ABSTRACT
In Planning: Rethinking Ciudad Guayana, Lisa Peattie revisits an area that she first studied over 30 years ago and described in The View from the Barrio (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1968). The current book is an important, eloquently written case study both of a culture and the development planning process. Peattie is a keen observer, and her case study serves as an important source for her ideas about the practice of planning and urban design. “A Planned City,” the first chapter in the book, introduces the history and context of Ciudad Guayana and then briefly addresses the question of why the planning for the city that began 20 years ago did not succeed. Peattie considers three possible explanations and then observes that the most important reason was that the planners had been unable to include local businessmen and residents in the process. Unfortunately, she finds that planning had been used to shift even more power and resources to the large corporate bodies.
