Last modified: Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Exam Logistics:

• in-class, during the last regular class session (Tuesday, December 11).
• The exam starts promptly at 9:10 am and ends at 10:30 am. We will design the exam to be reasonably completed within 45-60 minutes, allowing you to extra time to proof-read and review your answers.
• Closed-book/closed-note (i.e., do not bring books, notes, laptops, etc. to class). You will write the answers to the exam on the exam copy itself (no need for blue books). You will only need to bring pens or pencils.

EXTRA OFFICE HOURS [revised]: In addition to my online office hours, I will be available in my office on these dates/times:

• Friday (Dec. 7), 12:30 - 2:30 pm
• Monday (Dec. 10), 9:00 am- 10:40 am; 11:15 am - 12:30 pm[revised]
• Tuesday (Dec. 11), 8:00 am - 9:00 am

Feel free to come by individually or as a group for an informal discussion. No need to sign up -- just stop by anytime during those times.

The exam will likely be a combination of some of the following elements:

• short answer (e.g., compare and contrast two ideas/terms in 1-2 paragraphs)
• short essay (e.g., 1-2 hand-written pages)
• matching ideas & arguments to schools/styles of planning (e.g., incrementalism; strategic planning; New Urbanism; communicative action; advocacy planning; etc.)
• matching major planning movements, events, ideas to their historical period (e.g., know the general time sequence of such events as: the Columbia Exposition vs. the Burnham Plan of Chicago; or the era of Robert Moses' major projects vs. Jane Jacobs' publication of The Death and Life of Great American Cities; etc.)

Here are some useful terms to know by the end of the semester.
Note regarding this study guide:   This is NOT a complete list of terms, ideas, and questions that may be on the exam, though it should provide a fairly good idea of what to expect.
 

Terms and Concepts (* indicates recently added)

URBAN AND ECONOMIC PROCESSES, PLANNING THEORY CONCEPTS
physical determinism
property contradiction (Foglesong)
market failure
public goods
externalities
scale economies & agglomeration economies
tragedy of the commons
gentrification (see Neil Smith)
procedural vs. substantive planning theory
the public interest
pluralism
"community without propinquity" (Webber)*
efficiency vs. innovation *
spatial division of labor *
socio-spatial dialectic*
 

STYLES OF PLANNING
comprehensive planning
"rational model" of planning
incremental planning
advocacy planning
strategic planning
equity planning
communicative action planning
 

TYPOLOGIES OF CITIES AND URBANIZATION
city
metropolis
region
megalopolis
hinterland
suburb (and the difference between inner-ring and outer-ring)
technoburb
global city
megacity
 

MOVEMENTS AND PROTOTYPES
City Beautiful Movement (Burnham, etc.)
Garden City (Ebenezer Howard)
Radiant City (Le Corbusier)
Broadacres (Frank Lloyd Wright)
the Regional Planning Association of America
regionalism
Modernism
Post Modernism
Urban Renewal
sustainability
social justice
environmental justice
New Urbanism (and the Congress of New Urbanism)

A FEW NAMES:
Pierre L'Enfant
Lewis Mumford
Rexford Tugwell
Ebenezer Howard
Le Corbusier
Frank Lloyd Wright
Daniel Burnham
Robert Moses
Jane Jacobs
Clarence Stein
Patrick Geddes
Benton MacKaye
Levitt brothers (Levittown)
Norman Krumholz
Jürgen Habermas
Friedrich Hayek

(more names: covered less in course readings/requirements but nevertheless notable in planning/design history):
Albert Speer
Frederick Law Olmsted
Baron Haussmann
Andres Duany (New Urbanist architect)

A FEW PLACES (often prototypes of plans, movements, etc.):
the "White City" (1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago)
Letchworth (1903) and Welwyn (1920), UK
Radburn, NJ (1928)
Tennessee Valley Authority (1933)
Greenbelt, MD (as an example of the 1930s Resettlement Administration new towns)
Levittown, NY (the best known of several post-war Levittowns on the East Coast) (built 1947-51)
new capitals: Brasilia (1960), Chandigarh (1950s-60s), etc.
Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project (St. Louis) (built ca. 1954-6; demolished 1972-6)
Seaside, FL (1981)
Celebration, FL (1996)

EVENTS/PLANS (see also the planning history timeline), such as:
The World's Columbian Exposition (1893) in Chicago
McMillan Plan for Washington, DC (ca. 1902)
the Plan of Chicago (1909)
Le Corbusier's "Plan Voisin" for Paris (1925)
U.S. Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956
Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961)

...

 

A few questions to consider.  Please note that some of these questions below are far broader than one can easily answer in a short essay, so that the actual exam questions will be more modest. [UPDATED 11/30/12]

1. What is the chronological sequence of major eras/movements of US urban planning (e.g., City Beautiful, Garden Cities, housing reform, City Efficient, New Deal-Era planning, urban renewal and the "urban crisis," etc.). Note: there are usually no clear-cut start and end dates for these movements (and they can overlap or run simultaneously); but do have a general sense of their timing in history.
2. For Jane Jacobs, what are the main components that lead to urban diversity? What are the key points in Jane Jacob's critique of planning and where does it fall short of providing a new model of intervention?   Is she accurate in lumping together three schools of planning thought as "Radiant Garden City Beautiful?"
3. For June Manning Thomas, what are the three stages of planning education's approach to issues of race and ethnicity?
4. Identify the key assumptions and differences between the main styles of planning: comprehensive, incremental, advocacy, strategic, equity, communicative-action.
• Variation: Comprehensive planning has been alternately endorsed and rejected by planners.  Define comprehensive planning and briefly discuss its development in the history of planning and planning theory.   Is it still the dominant approach to planning?
• Variation: Some authors (e.g., Forester, Healey, Innes) have promoted communicative-action as a new paradigm to replace the antiquated rational-scientific model of planning.  Explain the supposed shortcomings of the old planning paradigm, and the promise of communicative-based planning.  Do you agree?
5. Be able to compare and contrast a range of related terms/ideas/concepts/models, such as:
   • "market failure" vs. property contradiction
   • divergent arguments for and against public planning
   • New Urbanism vs. the Garden City Movement
   • communicative action planning vs. advocacy planning
   • Dolores Hayden's three models of home: haven vs. industrial vs. neighborhood
     
   • Jane Jacobs' view of "diversity" vs. June Manning Thomas' view of "diversity"
     
   • tragedy of the commons vs. prisoner's dilemma
     
   • Susan Moller Okin's view of "feminism" vs. "multiculturalism"
     
   • procedural vs. substantive planning theory
   • global cities vs. megacities
     
   • Steven Hayward's "sensible environmentalism" vs. Peter Marcuse's "sustainability is not enough"
     
   • Fishman's three historical stages of suburbia.
     
   • Ed Glaeser's (or Paul Krugman's) emphasis on the contemporary economic advantages of cities vs. Mel Webber's emphasis on "community without propinquity" and the "non-place urban realm"
6. Explain (briefly) what Lindblom means when he advocates for "successive limited comparisons" as a planning approach.  Is this really a form of planning, or is it a rejection of planning?
7. Fishman states (in Urban Utopias):  " Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright were both intensely concerned with the preservation of the family in an industrial society, but here as elsewhere they adopted diametrically opposite strategies."  How did these visions differ?
8. What does Fishman mean when he describes the city plans of Howard, Wright and Le Corbusier as "social thought in 3 dimensions."
9. Fishman asserts that in providing "manifestoes for an urban revolution" Wright, Howard, and Le Corbusier set out a classical triad and vocabulary of basic forms that can be used to define the whole range of choices available to the planner.  How would you characterize the key elements or "dominant values" represented by each of these visions?
10. What are the most important features differentiating America's current experience of suburbia with that of the immediate post war period?
11. What key themes for the future of America and its cities gained expression in the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893.
12. Can planning theory, now or in the past, be said to have a dominant paradigm? a) Trace the history of planning theory from the beginning of the century in terms of what paradigms were widely adopted. b) Relate these paradigms to the socio-political context in which planning was operating. c) During the time when comprehensive rationality (or the rational model) was particularly influential, is it accurate to say that it constituted a dominant paradigm? d) What is the current situation?
13. Planners have traditionally been able to define themselves professionally and politically based on where they draw the line between proper government activities and private interests.  However, this may be increasingly complicated in an era of blurred public-private boundaries , of public-private partnerships, of quasi-private public authorities (such as port authorities), and of non-profits (the "third sector").  In addition, planning graduates increasing work in all three sectors, rather than just for local government.  Explain how the relationship of planners to the public-private boundaries has changed in recent years.  What political, economic and/or cultural factors have shaped this changing relationship?
14. City and regional planning is a recent, interdisciplinary field that draws heavily from other disciplines.  Outline what you think are the basic intellectual origins of the field.  That is, from what other fields does planning borrow its theories, its political beliefs and/or its tools of analysis?  Does this mix make for a powerful synergy, or instead (as some have argued) simply create a confusing hodgepodge lacking a coherent set of tools or best practices?  (Do not hesitate to be critical of planning where appropriate.)  Finally, in which direction should planning head in the future (e.g., more towards economics, architecture, social work, public policy, business, etc.)?
15. Planning theory can be divided into two general areas:  substantive planning theory and procedural planning theory.   Elaborate on this distinction, and give examples of each.  Are there connections between the two, or are these really two quite distinctive sets of theories?

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Note: All of the course materials and readings (from the entire semester) might be covered on the exam. What is the relative importance of each topic/reading? You can use the coverage in the "required" readings -- and the coverage in class lectures -- as a rough indicator of the material's importance.