ABSTRACT
We can push this argument further. We live, after all, in a society which, for want of a better phrase, is founded on capitalist principles of private property and market exchange, a society which presupposes certain basic social relationships with respect to production, distribution and consumption which themselves must be reproduced if the social order is to survive. And so we arrive at what may appear a rather cosmic question: what is the role of the urban-regional planner in the context of these overall processes of social reproduction? Critical analysis should reveal the answers. Yet it is a measure of the failings of contemporary social science (from which the planning literature draws much of its inspiration) that we have to approach answers with circumspection as well as tact should we dare to depart from the traditional canons as to what may or may not be said. For this reason I shall begin with a brief digression in order to open up new vistas for discussion.
