The 1947 St. Louis city plan predicted a glorious future for the city, but the glorious future never came. St. Louis experienced decline and city planning in St. Louis became problematic for contributing to racial inequity. Drawing upon narrative approaches to public policy and semi-structural content analysis, this research explores those contradictory themes. It argues that the glorious future was a discursive strategy and was promised only to those not labeled socially diseased. To avoid the problems of the 1947 plan, today’s planners should maintain a focus on equity and avoid dehumanizing narrative devices in their planning.
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