ABSTRACT
Town planning has a charter membership in Glazer’s society of minor professions. The institutional context of planning practice is notoriously unstable and there are many contending views of the profession, each of which carries a different image of the planning role and a different picture of the body of use ful knowledge. At the present time, for example, planners func tion variously as designers, plan makers, critics, advocates of special interests, regulators, managers, evaluators, and interme diaries. In planning as in other professions, each role tends to be associated with characteristic values, strategies, techniques, and bodies of relevant information. But in the planning profes-
si on, images of role have evolved significantly in relatively brief periods of time. The profession, which came into being around the turn of the century, moved in succeeding decades through different ideas in good currency about planning theory and practice, partly in response to changes in context shaped by planners themselves. The history of the evolution of planning roles can be understood as a global conversation between the planning profession and its situation.
