ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 looks more closely at the social and political forces that have shaped our approach to metropolitan planning. It reflects on the resulting urban structure emerging from the paradigm shifts of the late twentieth/early tweny-first century. One of the most significant political impacts on metropolitan planning in the last half of the twentieth century was the free marketeers’ reproach to the bureaucratic state. Maynard Keynes, the modern founder of macro-economic theories, who emphasised the role of governments in stabilising markets, had challenged the orthodoxy of classical market economic theory following the great depression in the 1930s. The Chicago School by contrast was libertarian and laissez-faire at its heart. It rejected Keynesian theories of governments managing economic demand to promote growth. The resulting political challenge for metropolitan planning has largely centred on the legitimacy and authority of statutory bodies to regulate urban development so as to distribute the benefits across the socio-economic spectrum.
