ABSTRACT
What is the activity that we refer to as planning? This is a question that has baffled many an academic to the point where it is apparent that there may be almost nothing that can be defined precisely (Harvey, 2000; Huxley, 1999; Reade, 1983; Wildavsky, 1973). And yet — loved or hated, defended or criticized — planning remains an activity seemingly indispensible, and indeed integral, to the practical and on-going organization of the built environment. That it persists as an activity in spite of its apparent nothingness and in the face of continued critique is surely testament to the power and value of an imagination — the planning imagination — that cannot or will not be denied. The planning imagination is one intimately linked to utopianism — a word that also has uncomfortable connotations for many — and yet, at root, is a manifestation of our better nature, our, thankfully, irrepressible desire to improve upon the existing state of affairs and make a better world for the greatest number.
