Centenary paper: The 'new' planning history: Reflections, issues and directions

Abstract

This article reviews salient characteristics of planning historiography, primarily since 1990 but noting earlier tendencies, and identifies the principal networks which have fostered this work. Some key recent tendencies are explored, including (an incomplete) Anglophone dominance, tempered by recognition of international connectivities in both subject and approach. Several distinct genres of planning history research are considered, namely: organisations; biographies; urban settlements, individual and collective; national and global regions; and specific types of planned intervention. A critical section considers some limitations of planning history, arising from its empiricism, its subjectivisation of planning itself and bias towards modern Western planning. Among future trends identified are: a continuing geographical widening; integration with aspects of practice; and a dependence on mainstream journals connecting with planning history.