URBAN THEORY AND SOCIAL THEORY

Urban Theory and Social Theory

Urban Theory and Social Theory

Introduction

Urban theory is considered as an agglomeration of various social theories such as classical, neo-classical and modern theories. Social theory takes into account the inseparability of political, social and economic forces. The urban theory and its study has been developing with the incorporation of social, environment and economics factors, while greater importance is given, though not necessarily decoded into practice. By default, urbanomics, causes environmental and social factors to subservience.

Urban Planning

Urban planning is a form of interventionist practice which has already made a subtle use of sociological theory.' It has been struggling since the last war for both professional status and for a disciplinary foundation which would justify an academic position. These recent circumstances provide only the most organized and dramatic examples of the repealed embrace and subsequent rejection of a variety of sociologist, provided theoretical positions. Since its inception in philanthropy, utopianism and in organized legislated civic control, planning has either been explicitly guided by theoretical convictions or its apparent pragmatism has concealed less evangelistic but none the less theoretical commitments. At the least, this has taken the form of assumptions about both how individuals act socially, and thus what a desirable society might look like in relation to present constraining circumstances; at the most, a theoretically informed urban planning has recast its own activity from attempting to control or inspire physical development to a form of social action which is actually created by a sociological vocabulary (for instance a concern with social movements or a concern with particular kinds of population which are first made apparent or 'invented' by sociologists theorizing activities). It is the increasing willingness of young planners over the last decade to have their professional and disciplinary vacuum tilled by sociologists which makes an appraisal of the contribution of sociology particularly pertinent now. Like social workers, their organizational and occupational uncertainty has made them open to conviction and conversion in an almost religious sense. The purpose of theorizing is educational and scientific, not religious, and the closure necessarily following the reification of particular theoretical approaches is the opposite of what we should hope from sociological education. (Friedmann, 2005)

Using a paradigm approach to inform planning is at the same time frustrating and rewarding. Being able to state the subtleties and implications of a particular paradigm is difficult even for social scientists immersed in social science theory. While some users may be perceptive because of their emotional and intellectual distance from the paradigm, we cannot expect most practitioners of planning to be perceptive of paradigmatic differences and the implications for action of different app roaches. We need additional comparative treatments such as Bailey's, which analyze and contrast complex paradigms underlying large bodies of social science theory. Such analyses are needed by wider public than simply the social science theorists. (Smith, 2005)

However, examining a situation from several different perspectives allows a planner to discover subtle biases that may affect the success of a plan and to discover alternative solutions ...