The History of Urban and Regional PlanningAuthor(s): Gordon E. CherrySource: Area, Vol. 10, No. 1 (1978), pp. 32-34Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20001276 .

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The history of urban and regional planning

A report on the First International Conference on the History of Urban and Regional Planning held at Bedford College, London, 14-18 September 1977.

The History of Planning Group was formed in 1974. An inaugural meeting at the University of Birmingham was attended by some 30 people who saw benefit in coming together through correspondence and by means of occasional 'paper-reading' meetings.

To a hardy few it was believed even then that although the subject field was largely unexplored, a small number of people were beginning to follow similar or related tracks of enquiry. Three years later there are over 350 names in an international net

work of contacts. The Group has been meeting half-yearly and a newsletter goes out to members on an irregulai but not too infrequent basis. The contemporary work of academics from many different disciplines (architecture, geography, planning, sociol ogy, history etc.) and planners in practice can now be assessed; an early literature search has been compiled.1 A publications series is planned under the joint editorship of Prof. G. E. Cherry of the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, University of Birmingham, and Dr A. R. Sutcliffe of the Department of Economic and Social History, University of Sheffield.

The First International Conference on the History of Urban and Regional Planning was the Group's most ambitious event to date. It was organized by Dr Anthony Sutcliffe and received financial support from the Social Science Research Council, the Anglo-German Foundation for the Study of Industrial Society, the British Academy, the Nuffield Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. It attracted a registered attendance of 159. The international quota was encouragingly high, with approximately half the total representing countries other than the UK: 27 from the USA, 17 from

West Germany, and 6 from Italy; and there were other representations from Canada, Japan, Holland, France, Austria, Ireland, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Czechoslovakia and Australia. Certain parts of the world were not involved, and these clearly need to be 'tapped' in an extended internationalist phase of contact.

The Conference's work was based upon the consideration of previously circulated papers. But two formal lectures preceded the working sessions. First, Sir John Summerson examined John Nash's plans for Regent's Park (where Bedford College is situated). Second, Prof. Gerd Albers of the Technical University, Munich, reviewed the course of town planning in Germany over the last 100 years. This again was very apt, because the Group has tended to concentrate very largely during the last 3 years on the environmental and planning history of the period since the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Thirty-nine papers provided the substantive material for the Conference. The wide canvas can be seen from the following list of titles: Jeanne Cuillier, Institut Superieur d'Urbanisme et de la Recherche Urbaine, Brussels, Urban social planning and mobility: new forms of social order in the early 19th century city; David R. Goldfield, Architecture and Urban Studies, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Planning for urban growth in the Old South; Manuel de Sola-Morales, Laboratorio Urbanismo, Universidad Politecnica de Barcelona, Ildefonso Cerda: his 'Teoria General de la Urbanizacion' and the Plan of Barcelona (1859); Norman Pressman, Urban and Regional Planning, Waterloo, The Canada Company and urban settlement pattern in nineteenth century SW Ontario: the case of Goderich; John W. Reps, City and Regional Planning, Cornell, The forgotten frontier: urban planning in the American West before 1890; Peter Breitling, Institut fur Stadtebau und Landesplanung, Technische Universitat Graz, The first city extension competitions in nineteenth century Germany and Austria; Donatella Calabi, Instituto Universitario di Architettura, Venice, The genesis of town planning instruments in Italy, c. 1850-1914; Franco Mancuso, Instituto Universitario di

32

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The history of urban and regional planning 33

Architettura, Venice, Origins and implications of zoning: from Germany to the USA; William H. Wilson, History, North Texas State University, The ideology, aesthetics and politics of the City Beautiful movement; George R. Collins, Art History, Columbia, Camillo Sitte reappraised; Helen Meller, Economic and Social History, Nottingham, Patrick Geddes as an international prophet of town planning before 1914; Frank J. Costa, Urban Studies, Akron, Public planning in Rome from 1870 to the First World War; Hidemitsu Kawakami, Urban Engineering, Tokyo, Tokyo city improvement program, 1884-1918; Stefan Muthesius, Fine Arts and Music, East Anglia, The German con servation movement to 1914; Teresa Zarebska, Instytut Podstaw Rozwoju Architektury,

Warsaw, The reconstruction of the historic area of Kalisz from the 1914 disaster; Norma Evenson, Architecture, California, Berkeley, The city as an artifact: building control in modern Paris; Roger Kain, Geography, Exeter, Conservation planning in France:

policy and practice in the Marais, Paris; Francis Sandbach, Social Sciences, Kent, The national parks campaign in the Lake District, 1931-1936; Christopher Tunnard, City Planning, Yale, Planning and conservation in the Kathmandu Valley; W. Houghton Evans, Civil Engineering, Leeds, Schemata in British new town planning; Pierre Merlin, Paris, Les villes nouvelles franeaises de la conception au debut de la realization; R. J. Smith, Town and Country Planning, Trent Polytechnic, New towns and decentralisation: the history of a policy in Britain and the USA, 1909-1970; Blaine A. Brownell, Urban Studies, Alabama, Urban planning and the motor vehicle in the United States in the early twentieth century; Gordon Cherry, Urban and Regional Studies, Birmingham, The

place of Neville Chamberlain in British town planning; John R. Mullin, Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture, Michigan State University, Planning in Frankfurt-am

Main under the Weimar republic; Franziska Bolleiey & Kristiana Hartmann, Abteilung Bauwesen, Dortmund, Wohnungsreform in Deutschland um die Jahrhundertwende: das Beispiel einer patriarchalischen Utopie; Peter Marcuse, Architecture and Planning, Columbia, Housing policy and city planning: the puzzling split in United States urban history, 1890-1940; P. J. Smith, Geography, Alberta, Planning concepts in the improve ment schemes of Victorian Edinburgh; J. N. Tarn, Architecture, Liverpool, Housing reform and the emergence of town planning in Britain before 1914; John Collins, Univer sity College, London, Lusaka: urban planning in a British colony, 1931-1964; Susan M. Cunningham, Geography, Birkbeck, London, Brazilian cities old and new: planning experiences; A. D. King, Sociology, Brunel, Exporting 'planning': the colonial and neo colonial experience, 1877-1977; Shun-ichi J. Watanabe, Urban Engineering, Tokyo, Garden city Japanese style: the case of Garden City Company Limited, 1918-1928; Walter L. Creese, Architecture, Illinois, The development of the Tennessee Valley Authority; Wolfgang Hofmann, Institut fur Geschichtswissenschaft, Technische Universitat Berlin, The development of regional government and planning in the area of Greater Berlin, 1860-1920; Alberto Mioni, Instituto Universitario di Architettura, Venice, Territorial planning in Italy, 1880-1940; Dieter Rebentisch, Historisches Seminar, Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe Universitat, Frankfurt-am-Main, Regional plan ning in the Rhein/Main area, 1890-1945; Robert Fishman, History, Rutgers, The anti planners: the contemporary revolt against planning and its significance for planning history; Giorgio Piccinato, Instituto Universitario di Architettura, Venice, Ideology and realities of town planning in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Some form of publi cation for these papers is being considered.

The Conference was accompanied by study tours (Milton Keynes and planning landmarks in London), and the social side was not forgotten. There were Receptions at the Royal Town Planning Institute and the Architectural Association, and a Conference Dinner was held.

The study of the historical antecedents and processes of town planning, particularly over the last 100 years received a great fillip through this Conference. There were papers of quality, and discussion was stimulating. New friendships were made and academic links forged. The relationship with historical geography (especially but not necessarily urban) is a close one. The Group is not concerned with contributing just to

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34 The history of urban and regional planning

the historical dimension of town planning as a discipline; it has its raw material in the evolution of the built environment, and the historical geographer is as well equipped as any to look at the social, economic and technological origins of change and the many consequences.

In the meantime, the History of Planning Group's membership list is ever expanding. Those who can claim to be in some way working in this field of study by way of teaching or research, and would wish to join the Group, should write to Prof. Gordon

E. Cherry, Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, University of Birmingham.

Gordon E. Cherry

Note

1. Sutcliffe, A. (1977) 'A history of modern town planning: a bibliographic guide', Univ. of Birmingham, Centre Urban Reg. Stud. Res. Memo. 57

Statistical applications in the spatial sciences

A report of a joint residential conference of the IBG Quantitative Methods Study Group and the Royal Statistical Society General Applications Section, held at the University of Bristol, 19-21 September 1977.

Part of the Quantitative Methods Group's constitution states that it should attempt ' to develop links with the fields of statistics and mathematics'. This objective has been vigorously pursued by the Group, and on the statistical side, the past 3 years have seen, amongst other things, an issue of The Statistician devoted to geographical applica tions,' a joint conference with the Applied Stochastic Processes Study Group which attracted a grant from the Statistics Committee of the SSRC,2 and a review paper by Cliff and Ord to the Royal Statistical Society Research Section.3 This well attended joint meeting with the Royal Statistical Society General Applications Section, organ ized by N. Wrigley (Bristol), was a further attempt to build upon these gradually strengthening links, and it provided an opportunity for British quantitative geographers to meet applied statisticians working in universities, polytechnics and government research organizations.'

During the first afternoon and evening five papers were given by geographers to the audience of approximately 100 attracted to the meeting. Papers by R. L. Martin (Cambridge) on The analysis of wage inflation in the space economy and by L. W. Hepple (Bristol) on Regional dynamics in UK unemployment and the effect of the economic recession illustrated recent trends in quantitative economic geography, including the use of time-varying-.parameter models and cross-spectral analysis, and discussed them in the context of empirical studies of the transmission of wage inflation through US urban labour-markets, and unemployment trends in British regions, respectively. Papers by R. Harris (Durham) on Spectral and spatial image processing for remote sensing and by R. J. Bennett (UCL) on Problems in forecasting long term climate changes then provided the statisticians in the audience with their first taste of statistical applications in the environmental branches of geography, and Bob Bennett's critical review of the statistical problems in forecasting long term climate changes gave rise to a lively discussion on forecasting which ended the afternoon session. After dinner,

members reassembled to hear Prof. P. Haggett (Bristol) and A. D. Cliff (Cambridge) give a fascinating account of their research on The diffusion of epidemics in closed

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