Advocacy and Pluralism

Advocacy and Pluralism in planning was a ground breaking concept to emerge from America in the 1960s. Riding off the backs of the American civil rights movement, the concept was centred on the notion of breaking down the segregation that was embedded in planning practices. Paul Davidoff was the person who started the movement, and although in today’s modern society the idea can be considered ‘out of date’, there is no denying that it revolutionised the path that planners follow today.

Davidoff introduced two interesting ideas with his paper. Firstly, the planner as an advocate was an attempt to inspire amongst the planners of the time to examine their values and ascertain the ones that they believe are right. Then with those values, seek out employers who would have the same so that the planner could truly advocate for what they believed in. At the time, advocacy was considered adversarial; at least two parties would need to contend and advocate for their side of the story, supposing the community, or those affected could be likened to a jury and vote on the best idea.  

The second idea that Davidoff introduced was pluralism is planning. This can be considered the foundation for progressive community planning as it exists today. Although Davidoff’s idea did not engage the community directly per se, it was designed for the engagement with community representatives, somewhat keeping up the civil and professional demeanour of the time. There were hints of community involvement in the planning process however, it did not venture far from the ‘unitary’ or top down model of planning that was the focus of much disdain.

There has never been as much focus on the social aspects of planning as there is today and Davidoff’s article does raise an interesting question, are planner’s value free or value laden? It is almost impossible for anyone to be devoid of acquiring values throughout their life and it does beg to question whether such values can reflect in their planning ideas. However, questioning whether a planner does have values and whether they should have values can result in two different answers. After all, the planner should be planning for the good of the community, not themselves.