Urban Claptrap

Phillip Nicholson and Kenneth Bley (Viewpoints, Jan. 19) have given us a fine example of the claptrap promoted by the development community but now fashionably cloaked in the language of urban planning.

They cry crocodile tears for the difficulties that developers face when there are building moratoriums, tell us how much we lose from tax revenues when this occurs, and then advance their own definition of planning: the planning that private-sector developments put into long-term multiphased projects (read “megadevelopments”). The duty of urban planning, in their view, is to smooth the way for these projects, to make sure nothing interferes with them, by updating whatever public urban plans exist as circumstances change.

What is most outrageous about their view is the appropriation of the language of urban planning in the name of promoting private interests. We have only to look at the problems we have created in Los Angeles and other large cities by failing to exercise control over land use and community development to see how false is their private-sector planning. At least we used to be able to depend on developers and their lawyers to be honest in simply resisting urban planning for the public. Now they are stealing our language as well. The private sector is not capable of planning the city for the needs of all its residents. That’s what urban planning does. Development lawyers, find your own, honest language for what you do.

MICHAEL STORPER

Assistant Professor

of Urban Planning

UCLA