“Public versus private planning: themes, trends, and tensions”
The 2008 IPHS conference coincides with commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the creation of the Burnham and Bennett Plan of Chicago, one of the major landmarks in modern planning history. This was a privately produced plan ultimately adopted as public policy. The interplay between the private interests of business, individuals and non-governmental organisations versus the more public interests of the state evident in the Plan of Chicago has been an enduring theme in the history of planning. The relationship has changed dramatically over time. In the pre-modern era, public planning affected only a fraction of the built environment. The 20th century saw a vast expansion in the practice of public planning in almost all democratic societies. There has latterly been a major reaction against purely public planning and a rehabilitation of the idea of more private planning, often in the form of privatization, expanded use of market mechanisms, and public-private partnerships. The 2008 IPHS conference will seek to shed light on this creative tension within planning history.