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Toward a Non-Euclidian Mode of Planning

Article  in  Journal of the American Planning Association · December 1993

DOI: 10.1080/01944369308975902

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---1 COMMENTARY & COUNTERPOINT J--­
Toward a Non­
Euclidian Mode
of Planning
John Friedmann
We live in an unprecedented time, confronted by un­
precedented problems. I suppose that every generation
believes in the unprecedented nature of its time and place,
and to some extent this belief is well founded. But what
we are living through in the final decades of this century
is something altogether different. It is nothing less than
the collapse of the Euclidian world order of stable entities
and common sense assumptions that have governed our
understanding of the world for the past two hundred
years. The engineering model of planning that served us
during this period, with its penchant for advance decision
making and blueprinting and its claims of superiority to
other forms of decision making because of its scientific
character, are thus no longer valid and must be aban­
doned. We are moving into a non-Euclidian world of
many space-time geographies, and it is the recognition
of this change that obliges us to think of new and more
appropriate models.
Rethinking Planning
The conventional concept of planning is so deeply
linked to the Euclidian mode that it is tempting to argue
that if the traditional model has to go, then the very idea
of planning must be abandoned. The only way around
this dilemma-either Euclid or nothing-would be to
define planning independently and distinct from the en­
gineering sciences, which were its original inspiration.
Such a definition involves the linking of knowledge to
action: Planning is that professional practice that spe­
cifically seeks to connect forms of knowledge with forms
of action in the public domain. Although fairly abstract,
this definition allows us to reconceive planning as some­
thing other than engineering, where means are always
efficiently related to given ends, and blueprints lay out a
course of action for others to pursue. The definition al­
lows us to think of a non-Euclidian model of planning.
What we need to do, then, is to rethink the questions of
knowledge and action. What knowledge is relevant and
with whose actions are we concerned?
To begin our excursion into this relatively uncharted
terrain, we need first to consider the implications of the
contemporary collapse of the time-space continuum.
APA JOURNAL 482 AUTUMN 1993
What would be the appropriate time and space of a non­
Euclidian form of planning? The time of such a planning
is the real time of everyday events rather than imagined
future time. Planners would accordingly be more in the
thick of things rather than removed from the actions that
their planning under the old model was intended to guide.
Viewed in this light, planning becomes less a way of
preparing documents, such as analyses and plans, and
more a way of bringing planning knowledge and practice
to bear directly on the action itself. Central to a non­
Euclidian planning model are planners acting as respon­
sible, thinking urban professionals rather than as faceless
bureaucrats engaged in the production of anonymous
documents. Face-to-face interaction in real time is the
new model of planning.
This is not to argue that it is altogether futile to imagine
future time or useless to make projections, simulations,
and other hypothetical studies about what might or ought
to happen next year, or five or even fifty years from now.
Human imagination cannot be confined to practical
problem solving in the here and now. Being open to the
future, the mind takes leaps in time. Concern with an
imagined future will continue to play an important role
in planning, but the emphasis in non-Euclidian planning
should be on processes operating in actual or real time,
because it is only in the evanescent and still undecided
present that planners can hope to be effective.
As for the space of planning, we need to privilege re­
gional and local over national and transnational space.
This leads to a decentered view of planning. I am not
saying that national and transnational planning are ob­
solete. Far from it. Planning is instituted at all levels of
public decision making, but in thinking about a new
model, where should the emphasis lie? There are several
reasons for my choice of the regional and local scale.
First, we must be more attentive than ever to regional
and local variety and difference. The problems and con­
ditions of planning are not everywhere the same, and it
is the specificities of place that should be our guide. In
other words, there is truth in the old adage that the so­
lution should be as complex as the problem it proposes
to solve. There are no simple solutions for problems in
the public domain.
A second reason is the increasing presence of organized
civil society in public decision making. This is a relatively
new but increasingly salient phenomenon in the public
life of cities and regions. It means that a space for par­
ticipation must be found for a whole new set of actors
in addition to the nation state and capital. Regions, cities,
and neighborhoods are the places where meaningful cit­
izen participation can take place. It is far less likely to
occur at superordinate levels.
A third reason is that regions and localities are the
spaces of people's everyday lives. National and trans­
national space is typically for corporate actions and su­
perordinate bureaucracies. It is not the space where or­
dinary people can exert much influence on events. But
ordinary people do affect the spaces where they earn
 heir livelihoods and where their daily lives unfold. The
�uality of that space is exceptionally important to them.
A decentered planning is attractive for other reasons
as well: the wider distribution of risks, the potential for
social experimentation, and the revival of democratic
practices. It is true, of course, that national and trans­
national conditions tend to constrain local and regional
actions, and that structural changes at higher levels are
often required before significant progress at local levels
can occur. Neither politics nor planning can be aban­
doned at these superior levels of governance, and their
role is indeed crucial. But changed or not, these condi­
tions constitute merely the framework for everyday plan­
ning practice, and the bulk of most planners' attention
should be focused on regions, cities, and neighborhoods.
Within the new continuum of real time and local space,
a non-Euclidian planning model would have five char­
acteristics. It would be normative, innovative, political,
transactive, and based on social learning.1 Before ad­
dressing each of these, it may be useful to contrast the
new model with the familiar Euclidian or engineering
model of planning. Whereas planning in the new model
is normative, planning in the old model is normatively
neutral in that its principal criterion is efficiency in the
attainment of externally defined goals and objectives.
Whereas planning in the new model is innovative ("set­
ting something new into the world," would be a definition
of action in this model), the old paradigm centers on the
allocation of resources in budgets, land use maps, and
the location of public facilities. Whereas the new model
argues that planners should be political in the sense of
being concerned with implementing strategy and tactics,
the old model argues for strict adherence to the civil
service code of affective neutrality and nonpolitical
practice. And whereas the new model argues for a trans­
active, empowering planning style, the old centrist model
is essentially disempowering in its impacts. Finally,
whereas the new model is based on social learning, the
old model is primarily a document-oriented activity that
is largely closed to public scrutiny and therefore short
on learning potential.
Planning Should Be Normative
Whom should the practice of planning serve? One
could, for example, argue that planners have an obliga­
tion to serve those who pay them. Such an answer, how­
ever, would be unacceptable as a guide to professional
practice.
Teachers teach; lawyers serve justice; doctors heal.
What do planners do? In every profession there is an
ideal of service. Normative ideas for planning are difficult
to define, because planners are active in a public-that
is a political-domain where views and interests often
clash. Thus, I cannot lay down a set of guidelines valid
for every planner. There are, as we all know, both con­
servative and progressive planners; planners who serve
special interests and those who would act in the interest
of all humanity. Still, I would like to set forth my own
considered values, which are grounded in a humanist
APA JOURNAL 483
vision. In the late twentieth century, the following values
seem to compel serious consideration: the ideals of in­
clusive democracy; giving voice to the disempowered;
integrating disempowered groups into the mainstream of
economic and social life while preserving cultural di­
versity; privileging qualitative over quantitative growth,
including the notion of sustainability; gender equality;
and respect for the natural world. In this perspective,
planning is well to the left of the political center. No
doubt there will be argument on this point. On the other
hand, since belief in the inevitability of historical progress
is no longer tenable, the urgencies of the present world
crisis and the specific values that they demand-democ­
racy, inclusion, diversity. quality of life, sustainability,
equality of rights, and the multiple claims of the envi­
ronment-need to inform planners' work.
Planning Should Be Innovative
Innovative planning looks toward creative solutions
to the social, physical, and environmental problems that
rise to political consciousness in the public domain. In­
novative planning is consequently focused rather than
comprehensive in scope; present rather than future ori­
ented; and concerned chiefly with institutional and pro­
cedural changes appropriate to the case at hand. Inno­
vative planning is concerned more with resource mobi­
lization than with central allocation. It operates in real
rather than imaginary time. And above all, it is entre­
preneurial. As such, it is well adapted to a decentered
planning system that involves a concerting of the powers
of many different actors. Therefore, innovative planning
requires great skills in negotiation, mediation, and the
art of compromise. It is a form of planning that, like en­
trepreneurship in the private sector, is prepared to take
risks, even while remaining publicly accountable.
Planning Should Be Political
In non-Euclidian planning, which takes place in real
time, knowledge and action are so tightly looped that
they appear not as two separate processes but as one.
Implementation is therefore built into the planning pro­
cess as a critical dimension, involving strategy and tactics
designed to overcome resistance to change within the
limits of legality and peaceful practice.
It is the common experience of humanity, however,
that the new will be resisted, not because it is new, but
because it threatens to displace something that already
exists. The assumption on the part of welfare economists
that certain changes ought to be preferred because they
will make some people better off while making no one's
position worse, is an empirical impossibility. Some people
will always feel worsted by innovations, though not al­
ways in financial terms.
This being the case, planning entrepreneurs can expect
to meet with opposition whenever they try to realize their
intentions. Therefore, if they are to prevail, if only par­
tially, they will need to think about their implementation
strategies right from the start. Without the exigencies of
implementation, planning designs remain empty forms.
AUTUMN 1993
 COMMENTARY AND COUNTERPOINT

But to act strategically is already to act politically; it transportation planners: share ride systems, jitney cabs,
means taking power seriously as a crucial element in shuttle services.
planning. The social learning model of planning argues for an
open process with two main characteristics: critical
Planning Should Be Transactive feedback and a strong institutional memory. Openness
In contemporary planning, two kinds of knowledge requires democratic procedures. It favors open over
are especially pertinent in the search for solutions: expert closed meetings, and invites criticism and comment. The
media and evaluative research both play an important
and experiential knowledge. Planners are usually iden­
tified with the former; the latter is the uncodified knowl­ role here. Planning in the public domain must be ac­
edge of people who will be affected by potential solutions. countable. In a climate of secrecy, mistakes accumulate
If solutions are to be adequate to a problem, the two and, in the long term, almost certainly culminate in di­
must be brought together. Indeed, the definition of the saster.
problem may result from linking expert with experiential Social learning systems require a confident leadership
knowledge in a process of mutual learning. that is not afraid to admit mistakes. It also requires a
Because experiential knowledge is not codified, it be­ political culture that does not seek immediate partisan
comes manifest primarily through speech. It is in the face­ advantage for every mistake committed. It is essential,
to-face transactions between planners and the affected however, to realize the broad implications of social
learning. When action fails to satisfy expectations, ques­
population that a basis in knowledge adequate to the
problem can be found. tions must be raised concerning the strategy employed
and, beyond that, the actor's image of reality, and even
Transactive planning is situation-specific and thus ap­
the ultimate values on which the action rests. To recon­
propriate to decentered planning, which seeks a diversity
of solutions at regional and local levels. Transactive sider strategy, image, and values calls for the sort of
planning seeks to draw potentially affected populations courage that only planning entrepreneurs are likely to
into the planning process from the very beginning, when possess.
problems still need defining. It is a participatory style
with its own characteristics. Above all else, participation The New Urban Professional
requires time. It also requires that both planners and cit­
izens have the capacity to listen sympathetically and share The old planning model, rooted in nineteenth-century
the responsibility for problem definition and solution. concepts of science and engineering, is either dead or
Transactive planning works best in small groups of up severely impaired. Though still practiced, it has become
to twenty people. Because community representatives largely irrelevant to public life. Though still taught in
may not be empowered to speak for others, transactive many parts of the academy, it has little of value to offer
planning is not an answer to the issue of democratic ac­ students.
countability. Its claim is more limited. Transactive plan­ In non-Euclidian planning, the planner is placed into
ning brings more detailed and specific knowledge to bear the center of the activity we call planning as a responsible
on a situation than would be possible if only expert professional. This suggests a new and more aggressive
knowledge were used. It addition, it may also strengthen role for planners seeking value-relevant changes within
communal responses and channel them away from blind their spheres of competency. In this entrepreneurial role
resistance into more constructive paths. Transactive planners must be publicly accountable, as they preside
planning seeks to tap into people's capacity for proactive over processes that are radically open to public inquiry.
practice and, where it is successful, may help create a Non-Euclidian planning is decentered, privileging re­
sense of collective solidarity. gions and localities. It encourages the affected population
to take an active part, and, thus, validates the experiential
knowledge of ordinary people and promotes mutual
Planning Should Be Based on Social Learning _ learning between the planning expert and the affected
In turbulent times, when little can be foreseen, there population. The truth claims of planning, where knowl­
is a need to proceed cautiously and experimentally to edge is a combination of expertise and experience, are
learn from mistakes, to allow new information to guide ultimately redeemed through intersubjective transactions
the course of action, and to take immediate corrective between community participants and planners.
actions as may be needed. Of course, long-term com- Non-Euclidian planning operates in real time by linking
mitments must be made from time to time: rail transit knowledge and action into a tightly looped process of
systems, for example, must be designed on a substantial strategic change. Planning entrepreneurs are primarily
scale. Large-scale projects, however, are the exception resource mobilizers who seek to concert public and pri­
rather than the rule, and increasingly, small-scale, flexible vate energies around innovative solutions to stubborn
solutions are found to be the appropriate answer. For problems in the public domain. Such planning is oriented
instance, small-scale power generation is becoming a to values rather than profit. It is normative in its intent.
technical and economic possibility. More flexible solu- Though planners remain free to choose, action in the
tions than fixed rail systems are finding favor among public domain should be justified as that which furthers

APA JOURNAL 484 AUTUMN 1993

 COMMENTARY AND COUNTERPOINT
the cause of human flourishing and diversity throughout
the world.
NOTE
1. I have discussed elements of this model in my writings
over the past twenty years and they are brought to­
gether here for the first time as a comprehensive al­
ternative to the rational decision-making model still
championed by many planning theorists, most notably
Adreas Faludi. Readers will find the following refer­
ences useful: Retracking America: A Theory of Trans­
active Planning (Doubleday and Anchor, 1973); The
Good Society (MIT Press, 1982); Planning in the
Public Domain: From Knowledge to Action (Princeton
University Press, 1987); and Empowerment: The Pol­
itics of Alternative Development (Basil Blackwell,
1992).
Friedmann is a professor at the University of California,
Los Angeles, and head of the Urban Planning Program.
His most recent book, coedited with Haripriya Rangan,
is In Defense of Livelihood: Comparative Studies on Envi­
ronmental Action (Kumarian Press, 1993).
Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 59, No.
4, Autumn 1993. © American Planning Association, Chi­
cago, IL.
A Quantum
Response to
Non-Euclidian
Planning
Sam Casella
A quantum revolution is changing the way we look at
the world. Quantum theory revealed the inner structure
of matter. By manipulating matter from the inside, rather
than from the outside, quantum theory makes it possible
to build machines that overcome conventional limits of
mechanical time and space. One result is the microcom­
puter. The collapse of the old mechanical and spatial
order, expressed in the electronic microcosm of the com­
puter chip, represents a new technology whose impact
is only beginning to be felt and understood.
APA JOURNAL 485 AUTUMN 1993
In this new age, change is faster. Possibilities are more
startling. Who would have predicted ten years ago the
fall of Russian communism and the disintegration of the
Soviet Union? Permutations have multiplied. We have
seen the rise of the microbased home enterprise in a
thousand fields, including planning. Large, old bureau­
cracies are being challenged. Witness IBM.
In a quantum age, knowledge flows globally, creating
a global net of ideas, capital, and labor. Long-range plan­
ning is challenged by rapidly changing assumptions.
Large-scale planning is challenged by the flexibility of
smaller economic units.
As Friedmann points out, a non-Euclidian world links
knowledge to action, emphasizes real time, and encour­
ages appreciation of regional and local variety. In a
quantum world, there is also heightened concern over
the long-term future, precisely because the future seems
to be in danger of getting out of control. Planning must
cope with the dislocations of rapid change and address
the future too.
I have no quarrel with Friedmann's characterization
of the non-Euclidian planning model as normative, in­
novative, political, transactive, and based on social
learning. Those characteristics are validated by my own
experience. But, I would add four other characteristics
to Friedmann's five, and call it a quantum model. A
quantum planning model would also be technological,
multidisciplinary, substantive, and intellectually free:
• Technological because it utilizes the rapid advances of
quantum science to extend the reach of each planner
to acquire and use information.
• Multidisciplinary because it requires greater skill in
appreciating connections. The traditional concerns of
land use, design, and physical function must be under­
stood as serving social and economic needs.
• Substantive because the emphasis is on results. There
isn't time in a quantum world to dwell excessively on
process.
• Intellectually free because productivity depends on the
individual ability to adjust rapidly to changing infor­
mation.
In a quantum age, every institution, every process,
and every individual is challenged to adapt to new de­
mands. Planning is no exception, and planners must
change and adapt if they are to come up winners. Fried­
mann's non-Euclidian model is a useful approach to that
challenge, and can be made even more useful by an un­
derstanding of its quantum context.
Casella, AICP, president of the APA, is a principal of
Casella and Associates, a planning firm in Clearwater,
Florida.
Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 59, No.
4, Autumn 1993. © American Planning Association, Chi­
cago, IL.
 COMMENTARY AND COUNTERPOINT
The More
Things
Change .. •
Daniel Lauber
My first reading of John Friedmann's article left me in
a very dense fog. I really couldn't tell what he was saying.
It seemed familiar, yet very radical. And what the heck
did he mean by "Euclidian world order" and so many
other of his theoretical terms?
A still, small voice told me that he was calling for the
same type of planning that Mike Brooks, Lachlan Blair,
Bill Goodman, Carl Patton, and Leonard Heuman had
taught me twenty years ago at the University of Illinois
in Urbana: locally oriented, socially informed, politically
astute, results-oriented planning. But l wasn't sure. After
all, how could a twenty-year-old concept sound so rev­
olutionary?
A phone call to Friedmann confirmed my suspicions.
His Euclidian world order of stable entities was a logical
scheme by which the world was thought to operate, and
by which planning would attack its problems. But today,
Friedmann rightly notes, the contemporary world and its
problems are much more chaotic; there is no logical
scheme to explain them or solve them.
Instead of writing plans that picture what our cities
should be in twenty years, Friedmann calls for the same
sort of local and regional policy planning that my graduate
school professors and my superiors at the American So­
ciety of Planning Officials' Planning Advisory Service
taught me in the early 1970s. The emphasis in planning
should be "on processes operating in actual or real
time" -as Friedmann puts it. And local and regional
planning, rather than national or transnational planning,
was certainly what we were taught to expect to do.
In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones sums up how
real world planning is conducted these days. Asked,
"What's your plan?" Jones responds, "I don't know; I'm
making this up as I go along." As Friedmann suggests,
planning today is done in more of a problem-solving or
piecemeal manner; planners really do have to make it
up as they go along. While we bring a body of knowledge
to the planning process, the issues with which we deal
change daily and we have to improvise. The politics of
the planning process constitute a shifting quicksand
through which we have to navigate with all the profes­
sional training and interpersonal savvy "".e can must�r.
While Friedmann offers a sound bluepnnt for planning
as we near the twenty-first century, politics force far too
many planners to ignore the normative values he advo-
APA JOURNAL 486 AUTUMN 1993
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cates-the same normative values upon which the
American Planning Association's nascent Agenda for
America's Communities is being developed. Unfortu­
nately, far too many planners in the trenches have to
choose between applying these values and keeping their
jobs.
We do need to be innovative, even entrepreneurial, in
applying our professional skills on the job. And we cer­
tainly need to develop political skills to enable us to ad­
vance the sort of normative values Friedmann suggests.
And we need to bring our professional knowledge to­
gether with the knowledge of the people who are affected
by planning decisions. This transactive planning, as he
calls it, requires full citizen participation in the planning
process, something planners have been urging for de­
cades, much as we've been trying to follow Friedmann's
social learning planning model of an open process with
critical feedback and accountability. At ASPO's Planning
Advisory Service we wanted to develop a file (databases
didn't exist then) of planning programs and policies that
worked and those that didn't, so planners could avoid
the unsuccessful.
Yet today, Friedmann's words still sound fresh and
downright revolutionary. Despite some isolated suc­
cesses, planners continue to fight the same battles they
fought twenty years ago and conduct planning the same
way as earlier generations. I fully understand and appre­
ciate the strong practical political pressures that have
forced so many planners to abandon the directions Fried­
mann urges.
APA is beginning to provide the support planners need
to undertake the sort of planning Friedmann envisions.
We have revived the APA committee to help planners
when their jobs or departments are politically threatened,
a committee first created when I was APA president in
1985. I'm hoping that this new committee will develop
a list of advisers whom planners can call to learn the
most effective way, for example, to end local exclusionary
zoning practices or bring local zoning for group homes
into compliance with the Fair Housing Act, without en­
dangering their jobs! APA's Agenda, which, if properly
fashioned, could furnish the foundation for planners to
build Friedmann's planning model. And APA has started
work on developing new state zoning enabling acts, an
effort that the American Law Institute undertook almost
twenty years ago.
I hope we can actually implement this sort of planning
so that twenty years from now, Friedmann's ideas will
seem old hat, rather than original and revolutionary as
they do today, at least twenty years after they were orig­
inally proposed.
Daniel Lauber is the AICP president. President of Plan­
ning/Communications in River Forest, lllinois, Lau?er l­
is a planning consultant and land use attorney specrn
izing in housi ng and zonin g issues .
Journal of the American Planning Ass?ciation, "'. o\: 59, N�-.
4, Autum n 1993. ©American Plannmg Assoc1at1on, Chi
cago, IL.