ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the work of the professional planner, and the various roles open to him or her in professional life. Planning as practised in Britain has traditionally been the domain of engineers and architects, who were engineers and architects first and planners second. The perspective which stresses the power of public bureaucracies treats planners as managers of the urban system, while work in the Marxist tradition views public employees, such as professional planners, as state agents. For Castells, urban planning has a repressive, or at best reformist, function, though it is probably true to say that most professional planners would be outraged to be categorised as oppressors. The growth of professionalism depends upon there being a specific body of knowledge, expertise and skill considered to be the exclusive domain of a professional group, and clearly marked off from other spheres of competence, the 'territory' of other professions.
