ABSTRACT
One need only sample the literature of planning to sense the pervasive underlying emotion among planners these days: frustration. Some planners in their frustration seem well along toward a hostile rejection of modern urban life itself, the author's hypothesis is a modest one: it believes that a major cause of unproductivity in planning is the general failure of planners to understand how to do effective staff work. Moreover, most planners do not even sense the causes of this failure because they do not conceive of their work as an integral part of the administrative processes of government. The planner as staff consultant to government and to community alike must earn the right to influence the future. The author looks at some of the traditional approaches of the planner and the assumptions behind them. Certainly not all planners use them all of the time, but they are very influential in planner behaviour.
