Friday 25 October 2013

Revolution or Planning

Yesterday morning the article and video of Russell Brand on Newsnight was being punted about.



It's still doing the rounds and there is plenty of buzz and chatter and blogging and various articles and what not about the relevant merits or not of his attitude.  Essentially, yes he may be right about there needing to be change, but there aren't any answers there.

The idea of revolution is fun: anarchy, equality and all that, but reading Animal Farm in GCSE English has left too much of an impression on me about who benefits from revolution.

Anyway, at around the same time the TCPA had published a report "Planning out poverty: the reinvention of social town planning"



Having been to a number of events recently, and following news and reports endlessly about planning, housing and so on I found the coincidence of these two 'activities' revealing themselves to me so close on the old twitter timeline interesting.

It was my intention to write a full-on critique of the two.  But I'm not an academic, and my bike broke in the afternoon so I got sidelined and in a foul mood not able to cohesively bring together all the themes on my mind.

But essentially Brand's idea of revolution is all well and good, but for my money the TCPA publication at least offers real tangible solutions to inequality.  If these ideas could get a higher profile, if everyone that 'liked' or shared the Brand video wrote to their MP and local councillor to push for adoption of these policies, or at least more serious consideration of the issues under discussion maybe there's a chance that more could be done, and there is an alternative to just not voting or being revolutionary.

But then, the biggest problem is apathy,

In which case, maybe I should do just that right now.





Sure, Brand is more entertaining than policy.  But we do live in a world where there is top down control, and in order to change this, for the better, engagement is required at some level.

Having first skimmed through the report it offers a very good introduction to what planning is, and the relationship with poverty and social equity.  Kind of outlines what it is that I mean when talking about studying planning.







And even though in my last job interview I signed off with my recommendation that maybe the planning framework should be given time to bed down after so much change in the last few years, can't help thinking that some sort of way of engaging the powers that be with some idea of proper long term planning may be a good thing.  We'll see how I feel once I've actually been working for a few years aye!

And just to sign off a favourite quote from my dissertation, just to add a counterpoint to my whole argument:

Planning Fails Everywhere It has been Tried
Wildavsky 1973



 [edit; now that I've re-read the New Statesman article and TCPA report more thoroughly I'm not sure of the comparison.  Both trying to make a change, one is slightly more emotive, but when I've seen Hugh Ellis of the TCPA talk he an be very emotive indeed about the need for strategic planning to solve some of the societal problems in this country specifically.  I probably wanted to make the comparison for a bit of sensationalism and marketability, and being made aware of both streams of thought at the same time yesterday morning made a point of interest.  Maybe it should have been a tweet instead after all.  Or just a bit of chat down the pub.  And I will write to my MP, as should you, about whatever it is that bothers you.  Or just protest, I don't care, which is kind of the problem isn't it.  I'll leave this here for now quietly and see if I come back to a better critique or solution in future.  And my bike's still fucking broken!]

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