ABSTRACT
Comprehensive planning emerged from the work of park planners, sanitary engineers, and others in the nineteenth century. A 1901 example, following these precedents, was the McMillan Commission Plan for Washington. The comprehensive plan has survived internal critics and external critics. The growth of specialization and specialized knowledge among planners has produced a counterpressure and a fragmentation of planning work. The American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) reinforces comprehensiveness in requiring professional planning experience as a qualification for membership. It is hardly surprising that, in an era of deregulation and a return to market forces to achieve public objectives, there remains broad support for maintaining the public regulation of land use. The group of people who came together early to form the planning profession included many who were concerned with social issues of housing, public health, and working conditions of the poor.
