ABSTRACT
Urban planning is the intervention of the political system in the economic system at the level of the urban unit, in order to regulate the process of the reproduction of labour power, and the reproduction of the means of production, though 'not every conceivable intervention by management is possible. The strength of a reformist perspective is the recognition given to basic structural inequalities of power, influence, income and wealth in modern Britain in a way that the pluralist approach does not, and indeed perversely ignores. All four theoretical approaches to be considered here are concerned directly or indirectly with the distribution of power in society, and the mechanisms for effecting possible changes in existing power relationships. A stress on the power of public bureaucracy is implicit in studies of local authority decision-making, particularly in the spheres of housing and land-use planning, as in the work of Dennis, Davies and Rex and Moore.
