One of the reasons I’m picking on urban planning here is that it seems like the consequences of it are enormous, given the importance of cities as generators of growth and innovation. (Though it’s possible there’s not in fact much difference between “successful” cities and “unsuccessful” ones.)
Urban planning seems similar to economics in some important respects. One of these, is that in practice the field is used as a garden of many different theories and tools which are selected from as needed to ex post facto justify political positions that are genuinely supported by unstated biases. Whatever crazy idea you have, you can be sure somewhere someone is receiving public or private funding to try and make it look legitimate.
One of the reasons I’m picking on urban planning here is that it seems like the consequences of it are enormous, given the importance of cities as generators of growth and innovation. (Though it’s possible there’s not in fact much difference between “successful” cities and “unsuccessful” ones.)
Urban planning seems similar to economics in some important respects. One of these, is that in practice the field is used as a garden of many different theories and tools which are selected from as needed to ex post facto justify political positions that are genuinely supported by unstated biases. Whatever crazy idea you have, you can be sure somewhere someone is receiving public or private funding to try and make it look legitimate.