ABSTRACT
I wrote this essay partly in response to a frequent criticism that practicing planners don’t need theory, that they learn primarily from practice. The implication is that planning theorists are pursuing little more than a personal hobby which, though they may fi nd amusing, is without wider signifi cance for the fi eld. Whether I have succeeded in this volume to address this criticism is for others to say. Here I want to change tack and attempt to answer a related question: what do planning theorists do – or think they do – when they theorize?
