The Contributions of Personal Creativity to Planning Appraisal - Assignment Example

Answers to questions Name Institution Instructor Subject Date Question 1 Making use of examples and diagrams; compare the contributions of personal creativity to planning appraisal and development of scientific hypotheses. In order to have an effective planning region or an urban place, an individual has to come up with a creative idea on how to implement the activities. This is achieved by having the future in mind and ensuring that, the living standards of the surrounding individuals would be improved. This calls for a social idealism perspective in which the human surrounding has to be considered. This overrides the use of only scientific and empirical data to forecast on how future planning should be done. Essentially, the use of social idealism in which ideas are perceived to form the basis in making planning decisions, several setbacks as noted by the urban planners, have emerged in the manner in which it is implemented. For instance, during the reconstruction works after the World War II, in Australia; the Whitlam Years in 1972, the urban planners had the view that this act was intended for improving the conditions of living by introducing more habitable settlements and achieving a better society, this was more of practical idealism that does not lay the basis on the ideas. During these times, the professional urban planners were deeply engaged with cheering and encouraging and also introducing new cities or rather towns. This included; designing and curving of national parks in regions, designing and coming up with growth centers and creating better urban deigns for the people. This made those who did not like the use and application of the planning powers by the governments of those days call for realization of socialism by encouraging and improving the quality of life of the people and also protection of the environment for the communities. By 20th century, the work of urban planning had gained a negative picture and it was rejected by the people terming it as the taxation by the police!! The major cause of the potential loss of a shining and the momentum of urban planning squarely laid in the mistake where people especially, the engineers and architects tried to use science for urban planning. These specialists were in charge with the responsibility of coming up with the plans for urban areas that had to achieve razor sharp accuracy by using scientific methods. However, to the amazement of many, it was realized that planning was not majorly science as thought of by the specialists. This is because, it does not aim at teaching the people the truth, but mostly in engaging them in working out and coming up with what is best and will address the needs of the people. As one of the problem solving activities, planning mostly aims to come up with solutions or prevent other problems which might come in future. This calls for a design of a procedure to come up with solutions since, it would be inappropriate come up with ideas without proper considerations. This procedure for problem solving requires that one fully understanding of the relevant land use and coming up with objectives which are desired. Consequently, creativity in urban planning has been in use since time immemorial like in Egypt. This calls for the need to achieve social reforms in modern planning since it was realized that crowding often led to plagues like fire and poor health. Therefore, it called for use of socially and organized methods to accommodate and facilitate regional commerce and administrative work as well as facilitate craft production and horse drawn means of transport. Problem recognition and Solution in urban planning To come up with solutions tom a problem, one requires conducting a thorough observation and interpretation of the problem. The way people observe and interpret problems facing them is nothing else but a mirror image of what causes the. Awareness Situations Activities Values Problem The pattern of the land usage and other structures in it. Activities currently in use. Objectives of the users. Change needed to solve the problem being faced. Current or new utilization of land or other structures. Current arrangement of things. Objectives of the user. Consequently, in urban planning, it is of need to have value formation. The most basic values required by people are those of health and others of provisions which of prime need to ensure survival and those who ignore them usually diminish in terms of their health. These values are divided into two classes which are primary values and secondary values. The primary values include; shelter, security, comfort, health and secondary values are knowledge, justice wealth etc which are not of much need for survival. However, it is known that it is even possible to do planning without paying attention to these by simply observing; the current conditions and arrangements have to be considered to ensure the available resources are well utilized. Question 2 Discuss, by reference to examples the purposes and practices of consultation in planning. The perspective about planning and consulting has been greatly debated. However, it is worth noting that there is wide number of contributions of effective consulting. These are: Promotional groups which consist mainly of people with an idea. This idea can be a social idea like; the conservation, ensuring and upholding justice, or even increasing the access to better housing. In formation of these groups, care must be taken since, they may be non impartial in case they have other interests. These people usually have great experience in the fields they are dealing with certain expert skills. In addition, they have a great deal of information, objectives and solutions as needed in addressing the problems. Presence of pressure groups which are integral and driving part of in majority of the community. These are usually voluntary bodies with the sole purpose of advancing and growing the interests and needs of the members in the groups. Alternatively, there are notable methods usually used in consultation. The methods mostly applied in consultations are; use of focus groups mainly consisting of volunteers with similar or other interests towards realization of the objectives as mentioned earlier, they usually have great deal of information and expertise. Presence mixed interest groups which contain full cross section of interests. Moreover, in the field of consulting, there are service providers who are experienced and they bring on board the needs of the society to address the problems facing them. These are mainly social workers, human service providers and community development officers. Human consciousness Physical environments Reosons Facts Another practice applied in consulting is the use of promotional and pressure groups. In this approach, the consultants use public attitude surveys which can be given at various points such as while shopping, during recreation or with the use of samples by representatives conducted using questionnaires at resident homes or maybe through the use of phone or post. Additionally, the specialist may use media mainly through talkback radio, use of newspapers, or the internet to get views of the people. This has been noted to be a main factor in maintaining a good dialogue with the communities. This has also been accompanied with activities such as, brainstorming, pin boarding, normal group works, role playing, and learning groups. Moreover, there is great need to clearly give objectives needed for achieving the goals in planning. This is to clearly define the information needed as well as knowing how it can be analyzed critically. These objectives usually serve the purpose of forming the main point to start with for the process of planning and also defining the plans which are intended and the area of interest and focus. They also give the information needed and that which must be clearly collected and analyzed. The objectives also give the range of the relevant stakeholders who are to be consulted. They also provide the bases or the benches for the available policies which are there to be the framework for the plans. Lastly, they tend to give intuitive solutions that give the necessary basis which will be used for evaluation of the plan and also monitoring. Question 3 Compare the evidence supporting different theories of how values are formed and show how views on these matters will influence choice of planning methods. For a lasting solution to exist in any planning solution, it is important to have values generated and identified mainly on their local context. This is done by checking and putting into consideration the specific needs of the society being represented and also putting into consideration the major visions and the dreams of the residents and other workers who are to be significantly affected by the planning as well as also putting into consideration those of others to be from the wider community with whom they mostly interact with. This calls for a value- based planning process needs to be clearly driven by set objectives which are realistic and achievable and other measures which can provide the confidence and other policies which will ensure the original set intentions which can be adjusted incase of failure to achieve the goals. Development of values Development of inborn values such as; sustenance, social contact, and procreation usually lead to values which are deeply linked to the nature of humans and are static, rigid and unchanging. Developed values may be stated as knowledge, order, diversity, beauty usually arise from the development and evolution of the human consciousness and are therefore dynamic and can change but only slowly over time. The filtration process that shows the views of a social group Some notable example of these processes are the aristocratic values and Louis XIV and other great rulers from Baroque which are expressed in Versailles(1688) and other expensive and great palaces and gardens which were mainly occupied by the middle class persons in the 18th Century. This is still being noticed today since majority of the society aspire to live in attractive places. Knowledge has also been noticed to have filtered down as a global value aspired by many. This suffices that leisure which was mainly suppressed in industrial systems has resurfaced and re emerged through the same process and nowadays, it is one of the most growing and expanding industries in the western world. How the values influence planning Planning process is mainly possible if there is knowledge of the past and the present. Idealism as foreseen in knowledge and the work of Plato (427-347 BC) concluded that knowledge arose mainly from concepts generated in the minds of individuals (Alexander, 2002). The idealists have been known to greatly influence planning since their ideas form a basis and a key contributor to planning and these have failed the planners since they mainly represent the interests of majority of the people. The attitudes may be considered as Concern will smith Perception Simple Complex Attitude Radical Conservative & Cautious World view Determinist Open ended Stance Formal Humane Consequently, empirism was also developed and seen as one of the values in knowledge affecting planning. This is explained in which the settings are set up depending with how the observation is made. According to Aristotle (348-304) BC, knowledge consist mainly of in the classification of visible phenomena into various categories. Therefore, knowledge here is based on experience. Empirism greatly influences planning and its significance cannot be downplayed since it forms the backbone of ‘Survey- Analysis- Plan’. Rationalism also plays a significant role in planning. Rationalism is known to form the basis of human reasoning but it also acknowledges the important role played by evidence in the sense of testing of new ideas. It integrates the ideas from idealism and empirism. There is also the communication based planning which, is mainly deals with the interpretation of changes in the society as seen in politics, educations and advancements in technology. This greatly influences planning by encouraging and ensuring that there is listening and talking among the society members which encourages shaping of ideas. Here, we still have focus groups and workshops, consultation kits, community visioning, design workshops and charettes, advisory groups and committees. Question 4 Making use of examples and diagrams, apply systems analysis to understanding and planning a significant activity in an area you know well. Discuss, with the use of examples, the ways in which planning processes can help cities and localities solve problems and manage change System analysis is based on the idea that activities area set of systems containing subsystems in them. This means that, each general activity contains other underlying activities in them and all these must be identified and clearly understood before any action is taken to achieve an effective planning. It also says that for a change to be noticed on the output, some process should be done on the input. For example, in planning for establishment of an industry at some place, where people will be working, develop dwelling units for the workers must be developed as well as, the shopping area or mall for the families and also recreation centre and school for the kids. Planning of activities in any location would have a significant impact in the manner in which a given town or city would adapt to new changes. The designated systems that have been set in a given structure would ensure that the implementation processes are up to date as per se. For any system, there is need to have the inputs, process and outputs Inputs process outputs In order to effectively design an effective change system one has to identify the exact inputs that have to be in place. For instance, in a case of house building, it is essential to identify how the house would be acquired. This would be followed by the process in which the set up would be suitable. Lastly, this has to be accompanied by the required outputs that would be involved. In the case of the transport system, the planning process may enable the users to accept change. The planning process would involve, setting up the objectives, carrying an information analysis, synthesizing of the evaluation and coming up with a proposal plan. These aspects give a significant effect in the manner in which the resources would be analyzed. This would aid in the manner in which the roads would be designed to be accessible to all points as indicated in the figure below. The numbers would represent the economic developments such as; communication, service and industries. References Alexander, C. 2002. The Nature of Order (Book 1, The Phenomenon of Life), Berkeley, California: Centre for Environmental Structure. Read More