Post-Modernism: A very short introduction

Characteristics:
politically marxist, certain of its uncertainty, excessively critical self-consciousness.

France (student riots 1968)
post war period- strongly ethical and individualist existentialism--->1960s/70s Skeptical and anti-humanist attitudes (deconstructivist and poststructuralist theory) and novelists became more cold with contradiction filled anti-narrative method (??).

postmodernist doctrines drew upon philosophical, sociological, and political thought, which disseminated itself into the artistic avant-garde and into the humanities departments of universities as theory.

this is a new form of theory, one that cannot be tested like the scientific. it is more self involved, skeptical type of discourse which adapted general concepts derived from traditional philosophy to literary sociological or other material which was thereby given a postmodernist twist (8).

concern for the functions of language from structuralism. 2 doctrines: Derrida and Wittgenstein. Derrida was ignorant of the history of philosophical problems that Wittgenstein faced and was unaware of some of the standard solutions to them in the anglo-american philosophical tradition leading to intellectual devision, mutual incomprehension, and splits in many university departments that still exist today.

issues with accessibility of language and 'normal' ways of seeing things.

books of a postmodernist persuasion are often advertised for their 'use of theory' and their 'insights' rather than answering questions.

New Ways of Seeing the World

RESISTING GRAND NARRATIVES
simplifying to the extreme--meta narratives

DECONSTRUCTION
dependent on relativism
will always play with language because language is unreliable

SIGNS AS SYSTEMS
all worlds must be explained only in terms of their relationships to the various systems in which they take part--we can only know what we are permitted to know about reality.

PLAYING WITH THE TEXT

DEATH OF THE AUTHOR
the articulation or interpretation of this play of language should act independently of any supposed intentions of the author.

METAPHOR

SKEPTICISM AND IDEOLOGY
more and more theorizers of the working of culture
culture contains a number of perpetually competing stories
postmodernism thus involved a highly critical epistemology opposed to dominant ideologies

REWRITING HISTORY
history is just a socially acceptable narrative competing for our attention and our assent. we should be more skeptically aware of who is constructing history. not that facts don't exist.

The Post Modern Condition

CONFIDENCE IN THE TRUTH
'realism lost'

UNREAL IMAGES
mass media is problematic and therefore a target of post modernism (the clear image is actually unclear)

THERE IS PLENTY OF GREAT ART OUTSIDE POST MODERNISM

Explorations in Planning Theory

Seymour J. Mandelbaum
Luigi Mazza
Robert W. Bruchell

Schools of thought based on scientific knowledge:
systems analysis
systems engineering
policy science
public administration
administrative behavior

authors on the opposite side of the spectrum who look to the transcendance of existing relationships of power within civil society. they hate bureaucracy and alienated power:
utopians
social anarchists
historical materialism
neo marxism

Sociology: the great synthesizers of social knowledge

4 Traditions of Planning Thought
to be grouped in a common tradition, authors must share:
1. they had to speak in th "languages" (such as economics or mathematics) of the tradition.
2. they had to share a certain philosophical outlook
3. they needed to address a small number of central question that defined the particular intellectual tradtion.

Social Reform
this tradition focuses on the role of the state in societal guidance. the vocabulary is derived from macrosociology, institutional economics, and political philosopy. they tend to affirm liberal democracy, human rights and social justice. advocate for a strong role of the state in terms of mediating and authoritative roles.

Keyne's General Theory 1936: scientifically based and legitimate state intervention: the protion of economic growth, the maintenance of full employment, and the redistribution of income.


central questions addressed by planners
1. what is the proper relation of planning to politics?
2. what is the nature of the public interest, and should planners have the power and theobligation to articulate and promote their version of it?
3.in the context of planning, what should be the role of the state in a market economy? ti wgat extent would "social rationality" be served through market interventions by the state? under what conditions would such interventions be considered legitimate?
4. if planning is a "scientific endeavor," what is meant b y science?
5.great debate over the institutionalization of planning.

political analysis
herbert simon: administrative behavior 1945--how big organizations improve their ability to make decisions.

ideal-typical decision model:
1. formulation of goals and objectives
2. identification and design of major alternatives for reaching the goals identified within the given decision-making situation
3. prediction of major sets of consequences that would be expected to follow upon adoption of each alternative
4. evaluation of consequences in relation to what's desired
5. decision based on information provided in the preceding setps
6. implementation of this decision through appropriate institutions
7. feedback of actual program results and their assessment in light of the new decision-situation.
(2,3,and 4 are most specifically focussed on)

central question informing this tradition
1. what are the relative advantages of comprehensive and incremental policy analysis? which model is preferred and under what conditions?
2. different models yield different types of solutions. which solution should you try for and how should decision makers be informed?
3. how might market prices be modified to express social criteria of valuation?
4. what are the most reliable methods for mid and long-range forecasting?
5. how should great unknowns be treated? are there ways of controlling uncertainty?

social learning
the focus of this tradition is on overcoming the contradictions between theory and practice, or knowing and acting.

there exist 2 streams of thought: 1. pragmaticsm 2.unity of revolutionary theory and practice.

central questions:
1. how can the normal processes of social learning, which are found in all cases of successful and extended action, be used to spread social learning techniques to all forms of social undertaking?
2. since human beings are reluctant to alter their habitual ways and are prone to believe that their own opinion or ideology is the only correct one, and since there is an evident connection between ideology and power, how can change be accomplished? how might people be motivated to participate in a form of social learning that depends on openness, dialogue, a willingness to risk social experiments, and a preparedness to let these experiments affect their personal development as human beings?
3. how might formal and informal ways of knowing be linnked to each other in a process of change-oriented action that involves mutual learning between those who possess theoretical knowledge and those whose knowledge is primarily practical, concrete and unarticulated?
4. the social learning paradigm involves, among other things, frequent face to face transaction that require a relationship between participating parties. from under what conditions where specific tasks must be performed, dialogic relations and its commitments to experimentation, tolerance for difference, and openness in communicationppto deomcratic political theory? and what is its relationship to the growth and development of the autonomous, self actualizing personality?

social mobilization
this departs from all other planning tradition by asserting the primacy of direct collective action "from below."

1. what is the proper role of vanguards, community organizers, and the leaders of movements for social mobilization?
2. how can the disinherited and those who have never had effective power suddenly gain fonfidence in their ability to "change the world"? how can the poor empower themselves to gain their freedom from opression?
3. how can the commitment to a new lief in community or a new life in struggle be maintained when only an occasional and partial victory is gained in the seemingly interminable struggle against oppression?
4. What should be the basic components of strategy?
5. what should be the characteristics of the "good society," the social ideal to be realized in practice, now or the future?

The Limitless City: A Primer on the Urban Sprawl Debate

Oliver Gillham

Characteristics and Indicators of Urban Sprawl
The definition of sprawl is unclear but it has something to due with expansion and usually refer to a suburban phenomenon. Low density, autocentric and unplanned are also normal characteristics of sprawl.

Come cases of this are: Leapfrog development, commercial strip development, low density, and large expanses of single-use development.

Leapfrog Development:
Subdivisions, shopping centers, office parks that create a "haphazard patchwork," that seems to take little care in regards to spatial location. The areas in between the patchwork are filled in by uncontrolled development over time.

Commericail Strip Developments:
Development that occurs along an arterial road. Lots of drive thrus and parking lots. Parking and signage take precedent. Very car oriented, not much for the pedestrian. Building is characteristically horizontal though office buildings go a little more vertical.

Low density:
Single storied widely spaced suburban homes (think midwest). This kind of growth is responsible for sprawls large consumption of land and increased dependency on cars. Density can be defined by the number of people/a certain area of land or building area.

Single-Use Development:
Measured by examining accessibility. The longer the trip distances are between activities the more single use is going on.

Lack of Public Open Space
Most of the land in areas of sprawl is privately owned although it looks inviting and like a characteristic public park, it is actually private.

Thus, the broad definition of sprawl according to Ewing's aforementioned characteristics is: Sprawl (whether characterized as urban or suburban) is a form of unrbanization distinguished by leapfrog patterns of development, commercial strips, low density, spearated land uses, automobile dominance, and a minimum of public open space. Sprawl (whether characterized as urban or suburban) is the typical form of most types of late-twentieth-century suburban development.

Furthermore, "Suburbanization is the spread of suburban development patterns across a region or a nation--that is, the proliferation of sprawl forms of unbanization across a region or an nation."

What Makes Sprawl?
Landownership and use
Transportaiton patterns
Telecommunications and technology
Regulations and standards

Land Ownership and Use
Most land in America is privately owned. Ownership gives entitlements and thus the land takes on marketability. Land ownership is hella important in America and basically the most valuable asset one can hold. It is part of the American Dream.

Real Estate Markets
Real estate markets make money from building on land and increasing its value for sale. The financing of new developments builds growth industry when the project is profitable. The same things get built over and over as a reaction to a formulaic way to make money.

Cost of Land
Land outside the city center is cheap and easily accessible with cars.
Thus TRANSPORTATION PATTERNS are important:
Few choices of mode, make a ton of local trips to work and non work trips, and transportation network all contribute to sprawl.

Telecommunications
More mobility and choice regarding where we want to live.

Zonig and Building Code
Formal controls allows reasonable predictions for area and to protect the public. Land uses are intensely segregated in the suburb and as a result activities are too far from each other to walk to.

Requirements of Finance
Requirements can dictate the size of the project, the uses that may be included, and the design. Finance is usually in the form of a mortgage.

Limitless City

Suburbs now stand on their own and its out of control.

Architecture of Everyday

Deborah Berke is concerned with the direction of the architect as a celebrity so she lays out some guidelines for the architect she holds dear, the architect of the every day.

(1) An architecture of the everyday may be Banal or Common
(2) An architecture of the everyday may therefore be quite ordinary
(3) An architecture of the everyday may be crude.
(4) An architecture of the everyday may be sensual.
(5) An architecture of the everyday may also be vulgar and visceral. (Vulgar rejects what is approved of as good taste)
(6) An architecture of the everyday acknowledges domestic life.
(7) An architecture of the everyday may take on collective and symbolic meaning but it is not necessarily monumental.
(8) An architecture of the everyday responds to program and is function.
(9) An architecture of the everyday may change as quickly as fashion, but it is not always fashionable.
(10) The architecture of the everyday is built.

Theory

Theory: an attempt to explain things through perception.
Theories of planning:internal to the field
Theories in planning: borrowed
Discriptive/Emperical theory: observable research, trends/causailty.
Deduction: Uses deductive reasoning/descriptive theory
Big Man Theory: the deducer is testing the theory on people rather than looking at the world
Inductive reasoning:
Descriptive theory: central place theory, based on observation, stylestic theory, Jane Jacobs was an inductive theorist
Normative theory:based on a certain set of values; on how on THINKS things should be, no claim on objectivity, morally guided.
Prescriptive theory: theory of action, problem solving, suggestive (gov. action, procedural design theory, mass production).
Critical theory: theory being applied, framework for evaluation.

Cautions: Rarely objective, various funtions

From Chicago to LA: Making Sense of Urban Theory

From Chicago to LA: Making Sense of Urban Theory

The city is the nucleus of a wider zone of activity from which it draws its resources and over which it exerts its influence.

The Los Angeles Schools
Dear and Flusty believe that despite the city’s contempt for its own history it does possess a rich intellectual, cultural, and artistic heritage. They talk about how the “ultimate irony is that in the L.A. architectural culture, where heterogeneity is valued over conformity, and creativity over propriety, the periphery is often the center.”(6) Thus, to talk about the different schools that discuss the trends of thought found about L.A. they define school by the following:

1. engaged on a common project
2. geographically proximate
3. self-consciously collaborative
4. externally recognized

L.A. is thus recognized as a great exception to usual schools of thought about cities, as Dear and Flusty mention McWilliams emphasis on L.A.’s “uniqueness with the assertion that the area reverses almost any proposition about the settlement of western America”(8). The essence of Los Angeles was revealed more clearly in its deviations from that its similarities to the great American metropolis of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They note that every American city that is growing, like the edge city, is growing in the nature of Los Angeles. The Los Angeles school recognizes L. A. as being an “aberrant curiosity distinct from other forms of urbanism”(14). L.A. is the exploration of new realities and for resistance to old hegemonies.” The L.A. school “has largely shown itself to be less about looking to Los Angeles for models of the urban and more about looking for contemporary expressions of the urban in Los Angeles”(14). Dear and Flusty underscore that in their book they are less trying to see how L.A. is unique, but more so trying to map the intellectual terrain surrounding a perspective on twenty-first century cities.

Nature of Economies

Nature of Economies
Jane Jacobs

Jacobs takes on a narrative voice to emphasize her points on how economies develop, something that both strengthens and weakens her essay, but nonetheless conveys the method of the economy like a ever-evolving machine.

Chapter Two: Nature of Development

All things “depend on the same underlying process of development”(16). Differentiation emerging from generality describes development on every scale of time and size, whether animate or inanimate. This can be applied to all living things and all systems of life. The second universal principle of development: Developments depend on co-developments. “An economy consists of interdependent relationships, competing and yet also knitting together co-developments”(22). For example, if the development process is lacking in a town or settlement, things either given or sold to it are merely products of the process somewhere else. Thus, Jacobs almost suggest a Darwinian belief of development, despite the fact that she argues that organisms influences differentiation decisions. Jacobs rejects the notion of “The thing theory” which believes that development is a result of possessing things such as factories, dams, schools, tractors…etc.

Chapter Three: Nature of Expansion

Self-sustaining systems are not really self-sustaining. Systems need infusions of energy from outside itself. The ultimate source of the earth’s energy infusions is sunlight. “Energy infusions are only the first half of the energy story. The second half is energy discharge. Eventually, a system discharges all the energy it receives. Energy/matter can be converted from various forms to various other forms, but it can neither be created nor destroyed…it is eventually radiated outward (45)” Thus, Jacob’s principle becomes: Expansion depends on capturing transient energy. The more different means a system possesses from recapturing, using, and passing around energy before its discharge from the system, the larger are the cumulative consequences of the energy it receives. “This energy-flow hypothesis of economic expansion explains why countries whose settlements are overwhelmingly rural are invariably poor, no matter how small or how large their exports and imports may be”(63). Diverse ensembles expand in a rich environment, which is created by the diverse use and reuse of received energy.