History of Planning - Essay Example

History of planning For over a century, planning movement has been a dominant mechanism of delivering social justice and sustainabledevelopment. Movement was spearheaded by visionaries and progressives who blended environmental protection with utopian garden cities and drastic philosophies about redeploying resources for ordinary persons. It criticized planning as being bureaucratic and disengaged from locals. This powerful force forced the government to restructure planning and focused on promoting economic growth and decentralizing planning power. Consequently, the NPPF (National Planning Policy Framework), housing strategy and Localism Act were introduced leading to more compliance with environmental justice, availability of government incentives for home planners and builders (Bryson & Bryson, 2004).
Civil War and the subsequent industrial revolution resulted to changes in U.S settlement and other social aspects. New technologies emerged and led to growth of industries, huge cities, and escalation in industrial workers. Disparagingly, cities grew with petite planning. Choices regarding construction and land use were in the hands of builders, developers, individual landowners who were out to make huge profits and consequently left little open space for expansion. Environmental degradation upsurged while developers simply focused on economic development at the expense of the existence of a sustainable environment. By the closing of the frontier a unique American society had been created. Americans became resourceful, established strength and craggy individualism that nurtured democracy. Instead of succumbing to urban problems in the collusive cities, the poor considered moving to the west which they perceived to be safe. People started living close to nature and sanitize it of civilization’s corruption (Bryson & Bryson, 2004). The primeval wilderness ominously improved. Due to increased land demand, Americans planned to explore cyberspace and outer space and John F. Kennedy was committed to resolve the planning issues facing Americans while leaders such as Chief Joseph, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and Geronimo strived to resist such changes.
Cases over the best planning and utilization of land have always existed. For instance, in the case of Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co, Euclid formulated a zoning ordinance that divided the land into sections that were to be used for particular purposes (Bryson & Bryson, 2004). While Euclid had the right to control and use the property, it violated Ambler’s 14th Amendment provision as it intended to illegitimately deprive his property without following lawful procedures and it also infringed onto the privacy rights.
In urban and development planning, environmental protection has been taken into consideration. Planning and environmental laws have been integrated to ensure that planners must observe environmental lucidity in their activities (Levy, 2003). Currently, environmental impact assessment has become a focus of lawful urban planning, and this has significantly contributed to environmental augmentation and development of a sustainable environment. Consequently, future administrators must be acquainted with environmental laws and policies guiding the operations in urban planning to ensure they do not conflict government policies and public expectations (Levy, 2003). The contemporary generation is committed to environmental protection hence future administrators must uphold the current environmental policies and strive to provide better housing within the current nature’s capacity.
References
Bryson, J. M., & Bryson, J. (2004). Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations : A Guide to Strengthening and Sustaining Organizational Achievement / J.M. Bryson. San Francisco, EUA: Jossey-Bass.
Levy, J. M. (2003). Contemporary urban planning. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Read More