ABSTRACT
Planning history has been from its origins an interdisciplinary enterprise, and should be understood as a field rather than a discipline with a self-conscious, deeply rooted identity. This chapter offers more of a historian's—and specifically, an urban historian's—view. Even as urban history gained momentum in the 20th century, interest in interdisciplinarity grew. There are many reasons why interdisciplinarity played and continues to play an integral part in planning history's evolution. Planning history finds its roots in separate efforts to justify planning as a profession as well as to narrate the broader sweep of government efforts in shaping the built form. An exploration of planning history requires a consideration of shifting interdisciplinary contributions and layering of methods. Interdisciplinarity helps break apart the commitment to national boundaries: for some planning historians, the undeniable movement of professional planners and planning ideas served as the first step to more transnational planning histories.
