Retrospecting 70's & 80's: the age of non-planning?

“They had this block to themselves. The windows of all the tenements on both sides were marked with the white X of urban renewal; they stood nearly empty, waiting for the wreckers. Within them the cockroaches crawled and the rats chittered, but the humans were away, infesting some other neighborhood.” - Richard Stark, The Seventh

Charles Street, Bronx, USA

The 1970’s and 80’s decade, was marked by recession hitting USA and Britain adversely. In consequence, the leaders in both countries were rethinking the economic policies built upon Keynesian model and welfare state social policy. The economic growth had slowed down and inflation rates were high due to rise in oil prices and Vietnam War. In such scenario, land use planning was one of the policies that came under assault and went through the phase of discredit. Conventionally, planning in 60’s was to control, regulate and guide the physical growth for good quality of life for communities by keeping systemic check and balance on developer, public and planner’s work. However, the recession led to decaying inner cities and unemployment and stirred the cry of encouraging growth by any means to combat economic pressures. Planning was blamed; as it distorted and inhibited market forces, forcing developers and industrialist to choose sub optimal locations and throttling entrepreneurship thus, making it difficult for cities and regions to attract new industrial growth. What must be noted here is that economy in both countries was changing from the manufacturing base due to competitive foreign markets, high labor cost and significant rise in oil prices leading to increase in transportation and service costs. The existing capitalist system allowed concentration of capital in few monopolistic hands and multinational enterprises, therefore solution to recession did not lie within the confines of capitalist system anymore; this was the acknowledgement of the structural decline of the establishment and system. Both countries needed to rethink their economic base and had to think fast.

The British Government in 1972 hired senior consultancies to investigate the problems of inner cities which were hit hard by recession. The studies pointed out that failure of inner cities or their decline was not just the matter of poverty of people and household but reflected the failure of urban economies . This prompted the inner city policy for economic

revival. T he inner cities were high target for industrial developments, by central government spending concentrated on them rather than in new towns, urban program to be massively expanded and central local government partnership to be strengthened to work for hardest hit areas. Alongside, the American counterparts were working on the model of partnerships between public and private sectors; in terms of leveraging public investment s in the hardest

hit areas. This was the beginning of change; a shift from manufacturing sectors to service sector role for inner cities to combat recession.

The development of Festival Marketplaces ; as a tourist base attraction for affluent urban professional in downtown areas with shops selling specialized items, recreation , craft vendors , mixed use housing and entertainment areas. Examples of such are found in San Francisco’s Ghiradelli Square , James Rouse’s Faneuil Hall in Boston , Charles center etc. One of the most innovative technique was adaptive reuse of old buildings , restoration and conservation of historic areas and services. What must be noticed here is the view of using public investment for speculative enterprise and new model of cooperation between public and private entrepreneurs The City was set as stage to trigger imagination of urbanized America. The Festival marketplace worked in areas with high population as visitor base, historical waterfront, warehouse and industrial district closer to downtown. Old Dockland areas also became principle focus of urban regeneration like the Inner H arbor in Baltimore, London Docklands

In 1977 in Britain at Royal Planning institute conference, Peter Hall introduced Freeport Solution; areas which would be open to immigration of entrepreneurs and capital, free enterprise, bureaucracy minimum and residence on choice.The idea was adopted in form of Enterprise Zones where financial subsidy by government, development tax exemptions and other land use regulatory planning was removed to encourage private investment with free migration of labor and immigrant entrepreneurs. The large tract of vacant industrial lands like London Docklands and Canary Wharfs, were managed enterprise zones by developers like Paul Reichmann who bought the leases in Canary Wharf to entice companies from central London to establish their centers here. However, Michael Cassidy counteracted this

action by redeveloping streets and adding more office space to inner city areas. This caused the redeveloped industrial enterprise zones in slump; as central government did not regulate the competing provisions. Paul Reichmann, backed by Saudi money, bought his own development back from the consortium of banks that had been administering it. The Greater Manchester, Manchester Castle field and Rotterdam are successful examples of enterprise zones. The bottom up planning approach with community engagement in the case of enterprise zone did not work; therefore , Margaret Thatcher government significantly reduced planning powers; which led the field of planning in dormant phase.

As history goes by, the phrase from Peter Hall book; “Strategic planning turned into residual land use planning activity, proceeding in case by case basis” provides a brief of planning situation of decade.