolitan area population and/or jobs; and c) urban finance: those urban areas for which typical and/or significant urban finance issues exist, such as revenue constraints for local government and financing problems in rehabilitation and transport. It was recognised that many urban areas in a country might not fall into either a decline or growth category and that some cities representative of urban finance issues might also be included in one of the other two categories. Further, a distinction between central area and metropolitan area (i.e. the central area plus its suburban areas) might not be possible (for statistical and administrative boundary reasons) or appropriate (if the urban area is not large). Where no distinction is possible, data are assigned to the ‘metropolitan area’ row in the relevant table. The overwhelming advantage of the city-selection procedure is that it allows all countries—small or large, highly developed or less so—absolute flexibility in presenting data they consider to be representative of their urban problems or, should they choose, lack of problems.


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The Country Tables The information collected by means of the questionnaire survey has been edited, corrected and the data presented in a standardised form. The data on each country has been presented in a series of tables, followed by notes which explain details about the data such as definitions of variables, years, and units not specified either in the general guide in this section or in the tables themselves. Up to six tables per country are presented (where no data are available, the table has been omitted): Table 1. Table 2. Table 3. Table 4. Table 5. Table 6.

Total and urban population Urban population by urban size class Population in selected urban areas Employment in selected urban areas Public finance—total local government Public finance in selected urban areas THE NEW OECD URBAN DATA BASE

A new survey of urban information is being undertaken in support of the second phase of the OECD Programme on Urban Affairs (1983–1986). The main objectives of this questionnaire survey are to update and supplement the OECD’s existing urban data base, and to provide the statistical basis for an analysis of demographic, economic and financial factors of importance for economic development, services provision and housing finance in OECD countries. The subjects covered by the questionnaire relate, in particular, to three of the projects in the programme: Urban Economic Development; Urban Services Provision; and Urban Housing Finance The results of this data collection and analysis are intended to help to: a) understand more fully the current urban trends and conditions in OECD countries; b) examine the relationships between urban policy and actual conditions in urban areas so that policy guidelines can be formulated for the future; and c) assist the process of policy evaluation with respect to urban affairs. More generally, this urban information survey should further the process among OECD countries of learning from the experience of others in a policy field of substantial importance to Member governments.


The Questionnaire The questionnaire comprises nine tables: Table 1. Total population and urban population by urban size class, 1960/61, 1970/71 and 1980/81 Table 2. Administrative structure and area, 1960/61, 1970/71 and 1980/81 Table 3. Total population and households, 1960/61, 1970/71 and 1980/81 Table 4. Population structure by sex and age group, 1970/71 and 1980/81 Table 5. Dwelling stock, occupancy and tenure, 1970/71 and 1980/81 Table 6. Economically active population and unemployment, 1970/71, 1980/81 and 1983 Table 7. Civilian employment by branch of economic activity, 1970/71 and 1980/81 Table 8. Local government revenue and expenditure, 1970/71 and 1980/81 Table 9. Local government expenditure on selected functions, 1970/71 and 1980/81 Table 1 requests national aggregate data for total and urban populations in Member countries. Tables 2 to 9 request date for individual urban areas above 250 000 inhabitants. The information on administrative structure, area and population requested in Tables 2 to 4 are essential to any study or urban areas in OECD countries. Table 5 requests information on the dwelling stock which will be used by the Project Group on Urban Housing Finance. Tables 6 and 7 request information on employment and unemployment which will be used by the Project Group on Urban Economic Development. Tables 8 and 9 request information on local government finance which will mainly be used by the Project Groups on Urban Services Provision and Urban Housing Finance. Urban Area Definition Statistical practices in defining urban areas vary from one Member country to another and often change over time within countries. Thus, for the purposes of this international urban information survey, the Secretariat has adopted a simple buildingblock approach to the definition of urban areas. Three basic concepts have been developed: the continuously built-up area, the central local authority, and the agglomeration. The continuously built-up area, a physical concept, is the keystone to the Secretariat’s definition of urban area. It is largely based on the definition of ‘locality’ recommended by the United Nations Economic Commission


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for Europe (UNECE). For the purposes of this survey, then, the continuously built-up area is defined as a residential area forming a distinct population cluster, that is, where the population is living in neighbouring buildings which either: form a continuous built-up area with a clearly recognisable street formation; or constitute a group of predominantly residential buildings none of which is separated from its nearest neighbour by more than 200 m. To cite the UNECE (UN Statistical Commission, 1980): In applying this definition certain land use categories should not be regarded as breaking the continuity of a built-up area (and accordingly should not be counted in applying the 200 metre criterion above). These categories are: industrial and commercial buildings and facilities, public parks, playgrounds and gardens, football fields and other sports facilities, bridged rivers, railway lines, canals, parking lots and other transport infrastructure, churchyards and cemeteries. This definition is intended to provide general guidance to Member countries in identifying continuously built-up areas and in determining their boundaries. It should be attainable in most OECD countries since the urban areas being surveyed are all in the larger size classes, thereby reducing ambiguities concerning their rural/ urban status. The central local authority and the agglomeration are administrative concepts based on existing local government units or civil divisions. They are used to define urban areas in relation to three situations which are considered most appropriate for a survey of urban areas in OECD countries. Situation 1: The continuously built-up area lies entirely within the boundaries of only one local authority. It this situation, the local authority containing all of the continuously builtup area is taken to be the urban area and is defined as a Central Local Authority. Situation 2: The continuously built-up area extends over two or more local authorities and has only one major centre. In this situation, the local authority containing most of the continuously builtup area and/or constituting its core and/or acknowledged centre is defined as the Central Local Authority. The aggregate of all of the local authorities containing part of the continuously built-up


area (including the Central Local Authority) is taken to be the urban area and is defined as an Agglomeration. Situation 3: The continuously built-up area extends over two or more local authorities and has more than one major centre. In this situation, each local authority constituting the core of an acknowledged major centre is defined as a Central Local Authority. As for situation 2 above, the aggregate of all of the local authorities containing part of the continuously builtup area (including the Central Local Authorities) is taken to be the urban area and is defined as an Agglomeration. It is essential that a topographic map of each urban area for which data is provided be returned with the completed questionnaire. This map should preferably be at a scale of 1:50 000, but not less than 1:100 000. It should give the following information: the extent of the continuously built-up area in 1970/71 and 1980/81 (i.e. showing new development); and all relevant local authority boundaries and place names (i.e. for the Agglomeration and/or the Central Local Authority(ies)) as they were at the time of the Census, 1970/71; and for 1980/81 if different from 1970/71. REFERENCES Berry, B.J.L., 1973, Growth centres in the American urban system, 2 vols. (Ballinger, Cambridge, Massachusetts). Davis, K., 1969, World urbanisation 1950–1970. Volume 1. Basic Data for cities, countries and regions (International Population and Urban Research, Berkeley). Department of the Environment, 1976, British cities: urban population and employment trends 1951–71, DoE Research Report, 10 (Department of the Environment, London). Glickman, N.J., 1978, The growth and management of the Japanese urban system (Academic Press, New York). Hall, P.G., Gracey, H., Drewett, R. and Thomas, R., 1973, The containment of urban England , 2 vols. (George Allen and Unwin, London). Hall, P. and Hay, D., 1980, Growth centres in the European urban system (Heinemann Educational, London). Hall, P., Hall, M. and Morgan, C., 1980, Definition and measurement of urban areas (Department of Geography, University of Reading, Reading) Mimeo. International Population and Urban Research, 1959, The world’s metropolitan areas (University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles). United Nations, 1980, 1977 Compendium of social statistics (United Nations, New York). UN Statistical Commission, 1980, Recommendations for 1980 censuses of population and housing in the ECE Region, Statistical Standards and Studies, 31.


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Van den Berg, L. et al. 1982, Urban Europe, a study of growth and decline. (Pergamon, Oxford).

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-18Working with international agencies H.W.E.DAVIES

The role of international agencies in promoting cross-national comparative research into planning raises a number of issues in terms of the number of countries involved and the purpose for which the research is undertaken. This chapter comments on some of these issues, drawing chiefly on experience at the University of Reading. A policy oriented model for research is the so-called Tri-national Inner City Study, financed by the German Marshall Fund of the United States (Davies, 1980), and discussed by Williams (chapter 4, above). In that study, carried out in just three countries, Germany, America and Britain, the focus was to create a structured framework for the international transfer of experience in coping with specific urban issues and problems. Three groups of researchers were invited to participate: academic researchers from the University of Reading, with external experience in consultancy; and researchers from the Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik, Berlin, and the Academy for Contemporary Problems, Washington, both of which were the research and development agencies of local government associations in their respective countries. The research teams identified a short list of problems of concern in their own country, chiefly through consultations with local planning officials and other groups. The other two research teams then identified examples of how the problems in the first country had been tackled in their own countries and facilitated intensive study tours to enable groups of practitioners and policy makers from the original country to discuss the approaches adopted in other countries, and to observe results. Two examples of the process at work were when teams of people from central and local government and the private sector in Britain brought back from America ideas about urban development action grants and neighbourhood housing services (Hart, 1983; Huntley, 1980). Both ideas, with modifications, have since been developed in this country drawing partly on the experience gained through the Trinational project, partly through other channels. The distinctive character of this project was that it was a matter of bilateral, one-way transferability of experience, in the quoted examples from America to Britain, rather than comparability. It was not thought


necessary for the research teams in all three countries to have the same agenda of problems to be investigated. On the contrary, attempts to create a common agenda soon fell foul of the different perceptions of which problems were of immediate practical relevance in each country. The differences arose in part from each country’s urban experience, in part from its constitutional structive and the different distribution of powers, and therefore responsibility, between central and local governments, and in part from the political and cultural climate. (Schwartz, 1981). Pursuit of strict comparability would have seriously constrained the practical utility of the project. The study therefore became focused on a series of quite specific and sharply defined issues in each country. There was no attempt to place the issues in a formal, theoretical model of urban and political processes in which causal explanations of problems might have been sought, or even a rigorous description of those processes. Nor was there an attempt to develop hypotheses about the processes of policy innovation and transfer. Arguably in 1979, given the role and aims of the funding organisation, this was a legitimate approach. However, subsequent research and consultancy at Reading into the international operation of urban systems and processes has taken a different path since the Trinational projects. The next step after the Trinational project, to some extent building on the approach of that project, was a consultancy for the Urban Affairs division of OECD in which the brief was to prepare a draft report on the problems of managing urban decline. This was a short, six-month study comprising a literature review; analysis of responses to a questionnaire prepared by the OECD Secretariat and sent to the national government departments participating in the programme; and the available OECD urban statistics which were then at a very early stage in their development. In practice, the researchers relied more heavily on the statistics developed in an earlier research project based at Reading (Hall and Hay, 1980) and a broadly similar project (van den Berg, et al., 1982) as they gave a more consistent and logical framework of population and employment change. The consultancy report was prepared in Reading, contributing substantially to the relevant chapter in the report eventually adopted by the ad hoc group of officials from the Member governments (OECD, 1983). The new developments in this project compared with the earlier Trinational project were the emphasis on achieving a comparable data base of quantitative and qualitative information involving eight countries, and the need to achieve a political consensus about the definition of urban decline, the identification of urban problems, and the emergence of an accept able policy stance by the ad hoc group in response to those problems. Much of the discussion in the ad hoc group, for instance, concentrated on the interpretation of international trends in the spatial distribution of

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population and employment in Europe and North America, and the validity of the statistical and spatial framework for the measurement of these trends. The group debated whether it was in fact possible to identify a distinctive pattern with the urban systems of countries at different stages of development on a trajectory in which urban decline was inevitable, and the implications of this for present and future policies for anticipating and tackling urban decline. The second project at Reading was a consultancy for the Regional Directorate (DGXVI) of EEC in which the brief was to examine the possible future relationship between regional policy and urban decline. Explicitly, the study was to establish the basis, if any, for intervention by the non-quota section of the regional fund in tackling problems of urban decline (later extended to include problems of urban growth) in all ten Member countries; to devise criteria for identifying urban areas qualifying for such assistance; and to advise on the types of policy intervention. In this case, the researchers prepared a report for a steering committee of officials from the Regional Directorate, assisted by a group of academic researchers, one from each country, whose task was to comment on the progress of the research and advise on matters of data availability in their own country. In this case therefore, the work conformed to a much greater extent than either of the previous studies to the models of academic policy research. A reliable, systematic and comprehensive data base had to be constructed for the European urban system as a whole, drawing on and bringing up to 1980 the system of functional urban regions developed by Hall and Hay, and adding a dimension of urban problems using economic and employment indicators from Eurostat. A further dimension was given to the study by the collection and analysis of more detailed material on a comparable basis about individual cities in the Member countries (Cheshire et al., 1986). The emergence of the international agencies in funding studies of urban phenomena thus raises a whole set of quite different issues. The later studies nevertheless do encounter the earlier set of issues, relating, for instance, to problems of comparability and transferability in the context of cultural and constitutional contrasts. In the first place, the agencies (drawing on the experience of OECD and EEC but with some knowledge of others) are independent sources of advice and comment and, in the case of EEC, of action and resources about urban issues. They are not simply sources of funds to facilitate crossnational research and international transfer. They are organisations wishing to formulate and adopt a policy stance in their own right. They thus become in effect the clients wishing to commission research for their own purposes. Secondly, the organisations derive their legitimacy and authority from the articles of association entered into by their Member governments. It thus becomes for them a policy stance which cuts across national


boundaries, incorporating national issues and experience, and acting eventually through national governments. But the policy stance is explicitly that of the international organisation, albeit arrived at through a consensus among the Member governments. These governments may have a direct interest in the outcome, whether it be to promote a particular issue or policy, or to ensure that some particular stance is blocked, or preempted by a more palatable alternative. There is nevertheless a distinction to be drawn between the two organisations which influences their approach to the commissioning of research. OECD is offering critical comment and advice on urban issues and facilitating the transfer, or sharing, of experience among its Member governments. It does not have any direct control over the formulation of programmes or the allocation of resources for tackling urban problems. EEC however is enacting legislation for policy, devising programmes and allocating resources either on its own initiative or in response to bids from Member governments within the agreed formulae. The requirement for a policy stance which can be endorsed and acted upon by Member governments, or used to allocate resources, places on researchers the need for a degree of intellectual rigour and political sensitivity of an order greater than would be needed for studies of simple bilateral comparability or transfer. In essence, this means first of all building a robust and relevant data base, using common definitions as far as possible, at an appropriate level of spatial disaggregation. Secondly, it means using the data base to construct a logical, analytical framework or set of hypotheses which at the very least describe the phenomena being studied and offer an explanation of the underlying processes which, if successful, may give a means for predicting future trends and isolating the areas for policy intervention. Thirdly, the framework should respond to and inform the political priorities of Member governments and, through them, of the international agency itself. The construction of comparable, international urban data bases is at a relatively early stage of development, far less than that achieved for regional economic analysis. The problems are very complex, but two can be singled out. One concerns the levels of spatial disaggregation. The choice lies between the existing administrative units such as those used for levels 1, 2 and 3 in Eurostat, and geographical concepts such as the functional urban regions devised by Hall and Hay. The latter has greater intellectual rigour and international consistency and therefore gives the possibility of a better understanding of the patterns of urban development in different countries, but presents problems of redefinition when the attempt is made to establish trends over long periods of time. For policy oriented research, however, the greatest difficulty is that it is almost impossible for the boundaries in such a geographical system to correspond with those in the agency’s own system which may well lack

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any internal consistency if based on national administrative systems which vary from country to country. The other problem for data bases is the choice of indicators. the limitations are partly those of achieving comparable definitions of the data and the geographical units and consistent survey dates, and partly those of finding relevant and appropriate data. The problems are difficult enough even for the apparently universal data about population and employment. They are very much more difficult for social and economic indicators and become highly intractable in the realms of public finance such as the costs of urban services, levels of local public expenditure and local revenues. Each varies from country to country depending on its political and administrative structure and the constitutional relationships between different tiers of government. The problems of data lead on to another set of difficulties about international urban policy research, namely the extent to which the international organisations rely on national governments as their main channel of communication and action. Two examples of the consequent problems for research illustrate the point. One is the extent to which each national government will be selective in its response to requests for information and advice, constrained by its own data systems, perceptions of urban problems, responsibility for local urban policies and priorities for action. Thus only eight of the 24 Member countries in OECD responded to the invitation to participate in the original ad hoc group on urban problems and the information which they supplied was self-selected and not strictly comparable. Conversely, it was a prior condition for the EEC research that it be applicable to, and involve all of, the ten Member countries. Furthermore, the international organisations rely chiefly on the national governments for advice and information about the role and activities of the local governments, non-governmental and voluntary organisations and the private sector. Yet it is those which usually have more direct knowledge of, and responsibility within the broad national context for, the day-to-day activities affecting urban issues and problems. The converse is equally and possibly more seriously true, that the local organisations’ chief channel of communication for knowledge about the international organisations is through the filter of the national governments. All of this suggests that the difficulties in the path of relevant definition of problems, rigorous policy analysis and firm policy, and action in the field of urban change are considerable. At its worst, the ideas which emerge from research initiated in this field by the international agencies will be platitudinous and highly generalised, conforming to a consensus built on the lowest common denominator of agreement amongst Member governments both for the definition of problems and the identification of possible solutions.


Nevertheless there is hope that the intervention of international agencies will eventually add to a better understanding of urban processes, issues and problems in the more highly developed economies of Europe and North America. It was the hope of the late Barbara Ward, one of the initiators of the Tri-national project through the International Institute for Environment and Development, that this, in turn, would contribute to a major understanding of urban problems in the Third World (Ward, 1976). Policy innovation will not come chiefly through studies of comparability and transferability concerned in the end with the symptoms of urban problems and the minutiae of urban programmes. Rather, it will come through the use made of improved and expanding data bases at an urban level of spatial disaggregation in building a better understanding of urban processes. For EEC and OECD it will come in establishing the extent to which urban processes transcend national boundaries, creating a European urban system or, if remaining within national urban systems, have sufficient common features as to make comparability a worthwhile study and transferability a feasible objective. This will be more readily achieved if the agencies build their own technical understanding of urban systems and processes independently of the national governments, using their own secretariats and consultancies and interacting with non-governmental and academic researchers. REFERENCES Cheshire, P., Carbonaro, G. and Hay, D., 1986, Problems of urban decline and growth in EEC countries: or measuring degrees of elephantness, Urban Studies, 23, pp 131–149. Davies, H.W.E., 1980, International transfer and the inner city: report of the Trinational Inner Cities Project OP-5 (School of Planning Studies, University of Reading, Reading), Hall, P. and Hay, D., 1980, Growth centres in the European urban system (Heinemann Educational, London). Hart, D., 1983, Urban economic development measures in West Germany and the United States, in: urban economic development, ed. K.Young and C.Mason (Macmillan, London). Huntley, J., 1980, Neighbourhood revitalisation, OP-4 (School of Planning Studies, University of Reading, Reading). OECD, 1983, Managing urban change, 2 vols (OECD, Paris). Schwartz, G.G., 1981, Advanced industrialisation and the inner cities (D.C.Heath, Lexington, Massachusetts). Van den Berg, L. et al. 1982. urban Europe, a study of growth and decline . (Pergamon, Oxford). Ward, B., 1976, The home of Man, (Penguin, Harmondsworth).

-19The transferability of planning experience between countries IAN MASSER

As its title suggests this chapter reviews some of the key issues that are involved in the transfer of planning experience between countries. The basic concepts underlying the idea of transfer are outlined in the first section and then the processes of transfer themselves are examined from two different standpoints. In the final section, some of the implications arising out of the review are considered with particular reference to the role played by international agencies in the transfer process. Throughout the chapter the issues involved are dealt with in general terms with a view to identifying topics for further, more detailed investigation. At the outset it is worth noting that relatively little research has been done in the planning field, either on the factors governing the choice of topics for transfer from one country to another, or on the processes of transfer itself. Yet both these issues are fundamental to cross-national comparative planning studies. The selection, whether conscious or not, of topics to be transferred is likely to reveal a great deal about current perceptions regarding the generality of planning experience. Similarly, the extent to which these ideas are modified and adapted in other environments is likely to draw attention to the distinctive features of the institutional context of the countries involved. Finally, the geographical pattern of diffusion itself is likely to point to the existence of favoured models and intellectual barriers which promote and inhibit the movement of ideas and as such may repay closer inspection. The relative lack of research on the transfer and diffusion of planning experience is particularly surprising in the field of planning history where there is a wealth of documentary material describing individual national experiences. Why, for example, did the Garden City movement make very little impact on Dutch planning despite the apparent similarities between Britain and the Netherlands (Hamnett, 1981)? In a similar vein, why was the early development of the British Town Planning movement so heavily influenced by German, rather than French examples (Sutcliffe, 1981)? By examining the processes and the outcomes stemming from the transfer of planning experience, the implicit assumptions that underlie models developed within the single cultural framework can also be exposed in the course of research on the transfer of planning experience.


This is why, in King’s (1976) view, the colonial city provides an unrivalled opportunity to examine existing concepts of urbanism and urbanisation: Where colonial communities emanate from different Metropolitan societies, having comparable levels of economic and technological development and are established in the same host society and environment (for example, the British, French, Scandanavian and Portuguese or Dutch in India) the extent to which they differ can be attributed to the core cultural characteristics which they carried with them (p. 14). Similarly, useful insights can be obtained from crosscultural studies of the diffusion of planning ideas, such as the new town concept, throughout the world. There are a number of important differences in both size and form, for example, between the British new towns and those developed in France (chapter 12, above). There are even more marked differences when the new town concept is applied in rapidly developing countries such as South Korea. Although Banweol New Town, like the British new towns, was established to promote industrial decentralisation from the metropolis, its development from a virgin site to a population of 250 000 within a six year period is altogether unprecedented in more developed countries such as Britain and France. Before examining different kinds of experience in connectior with the transfer process it is necessary to clarify a number of points. First, transfers of the kind described above which can be described as intellectual technology transfers must be distinguished from the kind of technology transfer that is embodied in international trade agreements, goods, licensing scheme and patents on products (e.g., Stewart, 1979). Whereas the latter represents a conscious effort to regulate the flow of goods and products between countries, there are a few deliberate barriers in the former case. Nevertheless, it is important to recognise that there may be other obstacles to the transfer of intellectual technology which reflect the political or cultural prejudices of those involved. When considering the transfer of intellectual technology in practice, it is particularly necessary to pay special attention to variations in the levels of economic development between countries. There are marked differences in the nature and character of transfers between countries at similar levels of economic development such as Britain, France or Germany, and those between countries at very different stages of development such as West European countries and those of the Third World. In the latter case it has been argued that the process of intellectual technology transfer from the rich to the poor country can be regarded as a form of academic and professional imperialism which increases rather than decreases the less developed country’s dependency on its wealthy partner (e.g., Streeten, 1974).

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It is also necessary to distinguish between the transfer of the findings of research and the transfer of institutional arrangements and procedures that have been built up in the course of planning practice. This is because, inevitably, the transfer of policies and practices is directed particularly towards expected outcomes whereas the findings of research are likely to result in new conceptualisations and hypotheses which stress processes rather than outcomes. For this reason the range of potential transfer topics in planning covers a wide range from artefacts such as town shopping centres to policy directives such as the promotion of growth poles as well as postulated explanations regarding the nature of urbanisation and the processes of urban growth and decline. As a result there are often marked variations in the way in which the whole question of transfer is treated in connection with planning topics. With these questions in mind it is useful to consider the current state of the art from the standpoint of the motive force behind the transfer process. A basic distinction can be made between transfers which are initiated by the desire to export ideas and experience to other countries and transfers which are largely concerned with the import of experience from other countries. The next two sections consider the state of the art from these two standpoints. EXPORTING PLANNING EXPERIENCE The basic media for exporting planning experience are the academic and professional publications that seek to improve both the quality of practice and research. In both cases the operational experience that is described in these publications is generally built up by the efforts of the limited number of individuals and agencies in a few locations. This experience usually tends to be transferred through other applications in the same country before being exported to other countries. In addition to these media, promotional activities such as international conferences, study tours and training programmes play an important role in bringing the products of planning practice to the attention of potential consumers in other countries. A good example of the export of planning experience can be found in the activities of a number of North American land use transportation consultancies in promoting large scale studies in many West European cities in the mid- and late-sixties. Their activities arose out of the development and application of computer based transportation forecasting methods from the mid- fifties in the United States. This led to a situation where technical know-how and operational experience came to be incorporated in a limited number of consulting firms who drew upon this experience in a large number of further applications initially in North American cities and subsequently in West Europe.


The basic features of the export process in this case are best illustrated by an example of my own experience in the Merseyside Area Land Use Transportation Study (MALTS) which took place from 1965 to 1969. A firm of North American consultants, Traffic Research Corporation, was hired by the Department of Transport and the local authorities to carry out this study largely as a result of the experience they had built up, initially during the Boston Regional Planning Project (1962–1965) and subsequently with the Eastern Massachusetts Regional Planning Project (Boyce et al., 1970, pp. 198–221). In the course of their work on these projects Traffic Research Corporation had built up an impressive repertoire of technical experience in connection with the organisation of nome interview surveys, the estimation of transportation models and the application of econometric land use forecasting techniques. Traffic Research Corporation set up an office in Liverpool to carry out the study which was staffed largely by North Americans assisted by a number of seconded staff from local authorities. In the course of MALTS a number of important differences between British and North American transportation practice were revealed which reflect both the national and local context in which planning operates in the two countries. Because of the extent to which strategic land use planning is formalised in Britain it was necessary, for example, to jettison the econometric land use forecasting techniques that had been developed for the Boston study and rely instead on the collective judgements of a working party consisting of planning officers from the constituent authorities. Modifications had also to be made to the home interview survey schedule and the transport methodology to accommodate a situation where public rather than private transport was the dominant mode of travel and a relatively high proportion of the workforce walked to their place of work. Furthermore, in contrast to Boston, the key planning issues facing Merseyside mainly involved solving problems that were already clearly apparent such as the need to improve transport facilities over the River Mersey, rather than the need to deal with the consequences of potential large scale future growth on green field sites. Broadly similar experiences have been described by other participants in the process of exporting experience from one country to another. Fitzsimmons (1981), for example, has described the problems that he encountered in connection with the transfer of experience to West Germany, built up by Abt Associates in connection with their public policy research in the United States. It is clear from this account that a number of important modifications had to be made in ‘the American model’ of a public policy research organisation before it could function effectively in Germany. These reflect contrasting public expectations regarding government programmes as well as differences in the legislative process itself.


Examples such as these illustrate the characteristic features of export based transfer between relatively equal partners in the course of which the experience built up in the exporting country is modified and adapted to meet the new circumstances in the importing country. However, as noted earlier, the situation is very different where transfers between unequal partners are involved, particularly where they concern the export of experience from the more developed countries of Western Europe and North America to the less developed countries in the Third World. In cases such as these, there is a strong probability that the experience of the exporting country may be imposed upon the receiving country without adequate reference to their basic needs and the likelihood of events of this kind is substantially increased in cases where conditions imposed by the exporting country are attached to the technical assistance that is provided. Some of the broader issues raised by this kind of exporting process were reviewed by Friedman (1969) who paid special attention to the two main means by which the planning experience of the United States is transferred to less developed countries: that is, home-based programmes for planners from less developed countries, and overseas consultancies carried out by US planners. He criticised home-based training programmes on the grounds that overseas born but US trained planners learn inappropriate concepts that can only be translated to the specific circumstances of the less developed country with great difficulty. Furthermore these concepts are often largely learnt in isolation because of the overseas student’s lack of understanding of the cultural context which led to their evolution. In Friedman’s view the overseas consultant is likely to be placed in an even more invidious position than that of the US trained student who returns to work in his own country because of his lack of understanding of the local culture and institutional framework within which he has to operate. These difficulties are likely to be exacerbated in many cases by the pressures that are placed upon consultants to present tangible results in the short term and through their inability to mobilise the resources that are needed to effectively implement the proposals. Armstrong’s (1984) description of recent Tanzanian experience is a good example of the extent to which the export of planning ideas may even have a detrimental effect on the receiver. Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in Africa and 15% of the $700 million annual aid inflow is devoted to technical assistance projects associated with the transfer of experience from more developed countries. A sizeable proportion of this assistance has been spent on urban and regional planning projects. By 1983 a sequence of regional integrated development plans was created for all 20 mainland regions through the efforts of 20 different aid donors and 15 consulting organisations and foreign government planners. A similar picture of events can be found for most other levels of planning operation.


Plans for most of the large towns, for example have been prepared mainly by expatriate planners, largely from Canada, Finland and India, working through the Ministry of Land. As a result of these activities Tanzania now boasts a wealth of plans and studies which embody the most up to date techniques and experience. However, they are of little value in themselves unless their recommendations can be put into practice. For a variety of reasons, Armstrong argues, this is unlikely to be the case. He also demonstrates that these activities impose substantial costs on the resources of the recipient country and that they take up scarce manpower and funds that could better be used for more productive purposes. It is important in this context to consider the extent to which practice based as against research based experience is transferred from developed to less developed countries. As a result of his review of the impact of two decades of US public administration training on less developed countries. Siffin (1976) came to the conclusion that the technological rather than the conceptual aspects of public administration have travelled most readily across national and cultural boundaries. He found that this has been particularly the case with respect to management techniques and performance budgeting methodology. The obvious attractions of these lay in the promise of increased order and control and the apparent universality of application. However, attempts to transfer technologies to less developed countries have brought with them major problems in many cases and it is also arguable that these tools are designed more for maintenance purposes rather than developmental needs. This is because they tend to focus attention on marginal or incremental improvements in a stable economic and political system and are only of limited value in the economy which is changing very rapidly and where, as Caiden and Wildavsky’s (1974) classic study illustrates, there are massive uncertainties regarding the distribution of budgetary resources from one year to the next. IMPORTING PLANNING EXPERIENCE One solution to the problem described above is for receiving countries to take a much more active role in choosing which experience they want to import, and systematically evaluate the experience of other countries to see how far it meets up to their own needs. However, in practice, the decision to import experience in this way is rarely taken consciously by governments. A notable exception to this rule is the experience of Japan which after the Meiji restoration in 1868, consciously carried out a two decade long study of the best institutions in the world in the fields of government, business, education, armed forces and the arts, with a view to selecting forms which were felt to be appropriate for a country with their cultural tradition.


With this in mind, Japanese leaders trained specialists capable of evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of comparable institutions in each modern country to enable them to select the best models and make the changes that were necessary to adapt them to Japanese conditions. The success of this project was such that in a period of less than 40 years Japan was transformed from a closed feudal agrarian society to a modern industrial state whose capabilities were dramatically demonstrated to the world at large by its defeat of Tsarist Russia in 1905. A good example of the operation of these processes in Japanese planning is the development of land readjustment techniques, based upon the procedures developed in Germany during the second half of the nineteenth century to consolidate fragmented agricultural land holdings (e.g., Masser, 1984b). Some limited attempts were made in Germany to utilise these land pooling procedures to deal with the development of land at the urban periphery but it was the Japanese planners who were the first to fully exploit the opportunities that these techniques opened up for urban land management as a whole. As a result, in cities such as Nagoya that have led the way in the application of these procedures, the entire outward expansion of the city is being coordinated by these means as well as the post-war reconstruction of 3460 ha of war devastated inner city land. In this way the Japanese planners have been able to achieve their objectives without the need for large scale compulsory acquisition of land for urban public services. Although questions relating to the development of systematic procedures to facilitate the importation of planning experience have generally been neglected in the literature there have been two recent attempts to set out some general guidelines for those concerned. The first of these is a product of the Trinational Inner Cities Project (Davies, 1980). It was accepted from the start in this project that, although each of the three countries faced broadly similar problems, there were important differences in terms of both timing and approach. As a result each of the participating countries was asked to identify transfer topics or specific problem areas where it was felt that the other two countries might have relevant experience that offered some potential for transfer. The British team, for example, chose inner city economic regeneration, the community enterprise and neighbourhood revitalisation as their transfer topics. The central feature of the project was a series of visits by selected practitioners from one country to the other two countries to examine these countries’ experiences in connection with the transfer topics. In each case the country provided specialist documentation and arranged an itinerary of visits specifically to meet their requirements. In Davies’ view the main benefits for practitioners that came from these visits lay not so much in the possibility of direct transfers from one country to another but in the extent to which they triggered off lateral thinking amongst the visiting


practitioners and encouraged them to consider new ways of tackling the familiar problems that they encountered at home. Some similar conclusions can also be found in the special issue of Regional Development Dialogue the transferability of development experience (Okita, 1984). This contains the findings of a number of case studies of aspects of the Japanese development planning experience viewed from the standpoints of scholars in less developed countries who were invited by the United Nations Centre for Regional Development to evaluate this experience in the light of conditions in their own countries. The basic theme of the volume as a whole is best illustrated by reference to the contribution of Misra from India who evaluates the extent to which the land readjustment procedures described above might be utilised by Indian planners to control the development of the unauthorised colonies that surround Delhi. In Misra’s view the main lesson to be learnt from Japanese experience is the need for Indian planners to develop a system through which the landowners in the unauthorised colonies can initiate development and agree on a method of land management to meet the costs of development. Furthermore, Japanese experience points to the need for measures to be taken in India to strengthen the role of the city authorities in promoting initiatives from land owners. In his introduction to this volume Okita outlines a tentative model of the transfer process. He argues that the essential question is not to decide what can be transferred from one country to another but the analysis of each country in its institutional context. The question of transfer can then be examined from the standpoint of the importing rather than the exporting country in terms of those features of the importing countries’ practice that are either missing or need strengthening. The essential question to be resolved, then, is the extent to which the experience of other countries might be utilised in dealing with these problems (Masser, 1985). FUTURE PROSPECTS In the previous section a number of questions associated with the transfer of experience from one country to another were considered from the standpoint of the importer. It will be clear that a great deal depends on the attitude of the importing country and its perception of what it needs from other countries’ experience. It will also be clear that the chances of failure and wasted effort are generally likely to be greatest in cases where transfers between unequal partners are involved, as is the case with transfers from more developed to less developed countries, where the experience of the former is often imposed upon the latter without sufficient attention of local circumstances. Generally where transfers


between relatively equal partners are involved, the risks of failure are substantially reduced. Both situations raise questions regarding the nature of the role that international agencies play in promoting the transfer of ideas and experience. A dominant role in transfers from more developed to less developed countries is played by organisations such as the World Bank and the various agencies of the United Nations. Organisations such as the OECD and the EEC are, on the other hand, largely concerned with transfers between relatively equal partners. A key factor that has to be taken into account when assessing the part played by international agencies in the transfer process is the extent to which the agencies are concerned with the allocation of resources. There is a major difference between the EEC and the OECD, for example, in that the former is primarily concerned with the allocation of the resources to its Member countries whereas the latter functions mainly in an advisory capacity. International organisations that are largely concerned with resource allocation are likely to operate in a similar way to their constituent national governments. In both cases an important task for the organiation, as Davies pointed out (chapter 18, above), is to build up a consensus amongst their members as to the nature of the problems that need to be tackled and the ways in which resources should be allocated between them. It is important to note that the activities of these international agencies are multilateral rather than bilateral in character and that they extend over all Member states. This distinguishes them from the activities of most cross-national research workers who are largely concerned with bilateral comparison between countries or at most with comparisons between a limited number of countries that have been specially selected for the purpose (e.g., Masser, 1984a; Williams, chapter 4, above). The importance of building up a common viewpoint regarding problems of urban change and economic development in organisations such as the OECD and the EEC is clearly reflected in the thrust of both Zetter’s and Davies’ contributions. It can be argued that both of them are primarily concerned with improving the compatibility of statistical information on these topics with a view to improving their overall conceptualisation as well as the quality of empirical research in Member States. In contrast, where multilateral transfers between more developed and less developed countries are involved, the main emphasis is on the transfer of practice in addition to their activities in relation to resource allocation. Organisations such as the World Bank or the United Nations agencies are concerned with building up the capabilities of less developed countries to enable them to make effective use of the experience of more developed countries in the development process. The role of the World Bank is particularly interesting in this respect. In Rodwin’s (1984) view, the World Bank operates under the auspices of more developed countries


on behalf of the bureaucracies of the less developed countries with a view to advising these on how to manage their own planning and educational development. The extent to which the opportunities that are offered are taken up by less developed countries depends very much on their perception as to the usefulness of this advice. Because of this there was a major shift in the World Bank’s urban programme during the seventies from the provision of economic infrastructure to assistance in connection with the development of social infrastructure. As a result, it can be argued that the Bank functions now as ‘the world’s largest anti poverty agency’ (Ayres, 1983, p.1). A very wide range of activities is involved in the transfer process in international organisations of this kind. These extend from basic training programmes for administrators on one hand, to cross-national studies such as those described in Regional Development Dialogue (Okita, 1984) on the other. These activities are also rather different in character from those associated with organisations such as the EEC or the OECD. Nevertheless, in both cases, it is clear that their future development is very much dependent on developments in the field of cross-national planning studies as a whole. As this brief review of transfer experience indicates, there is a particular need at the present time to draw upon the experience that has been built up as a result of cross-national comparative planning research with a view to improving the methodology of transfer itself. Furthermore, there is also a need to encourage studies that will enable a critical evaluation of culture bound conceptualisations to take place with a view to strengthening the theoretical base that underlies policy formulation and resource allocation at the international level. Given the importance of the issues involved, it can be argued that an increasing proportion of cross-national comparative research should be devoted to these matters. REFERENCES Armstrong, A., 1984, When bringing in the experts may not bring home the bacon, Town and Country Planning, 53, pp. 205–207. Ayres, R.L., 1983, Banking on the poor (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts). Boyce, D.E., Day, N.D. and MacDonald, C., 1970, Metropolitan plan making:

an analysis of experience with the preparation and evaluation of alternative land use and transportation plans (Regional Science Research

Institute, Philadelphia). Caiden, N. and Wildavsky, A., 1974, Planning and budgeting in poor countries (Wiley, New York). Davies, H.W.E., 1980, International transfer and the inner city: report of the Trinational Inner Cities Project, OP-5 (School of Planning Studies, University of Reading, Reading).


Fitzsimmons, S.J., 1981, The transfer of public policy research from the United States to the Federal Republic of Germany. in: Evaluation research and practice: comparative and international perspectives, ed R.A.Levine, M.A.Solomon, G.M. Hellstern and W.Wollman (Sage, Beverly Hills). Friedman, J., 1969, Intention and reality: American planners overseas, Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35, pp. 187–194. Hamnett, S., 1981, Urban and regional planning in its institutional context: a comparative history of Britain and the Netherlands, PhD dissertation (University of Reading, Reading). King, A.D., 1976, Colonial urban development: culture, social power and environment (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London). Masser, I., 1984a, Cross national comparative planning studies: a review, Town Planning Review, 55, pp. 137–160. Masser, I., 1984b, Learning from the Japanese, Town and Country Planning, 53, pp. 16–17. Masser, I., 1985, The transfer of development experience: some new perspectives, Third World Planning Review, 7, pp. 73–77. Okita, S. (ed.), 1984, The transferability of development experience: case studies on Japan, Regional Development Dialogue, special issue. Rodwin, L., 1984, The World Bank and urban development: reflections on international programme planning, institutional learning and the training of national bureaucracies. Paper prepared for Second World Congress of Arts and Sciences, Erasmus University, Rotterdam. Siffin, W.J., 1976, Two decades of public administration in developing countries, Public Administration Review, 36, pp. 61–71. Stewart, F., 1979, International technology transfer: issues and policy options , World Bank Staff working paper 344 (World Bank, Washington DC). Streeten, P.P., 1974, Social science research in development: some problems in the use and transfer of intellectual technology, Journal of Economic Literature, 12, pp. 1280– 1300. Sutcliffe, A., 1981, Towards the planned city: Germany, Britain, the United States and France, 1780–1914 (Basil Blackwell, Oxford).

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POSTSCRIPT IAN MASSER and RICHARD WILLIAMS

The contributions to this volume draw upon a wide range of experience. Nevertheless they share a common interest in planning and policy making at the transnational level. The transnational dimension in planning and policy making takes many different forms ranging from the need to devise statistical measures which promote comparability between many different countries, to indepth investigations of a single country. However, in all cases, the researchers are not primarily concerned with the country or countries in their own right but from the standpoint of comparative analysis, even though this is sometimes implicit rather than explicit in the discussion. Cross-national comparison is only one of many types of comparison that can be used for evaluating experience. What makes it distinct from other types of comparison is that it involves an analysis of experience in different cultures. Because of this, cross-national studies tend to focus on different facets of planning and policy making experience from purely intra-national or intra-regional comparative studies. The contributions to this volume also show that, while the motives for comparative research are likely to vary from case to case, all of them involve some kind of transfer of experience from one country to another. This constitutes the primary focus of the research in some instances, while in others national experience is put into a new perspective by testing hypotheses developed in one setting in an entirely new environment. Furthermore, prior expectations about the kind of transfer that is desirable play a vital part in this process even where these expectations turn out on further investigation to be unjustified. In this way, cross-national comparison has played a central part in the diffusion of ideas and experience about planning and policy making throughout history. Consequently a great deal can be learnt about the development of the field as a whole from the study of these diffusion processes. In addition, as the diffusion of new town ideas indicates, there are often valuable insights to be gained into national cultural differences as a result of analysing the ways in which ideas are adapted and modified to meet changing circumstances. Because of their very nature, it is inevitable that international agencies play a major role in these diffusion


processes and their activities can be regarded as a fruitful field of potential research from the comparative standpoint. The value of the cross-national dimension has long since been recognised by planning practitioners. The pioneers of modern planning were very active in promoting study tours and international exhibitions particularly around the turn of the century. More recently, similar practices have become incorporated in academic programmes through the medium of foreign field visits. Yet it is only relatively recently that the cross-national dimension has been explicitly incorporated in planning and policy making curricula and there has been a general tendency up till now to assume that the universal qualities of the concepts and techniques implied in planning and policy making override national differences. In fact, much of the recent interest in comparative planning arises out of the recognition of the extent to which planning and policy making reflects the specific cultural and historical circumstances of each country. This implies that there is no one best way of planning and that students must develop and increase their awareness of the unique, as well as the universal, factors behind their own national planning systems. In other words, every country gets the planning system it deserves. For these reasons it is likely that much more attention will be given to cross-national studies within planning educational curricula in the future than has previously been the case. The short supplement included in this volume describes the present position in British planning schools and also includes two case studies of contrasting teaching programmes. However, it must be recognised that this supplement barely scratches the surface of this topic. The discussion is largely limited to short distance comparisons where field study visits can be undertaken. Even here, however, there is a need to make more use of the facilities that are available through European Community and other sources for the development of joint programmes of study that enable comparative evaluations of different types of national experience to be undertaken within the basic planning education curriculum. There is also a need to consider how longer distance comparisons between more developed countries and less developed countries and between Western and Eastern Bloc countries can be included in educational programmes. Because of the extent of the cultural differences involved, the development of long distance comparisons is very much dependent on the establishment of links between institutions in different countries. Both the British Council and the Overseas Development Administration have particularly important roles to play in promoting roles to play in promoting exchanges of staff and students between institutions as part of their overall strategy for promoting cross-national comparative studies. Some indication of how these problems can also be resolved by special bilateral arrangements between the institutions can be seen from the British field study programme arranged by the Department of Town and

POSTSCRIPT 187

Regional Planning at the University of Sheffield for postgraduate students from the Centre for Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Baghdad. Because of the strong links that exist between the two departments the British academics were able to provide a package which included an intensive lecture programme on British planning practice together with a schedule of field visits to sites of particular interest which met the implicit as well as the explicit needs of the Iraqi staff and students. Examples such as these indicate not only the educational benefits but also the advantages for researchers that collaboration between institutions in different countries can bring where there are mutual interests in crossnational analysis. It will be clear from the contributions to this volume that there is no general model for cross-national research but that the benefits of bilateral or trilateral collaboration are considerable, especially where, as the experience of the trinational study indicates, a research framework can be developed that is flexible enough to take account of a diversity of specific national expectations. Arrangements of this kind help to overcome many of the difficulties that face individual researchers in getting to grips with another culture, and, as well as saving time and effort, are likely to bring additional benefits for them as a result of the sharing of individual experiences and the development of complementary perspectives in the treatment of the subject matter.

188

SUPPLEMENT Teaching comparative planning

190

-20Introduction RICHARD WILLIAMS

An overseas field course or study visit has commonly been a feature of degree courses in town and country planning or geography for many years. The inclusion of a substantial cross-national comparative planning course within the undergraduate or Masters degree syllabus has been a widespread feature of degree schemes for a rather shorter period, and the number of planning academics based in Britain with cross-national research interests has in the past been quite small. The number of people interested in this potentially very extensive field of research is now growing, offering the opportunity to place overseas study visits firmly in the context of more substantial aspects of the teaching syllabus, related to individual or departmental research interests. This supplement extends the discussion of comparative research by relating it to the teaching responsibilities of higher education, and considering the triangular relationship between field courses, the teaching syllabus and cross-national research. This is based on information collected from a number of degree courses, and illustrated in some detail by two examples, from Dundee University, by Wilson, and Liverpool Polytechnic, by Herson and Couch. At Dundee, an International Comparative Planning course has been established for several years. Close integration between research, teaching and study visits, supported by French language tuition, has been achieved. Chapter 21, below, refers to the course structure at Dundee in 1984–85. The Liverpool example, also reflecting the situation in 1984–85, is an example of a comparative teaching programme stimulated directly by a comparative research project (the Ruhr-Mersey Project, referred to in chapter 4, above). The Department of Town and Country Planning at Liverpool Polytechnic has since ceased to take new students as a result of the National Advisory Body’s review of planning education. It is therefore particularly valuable to be able to record their experience here, especially in view of the large scale of the Ruhr-Mersey project and the extensive use made of the research in the teaching programme.


SURVEY OF FIELD COURSES AND CROSS-NATIONAL TEACHING Prior to the workshop held in the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in May, 1984, on which this chapter is based, I conducted an informal survey of field course and cross-national teaching in planning and related schemes. No rigorous scientific basis can be attached to the survey, as the sample was small and effectively self-selected from among those people interested in the workshop series. However, it does offer some interesting illustrations, and raise issues which could be usefully explored in a more systematic manner. The first question posed was whether a course of lectures is offered on planning in other developed countries. The purpose of this was to ascertain whether this corner of the triangle existed, and the extent to which it related to current research and/or provided a basis for overseas visits. Most degree courses appeared, on the evidence presented, to include lectures on this theme, but the very wide range of countries represented suggests that close links with those visited on field courses could only exist in a minority of cases. France and Canada were most frequently mentioned, with about a dozen other European countries and the major English speaking countries elsewhere also being mentioned. The Netherlands received surprisingly little mention in spite of the substantial volume of research material on Dutch planning now available in English, and its popularity (confirmed by the survey) for study visits. Supplementary material offered in response to this question suggested an even split between teaching with an explicitly comparative basis and straight teaching about a foreign country; and a bias in undergraduate teaching in favour of offering such material in the penultimate rather than final year, although on postgraduate courses it normally occurs as second year material. Further consideration of both these issues would be justified. Another divergence of approach in teaching emerged between courses where foreign and comparative material is introduced as an element in several lecture courses on sectoral policies such as housing or transport, and those where the foreign and comparative material forms the subject matter of a specific course. Information was also sought on the research base for overseas teaching and visits. The aim was to establish whether any departments had an overall policy of developing links with particular foreign countries, or whether overseas teaching was built largely on individual initiatives and interests. The latter seems to be the situation in the majority of cases, although some developments have built a departmental policy around particular links established by individual initiative in the first instance. More investigation is needed in order to clarify this further, but the evidence suggests that overseas teaching interests are heavily dependent

INTRODUCTION 193

on research interests pursued by individual members of staff, which may present problems if these individuals leave. The second main question concerned overseas field visits, which featured in only two-thirds of the courses supplying information. Visits were, in most, but not all cases, undertaken by the same group of students who received an overseas lecture course. Opinions varied about the merits of prescribing an overseas field course in regulations. A wide variety of countries featured in study visits, with Netherlands being easily the most popular, followed by France and Germany. Although travel costs are clearly a factor, some more distant and expensive locations such as Austria, Cyprus and Norway featured, while Belgium rarely found favour. The popularity of France and Germany reflects their place in lecture courses, whereas Netherlands is disproportionately popular as a place to visit, in relation to its place in lecture courses. A number of reasons for choice of location were suggested, of which reputation for planning was the most important, followed by staff research interest. The former explains the popularity of the Netherlands and possibly the unpopularity of Belgium. Other reasons included institutional links, personal academic contacts, twin cities, climate, language and costs. Research interests form the basis of field visits in the cases of Dundee and Liverpool Polytechnic discussed below, but such a basis is not as widespread as might be expected. General reputation for planning may be expected to become less important as the sole reason for choice as research and institutional links build up. A number of Universities are exploring the possibility of links under the EEC Joint Programme of Study initiative, including Heriot-Watt with Aarhus (Denmark) and University College, Dublin. Twin city agreements were hardly mentioned, although the experience at Newcastle has been that the use of these opens doors and offers advantages when arranging study visits. Language as a criteria was only mentioned occasionally, which surely underplays its significance. As Wilson shows, it is possible to overcome this problem, but a considerable commitment of effort is required. Without at least some language skills, the choice of worthwhile destinations and value of any visit is much curtailed. The third question attempted to probe the relationship between field visits and research by inquiring about the type of work undertaken on the visit, and whether it contributed to a programme of research. All field courses included lectures and site visits, but only a minority included field survey or data collection exercises. The latter group consisted largely of courses which were not leading to RTPI recognised degrees. The implication from this survey is that town planning courses do not link their overseas visits directly to research, research training or data collection to the extent that is sometimes found in geography degrees, and


that the potential exists to strengthen this link. It would, however, be unfair to draw any firm conclusion from this material. Discussion of these findings at the workshop showed that much greater thought has been put into the rationale for overseas field visits during the last five to six years than was previously the case, and that the triangular relationship with research and teaching is widely recognised as a necessary basis for their rationale. However, the indications are that the logic of this triangular relationship has not been followed to its fullest extent in many cases. A number of anomalies and discrepancies were revealed between lecture courses and field visits, both in content and timing within degree courses. Also, although teaching, and to a lesser extent overseas visits, reflects ongoing research much greater mutual support could be achieved. The workshop also revealed that opportunities offered by the EEC Joint Programme of Study scheme are being taken up gradually, but that both this and twin city schemes could be exploited further. These and other points are developed more fully in the examples from Dundee and Liverpool. As is evident from the survey, there are a great variety of methods of teaching comparative planning and policies for overseas study visits. The material in this supplement can therefore provide no more than an introduction to this theme.

-21An integrated package: researching and teaching French planning IRENE WILSON

This chapter outlines the nature and content of the approach adopted in Dundee for the teaching of comparative planning in France. This approach has been described by Williams as an ‘integrated package’. The elements of the package comprise a lecture course and associated practical work, language courses, a field trip and the related research of the author. Each of the elements will be discussed separately below, but as a starting point, the way in which the lecture course relates to the BSc course as a whole will be described. COURSE LINKAGE For the last five years, the International Comparative Planning course and the associated field trip to France has been located in the penultimate year at Dundee and, along with five other Part III courses, is compulsory for each student. Figure 5 shows the location of this course relative to all other courses taught during the four year BSc (Hons.) Degree in Town and Regional Planning. The main direct horizontal relationships between the International Planning course and courses in Part I and Part II relate to the Design courses and the Government courses. In the former, examples of French urban design are discussed and in the latter, the administration of central and local government in France is included. Within Part III, the main professional year, vertical links with other courses are achieved through the course content which effectively covers in a comparative way many of the issues discussed in the Regional and Local Planning courses. Links with the Part IV coursework occurs in two ways. First, some of the options include French case studies, for example, housing policy, social policy and design and conservation. Second, those students who wish to carry out the fieldwork for a dissertation spend at least one month in France during the summer vacation of Part III. Such students are required to have shown competence in the French language and, during their fieldwork, they are supervised by academics and practising planners in their case study area.

Figure 5. BSc Town and Regional Planning, Dundee. Lecture courses


RESEARCHING AND TEACHING FRENCH PLANNING 197

THE INTERNATIONAL COMPARATIVE PLANNING LECTURE COURSE Figure 6 shows the layout of the academic year for this course and associated practical work and, in addition, the timetabling of associated language courses. The International Comparative Planning lecture course is essentially divided into four blocks comprising a general introduction, lectures on another country (in the past Canadian or Dutch planning), French planning and preparatory lectures for the field trip. The general introduction discusses problems and opportunities in the study of comparative planning and identifies the approach to be developed in the two main lecture blocks whilst preparatory lectures provide the context for work to be carried out during the field trip. Such a structure allows staff with research interests in countries other than France to develop their teaching in this area. The main lecture blocks aim to provide an understanding of urban and regional planning in the countries studied and to identify similarities and differences in practice between these countries and the UK. In particular, it is hoped that students completing this course will not only understand the similarities and differences but will be able to explain these. The preparatory lectures for the field trip provide the necessary information students will require to ask the right questions whilst carrying out the practical work. These lectures are supplemented by seminars/workshops which have, in the past, been led by planners from the study area. The workshops ensure that students are provided with all the necessary data and information for the fieldwork and this ensures that there is no unnecessary time-wasting in collecting such material. The lecture course is assessed by one term exam and one three hour written paper in the sessional examinations. The latter accounts for 60% of the year’s assessment in the subject. LANGUAGE COURSES The Department of Modern Languages at Dundee University offers three courses for planning students: at beginner, intermediate and diploma levels. These courses are voluntary but all students of Part III have opted to attend for the last five years. The beginner course is designed for those students with no background in French. The course aims to teach students to ask basic questions and to familiarise them with French planning terms. Of the two hours spent in this course each week, one hour includes seminar discussion and the remaining hour is language lab./experience (including computer language learning). The intermediate course is designed for students with ‘O’ Level French and, in addition to the aims of the beginner course, focuses on reading French planning material.


Figure 6. Academic year timetable for International Comparative Planning and French language courses

The diploma course is for students with ‘A’ Level or Higher French and aims to teach students basic interview, reading and precis skills and translation. The course time each week comprises two hours teaching and discussion in French and two hours of language lab. The course is examined by oral examination and a written paper which includes precis and translation. On average about four students do this course each year.


FIELD TRIP AND ASSOCIATED PRACTICAL WORK The field trip takes place after the sessional examinations in the third term. France has been the location for this trip for the last nine years. The decision to go back to France each year was taken for a number of reasons. First, the author’s research in France assists with the organisation and content of this field trip. Secondly, it was felt that contacts with academics and practitioners need to be built up and maintained over a number of years. Thirdly, continuity can be achieved with work carried out during earlier trips. Within France, the choice of study area has, to a large extent, been related to the author’s research which has been conducted in the Paris Region, the Lower Seine and the Nord/Pas de Calais Region. The departmental policy for study areas is that a minimum of three years is spent in the one area. It is our view that such continuity is economic of staff time and allows us to build up a useful resource inventory by area. Organisation and administration of the field trip is carried out by the author and, in particular, relies heavily on contacts made during research time in the area. This has meant that visits, accommodation, meetings and project work have all been checked out in advance of a field trip. The field trip lasts for about ten days, is compulsory for every student as part of our degree regulations, and is funded part through our staff/ student travel accounts and by student contribution. The content of the trip is variable although, as a general principle, wider scale issues are discussed and meetings are held in the early part of the programme. The latter part of the programme is then devoted to student projects. As mentioned above, the preparatory lectures, seminars and workshops are designed to relate to the content of the field trip. In addition, students carry out two practical work projects related to the trip. The first of these, which begins at the start of term 3 and which draws on the lectures is designed to investigate some general aspect of planning administration and/or practice in France as a whole and the case study area in particular. Then within the context of this project, students carry out a case study during the field trip and relate their findings to the first project. Following five of the past field trips, students working in groups have also produced exhibitions and slide/tapes of their work. These have all been produced to a standard format and collectively have been used for exhibitions on planning in France. This material has also been kept as part of our resources for teaching in subsequent years. An oral presentation by students of their work during the field trip takes place before the end of term 3. RESEARCH The author’s own research in France has been conducted for the last seven years with research visits every year for a minimum period of two


weeks and, every two years for two months. The research is primarily concerned with centre/periphery relations in France and, in particular, the preparation of local plans (plans d’occupation des sols) as an example of these relationships. The research experience simply dovetails into the author’s teaching and preparation/organisation of field trips. Clearly time spent in France carrying out research is of value for meeting suitable colleagues who will help with field trips and provide up to date information throughout the year. This latter assistance is invaluable given the scale and nature of change in France in recent years. CONCLUSIONS Some general remarks are included here which might be described as ‘lessons I have learned’ and which might be of interest to others organising lecture courses and field trips. 1. An integrated package demands a lot of time and careful preplanning. In the case of the author there is constant contact with French colleagues so it is difficult to say how much time is spent on research and how much on coursework. What is clear, however, is that a prerequisite for success is the goodwill of colleagues in France and their help with information before and on the day. 2. Inter-university links of a formal nature have been difficult to achieve although informal links have proved to be more successful. This arises partly because academic staff teaching planning or related subjects in French universities have normally more than one post and partly because there are fewer French departments willing or able to bring students to Britain on field trips. 3. Links with practice have been excellent but these require to be made in the country itself and maintained on a regular basis. 4. Keeping down the cost of the field trip is always a problem. Even though our departmental policy is that the foreign field trip is the number one priority for student travel, we still have difficulty in making ends meet. Economics have been made by shortening the length of the trip, negotiating cheaper coach hire (possibly because of regularity of the booking) and seeking out cheaper accommodation. 5. The content of field trips and, in particular, the balance between talks, guided visits and project work is important. There is a danger of ‘learning by seeing’ during field trips. On the other hand, too much time can be spent in meetings. Reaching a satisfactory balance takes some years of experience of student and staff reactions. 6. Language can be a problem if there is no one able to translate. We have found that whilst the language courses are useful, we do rely more heavily on the help of the diploma course students during the projects. 7. There is a danger in comparative lecture courses of including too much description. We have attempted to cut this down by putting the


onus on the student to read all the basic texts. The lecture course then concentrates on asking key questions about the nature of policies and practice and seeks explanations of why different policies or practices have been used in relation to problems with which we are familiar here in Britain. Given that our International Comparative Planning course is a Part III course then it can in no way be treated as an introduction to planning in Canada or France. Consequently the amount of additional teaching demanded from students is high.

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-22The Ruhr-Mersey project and a research-led teaching programme JOHN HERSON and CHRIS COUCH

This chapter outlines the relationship built up between international research and the teaching programme on the undergraduate planning course at Liverpool Polytechnic. Given the impending demise of the planning degree brought about by the NAB review of planning education, this chapter might be viewed as a chronicle of lost opportunities. Nevertheless, policy studies remain a significant element in the Polytechnic’s academic programme and the former Planning Department’s experience in relating international research to teaching is being utilised elsewhere in the institution. THE UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE The rationale for the final version of the planning degree at Liverpool Polytechnic—the BA (Hons.) in Strategic Environmental Planning Studies —was developed in 1976–77. The degree programme sought to respond to four interrelated challenges which the department saw facing planning and planning education. Firstly, environmental policies per se were suffering a relative decline in the face of growing concern with economic regeneration, whilst the development of specific new policy tools demanded new skills and widened contacts between planners and other policy professionals. Secondly, given this diverse range of potential demands on planners, there seemed a need to educate planners at the undergraduate level in a range of generic planning skills which would be applicable in the widening range of environments in which graduates were finding themselves. Thirdly, the department believed that traditional planning courses dealt inadequately with the social, political and economic context of planning, and that these elements needed to be given greater weight. Equally importantly, their treatment needed greater integration both one with another and with the core planning subjects. Finally, staff wished to avoid the traditional response of merely adding new courses to the existing curriculum, with the inherent dangers of superficiality and lack of integration. As a result, the undergraduate programme focused clearly on what the Department defined as ‘strategic environmental planning’ and material relating to professional practice


and design were removed to the postgraduate diploma element. Strategic environmental planning was defined as ‘policy-making and implementation at the broad level of resource allocation within and between spatial areas, sectors of the economy and social groups.’ Liverpool’s philosophy for undergraduate planning education has two implications for the selection of teaching material. Firstly, there is extensive study of issues and institutions lying outside those traditionally studied on town and country planning courses. Secondly, issues relating to powers, resources and inter-agency relationships are emphasised. Additionally, given our Merseyside location, there is a strong bias towards inner city and structural economic decline problems. Finally, both the course’s philosophy and its implications for the selection of teaching material give an incentive towards the comparative study of policy problems and institutions outside the UK. THE LIVERPOOL-DORTMUND PARTNERSHIP Although individual members of staff have contacts with other countries (e.g. France, Australia, Hungary), the main international relationship at Liverpool has been with the Institut für Raumplanung at Dortmund University in West Germany. The link developed by chance in 1975 and was initially based on field trips between the two institutions. As with most planning schools, a foreign field trip formed part of the syllabus and in this sense it was the teaching programme which produced opportunities for an international research relationship. In 1977 a proposal for research cooperation between Dortmund, Liverpool and UWIST emerged which bore fruit in 1978/79 as the ‘CADOLI’ pilot study of responses to changing economic structure in the Ruhr, Merseyside and South Wales. This was followed by the larger Ruhr-Mersey Project (RMP) on a similar theme which ran from 1979 to 1984. In 1982 the close working ties between Liverpool Polytechnic and Dortmund University were cemented in a formal partnership agreement between the two institutions and in September 1985 a joint seminar on urban problems and policies considerably widened staff contacts. INFLUENCE OF RUHR-MERSEY RESEARCH ON THE TEACHING PROGRAMME Since 1978 at least seven staff have been actively involved in the Liverpool-Dortmund research. Although, with staff turnover, only about four to five were involved at any one time, this quite widely-based involvement has meant that the input of international comparative research into the teaching programme in Liverpool has never been the monopoly of one person—the ‘German expert’. It has been widely diffused

THE RUHR-MERSEY PROJECT 205

amongst staff and, therefore, throughout the teaching programme. The following examples illustrate the point. 1) A study of the Siedlungsverband Ruhrkohlenbezirk in the first year course Strategic Planning Processes and Institutions (John Herson). 2) Comparison of employment change and decline in the Ruhr and Merseyside in the second year Industry and Employment course (Ron Botham). 3) Comparison of council housing and social housing policies in the second year Housing course (Chris Couch). 4) Community responses to urban environmental issues in the third year Environmental Education option (Dennis Donnelly). 5) Case material on the Ruhr steel industry and its restructuring in a third year Planning and the Multinationals option (John Herson and Ron Botham). It is felt that this dissemination of German case material within core planning courses is probably as valuable as that in the course where international study is the formal objective. Nevertheless, the latter has become a distinct element in recent years. Since 1982 the authors have offered a third year option course, Planning in West Germany, which stems explicitly from the Ruhr-Mersey research. In essence the teaching material falls into three types. 1. Contextural material on Germany and the Ruhr (which is taken as the case study area). Experience has shown that few students have any but the most rudimentary knowledge of Germany prior to taking the course. and we think it essential to emphasise the context within which current problems emerge and policy making occurs. This material in fact occupies about one-third of the total teaching time and moves from a basic outline of the geography of the country through a review of its history and governmental institutions to an examination of the Ruhr’s economic history and social geography. 2. Material on policy areas. This is the material which most clearly stems from the Ruhr-Mersey research. Work fell into three main elements within the overall theme of ‘responses to changing economic structure’— studies of responses to local economic and employment changes; the issue of living conditions and the environment; and finally responses to change within local communities. It is the first two of these elements which are used within the Planning in West Germany option, though the third appears in the Environmental Education option. In studying economic problems and policies both the RuhrMersey Project and the Planning in West Germany option attempt to cover the breadth of responses to structural economic change. In other words, we are concerned to emphasise that traditional land use and development


planning policies are only one type of response to the problems of structural economic change and by no means the most significant. The students study the problem of the Ruhr steel industry in its European context, together with the potential and the limitations of governmental, local authority, workforce and community responses to its restructuring. Material for this work is drawn directly from RMP case study work on the steel industry, and particularly the Hoesch concern in Dortmund. Having examined the problems posed by the existing dominant economic sector, attention turns then to policies designed to stimulate new economic activity, again drawing on RMP studies of industry and infrastructure policies in the Ruhr. Finally, the potential of land allocation policy as an economic development tool is examined with reference to the hierarchy of land, sub-regional and local developments plans in the Ruhr area. Comparisons with Merseyside are made by staff although the students are expected to make these comparisons themselves during essay work and the examination, drawing on material introduced elsewhere on the course. The section of the course covering living conditions similarly steps beyond traditional environmental policies to the wider context of overall housing policy in Germany (and, to a lesser degree, educational and social service issues). This material draws particularly on RMP studies of Dortmund’s Nordstadt inner city area. 3. Student coursework and the problem of international comparisons. The material covered above takes up about two-thirds of the course; the remaining one-third is devoted to field study work (discussed below), student seminars and linked coursework. This final section of the course is introduced by a discussion of the problems of international comparisons based on our own experience and, increasingly, that disseminated through the RSA Euro Group Workshop. Although the basic format of the Planning in West Germany course has remained the same, certain detailed changes of emphasis have occurred mainly in response to developing staff interests. These changes have particularly affected the field work. In 1983 the field trip was mainly designed to reinforce student understanding of the institutions and problems outlined in the taught material through visits to the main agencies. This was felt later to be too generalised, and in 1984 a more specific study was made of the Grundstücksfonds Ruhr (GSF) programme. This paralleled a comparative study of the GSF and the Merseyside Development Corporation being undertaken by a Dortmund colleague and the authors. In 1985 the overall theme was urban rebuilding and redevelopment policies, taking a much longer time scale than hitherto, from 1945. In 1983 field work was complicated by the fact that the foreign field trip was open to all third year students, which meant wide disparities of knowledge between those taking the West German option and the rest. In

THE RUHR-MERSEY PROJECT 207

1984 and 1985, however, financial cuts restricted the visit to the option group, and this made it possible to run a more rigorous programme. In the past two years students from Dortmund have made field trips to Liverpool and this has stimulated reciprocal accommodation arrangements for students. Not only is this cheaper, but it results in valuable cultural and academic cross contacts. Students can (and do!) discuss staff interpretations of policy issues with their German student hosts. CONCLUSION It has been shown that current teaching at Liverpool on the international policy theme has inherently depended on international research relationships, particularly that with Dortmund. In fact, since 1975 the relationship between teaching, field trips and research has undoubtedly been a symbiotic one. In the early days these stimulated research contacts, more recently the research has made it possible to offer a comprehensive German planning course. Basing a teaching programme directly on a research partnership has, in our experience, a number of advantages. Staff are able to present material deriving directly from their own experience and knowledge of the foreign country. This removes at least one stage of the filtering process inherent in much international work. Furthermore, they are able to call upon the resources of the partnership institution in terms of contacts, field trip arrangements and lecturers, confident in the knowledge that the other institution is aware of the philosophy and general content of the teaching material. Finally, the case study material from the Ruhr-Mersey Project (in our case) has proved invaluable in communicating not just the structures of policy making but also some of the political realities. It is this type of material which can be scarce or superficial in non-research-led teaching programmes. Having stated some advantages, certain dangers must, however, also be mentioned. There may be a tendency to rely too heavily on internal research material to the exclusion of that from other sources, a problem we have tended to encounter at Liverpool. Furthermore, there may be a tendency to structure the teaching programme around the research project and to lose sight of the overall teaching objectives, although we would not plead guilty to this charge. On balance, however, there would seem to be great advantages in having a research-led teaching programme in international studies.

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Urban Policy in Practice

Making Reform Happen. Lessons from OECD Countries

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Trade Policy in Developing Countries

Trade Policy in Developing Countries

Making Policy in Europe

US Pension Reform: Lessons from Other Countries

Learning, Policy Making, and Market Reforms

Learning, Policy Making, and Market Reforms

Supporting Lifelong Learning: Making Policy Work

What America Can Learn from School Choice in Other Countries

Making Urban Transport Sustainable

Teachings From Another Dimension

The City as an Entertainment Machine, Volume 9 (Research in Urban Policy) (Research in Urban Policy)

Environmental Politics and Policy in Industrialized Countries

Policy-Making in the European Union

The Treasury in Public Policy-Making

Telecommunications Policy-making in the European Union

Policy-making in the European Union

Policy-Making and Diversity in Europe: Escape from Deadlock

Drug War Heresies: Learning from Other Vices, Times, and Places (RAND Studies in Policy Analysis)

Making Australian Foreign Policy

Making cancer policy

Developing Countries and the WTO: Policy Approaches

The Regional Dimension in European Public Policy: Convergence or Divergence?

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Framing Strategic Urban Projects: Learning from current experiences in European urban regions

Dimentions from the urban house

Learning from the Qur'an

Making a Fortune: Learning from the Asian Phenomenon

Learning from Other Countries: The Cross-National Dimension in Urban Policy Making

Urban Policy in Practice

Making Reform Happen. Lessons from OECD Countries

Making Reform Happen Lessons from OECD Countries

Trade Policy in Developing Countries

Trade Policy in Developing Countries

Making Policy in Europe

US Pension Reform: Lessons from Other Countries

Learning, Policy Making, and Market Reforms

Learning, Policy Making, and Market Reforms

Supporting Lifelong Learning: Making Policy Work

What America Can Learn from School Choice in Other Countries

Making Urban Transport Sustainable

Teachings From Another Dimension

The City as an Entertainment Machine, Volume 9 (Research in Urban Policy) (Research in Urban Policy)

Environmental Politics and Policy in Industrialized Countries

Policy-Making in the European Union

The Treasury in Public Policy-Making

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