Development Planning as the Only Game in Town

Abstract

Why is development planning a central activity of city government? This paper confronts this question through the study of a small city in the Boston SMSA Development planning in this city turns out to be a contentious business. Not everyone supports it, and it is difficult to do Yet despite a number of competing planning agendas and, in particular, popular demand for human services, development planning — i e., planning for business — consistently remains the central concern of city government While there are a number of ways to account for this, the centrality of development planning seems not to be simply the result of scheming special interests, funding availability, or professional imperatives. These explanations may be correct, but each alone appears to be inadequate An examination of a variety of development projects and of the competition among alternative planning agendas suggests, rather, that development planning is the logical outcome of the particular ways in which diverse constituencies and interests within the city are linked to each other Furthermore, planning for business seems to be the only way to get certain things done Consequently, for nearly everyone, development planning becomes the only game in town