Do We Learn from Planning Practice?

This article examines a central assumption that underlies what has been termed the practice movement in planning theory. The term refers to the great diversity of recent writings that focus on the activity of planning and the practices of planners. It is assumed that empirical accounts of planning practice can help to build a more useful and pragmatic kind of planning theory than can the generalized procedural or normative models that previously constituted planning theory and that they have a pedagogical role to play in relation to practicing planners and planners in training. This article asks questions about how we learn from practice, how we learn from other people writing about practice, and therefore what kind of writing about practice will be most conducive to a learning experience.