Urban Planning as Policy Analysis: Management of Urban Change

Abstract

Abstract Current approaches to and methods of urban planning are inadequate for effective urban policy analysis. Planners emerging from existing planning education programs have not been provided with the skills, knowledge, and experience required to plan for and guide urban change. Policy planning is a complex process of analyzing, intervening in, and managing the political conflict that is inextricably related to urban change. Research is needed into the structure of public policymaking, characteristics of urban policy formulation and implementation, strategies of intervention, processes of policymaking interaction, and techniques of change-program management. New methods, techniques, and concepts of planning must be developed. If planners are to be effective policy analysts and change managers, they must receive cognitive inputs and skills for dealing with a complex policymaking system that are not now incorporated in urban and regional planning education curricula.