ABSTRACT
In the transition from the "narrower" world of spatial thinking to the broader world of process and policy formulation, the work of planners became more abstract, less approachable, and, ironically, more distant from public expectations about what a plan or planners can do. Planning education is in need of reform again, now by reintroducing design thinking into the curricula. Future historians of planning may even chart a correlation since the 1970s between the disengagement from spatial concerns and a waning public influence, even loss of professional confidence. Planning is also often accused of being reactive to real estate or political interests rather than helping guide these. Ironically, greater public involvement in the planning process has had the unanticipated consequence of diminishing regard for professional expertise. Curiously, given how often planners have sought to distinguish themselves from architects, it has taken a new generation of urban-minded, sprawl-fighting architects to recapture this time-honored aim of planning—the shaping of community.
