ABSTRACT
This chapter begins the exploration of what the authentic can mean for communities by focusing first on the broader impetus for the authentic in the twenty-first century as the starting point. It examines how contemporary cravings reveal themselves and why they are intensifying today. The chapter considers the longer view, delving into the historical roots of authenticity in the Enlightenment and through to modernist thinking. The concept of authenticity has as rich a history as it does social implications. The chapter looks at more contemporary analyses of the concept, leading up to a typology of authenticity from a tourism studies perspective. It provides the groundwork for a distinctly planning response—one which appreciates the profession's contemporary ethos of multiplicity. The chapter discusses planning vis-a-vis its own multiplicities and how planners might piece together a conceptual framework in support of "authentic community planning.".
