ABSTRACT
Most practitioners would maintain, and hopefully believe, that the whole is more than the sum of its parts and that planning is a distinctive profession in its own right. Planning is also concerned with environmental issues. There are direct issues for urban areas of providing clean air, pure water, sewage and refuse disposal that go back to the origins of planning. All the activities planning deals with are linked together by transport facilities. Mention of physical design takes us on to another, and more successful, area of planning–placemaking, urban design and finding the best location of activities within urban areas. Much of the actual work within a planning office, including that of local planning consultants, is often at a smaller scale. A planning system–legislation, provision for plans policies the granting or refusal of permission to develop–is a necessary requirement wherever in the world planning is practised.
