Methods used in British town planning 1920-1965

What is it about?

We are used to a narrative that says society has gradually become more truthful and that science is the bearer of that truthfulness - the scientization of truth. My article confirms the proposition that - even within science - there are "regimes of truth" that claim, dispute or concede their objects in any given conjuncture. Specifically, in the context of town planning in mid-century Britain, I argue that town planners invoked scientific credentials from the very beginning of statutory planning, but that it was the science of the "social" that triumphed after WW2, defending families, communities and regions against irresponsible economic forces. Map-based standard-setting in defense of the social was the ambient technique of power in everyday planning practice. The economic discourse referenced in the US as a quantitative, model-building discipline could not enter this politico-administrative space until internal contradictions in the map and standard were worked through in the early 60s.

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Why is it important?

There are very few case studies of methods and techniques used in British planning practice. This paper ranges across the professional planning literature of the period 1920 to 1965 to reconstruct the methods in use, and their conditions of possibility.

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