Citizens in Conflict

The Sociology of Town Planning
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-041-37086-4
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 254 Seiten, Format (B × H): 145 mm x 222 mm, Gewicht: 395 g

Reihe: Routledge Revivals

First published in 1974, Citizens in Conflict explodes the popular mythology that town planning is an objective, rational, apolitical professional activity conducted in the public interest. The book challenges the underlying professional conception that society functions as an integrated, cooperative system based on generally agreed values—a view the author argues is fundamentally false.

In reality, society operates through continuous struggle for scarce resources and power between groups or social classes with opposed interests. This conflict creates an impossible position for town planners: they cannot serve all groups simultaneously, making their work inherently partial rather than objective. Their choice to serve certain interests over others constitutes a political act, not a neutral technical exercise. And in conditions of social conflict, no single ‘public interest’ exists to be served.

Given these fundamental contradictions, Citizens in Conflict concludes that traditional town planning had reached a dead-end by the early 1970s. Planning meaningful social change required shifts in resource distribution, power structures, and ideology—changes that most professional planners were neither equipped nor willing to undertake. The book makes a case for a radically different system of planning altogether.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Simmie, J.M.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Stadt- und Regionalsoziologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Concepts and definitions 2. Co-operative society 3. A socio-political perspective on British town planning 4. Social conflict and spatial inequality 5. Power, planning and distributional equity 6. Social action and ideological conflict 7. The planning of change

Über Autor(innen)

J.M. Simmie is Professor Emeritus in Innovation Studies School of the Built Environment at Oxford Brookes University, UK. His research is focused on technological innovation, productivity and the competitiveness of regions and cities within the general theoretical framework of evolutionary economic theory and economic geography. James has been a Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and of the Academy of Social Sciences.