Refutation and the scientific knowledge-base of urban planning practice

Abstract

The author reflects on the state of the knowledge base in urban planning and suggests that it is in need of methodological overhaul.Using illustrations taken from recent personal experience as a planning thinker,adviser,teacher, practitioner and researcher,the author calls for more rigour,continuity and coordination in planning research,which is currently characterised by an irrelevance to practitioners;inability to engage with research from the more scientific disciplines queuing up to work with planners on sustainability,health and economic development issues;too little sustained knowledge accumulation;lack of generalizable findings;too little well-formed theory;and possibly(though it could not be proved),too much pseudo theory.The paper puts forward that urban planning still remains and will always be something of the ultimate Renaissance activity.It could and should be the commanding urban discipline but urgently needs a scientific renaissance.

基于近期的個人經歷,反思城市規劃理論基礎的現狀,并建議對其方法論進行徹底修正。呼吁規劃研究需要更嚴謹、更連續和更協作。當前的規劃研究通常被描繪成對實務操作人員無關緊要,不能融會貫通地利用其他更具科學性的學科的大量現存研究成果來協助規劃師們解決可持續、健康和經濟發展等問題,幾乎沒有持續的知識積累,缺乏具有普遍意義的科學發現,很少有成功構建的理論,并且很可能包括過多的偽理論。指出城市規劃依然是并將始終是一種根本上的文藝復興活動。但它可以也應該是指導城市建設的領袖性學科,不過現在還急需科學復興。