THE URBAN GENERAL PLAN

Chandler Publications in
POLITICAL SCIENCE

Victor Jones, Editor

THE URBAN

^ CHANDLER PUBLISHING

GENERAL PLAN

By T.J. KENT, Jr.

PROFESSOR OF CITY PLANNING
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY
ON THE URBAN GENERAL PLAN

By HOLWAY R. JONES

HEAD SOCIAL SCIENCE LIBRARIAN
UNIVERSITY OF OREGON, EUGENE
(formerly, city planning librarian,

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY)

COMPANY/SAN FRANCISCO

The charts and maps that appear on the following pages are the work of Mrs. Eve
Kemnitzer: xv, 14,36-37,92-93, 111, 114-115, 149,155,164-165,172-173,175,178-179

Copyright © 1964 by Chandler Publishing Company
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 64-14294
Printed in the United States of America

FEB 18*66

To Mary, and to Tom, Steve, and Dave —

whose strong desire for better and more beautiful cities
has always refreshed me ,

and whose practical interest in civic action to improve their own city
has always inspired me .

TIE UfT LfliliT

amim institute sf mmmm

CONTENTS

Illustrations .......... xi

Preface xiii

Acknowledgments . . . . ■ • • • . xvii

Introduction .......... 1

Municipal Government, City Planning, and the General Plan . 4

Forms of Municipal Government ...... 5

City Management and the Council-Manager Form ... 7

The City Council.9

The Role of City Planning in Local Government . . .12

The General Plan Defined . . . . • • .18

The Client of the General Plan.22

The Purposes of the General Plan ...... 25

II. Fifty Years of Experience with the General Plan . .27

The Olmsted Conception of the General Plan ... 28

The Bettman General-Plan Concept.29

1930-1950: Twenty Years of Confusion . . . .31

After World War II: Realities and Crystallization ... 60

ix

Contents

IV.

V.

The Legislative Uses of the General Plan

Policy Determination .......

Policy Effectuation .......

Communication ........

Conveyance of Advice.

Education.

Characteristics of the General Plan ....

Subject-Matter Characteristics .....
Characteristics Relating to Governmental Procedures

The General-Plan Document .....

Implications of the Uses and Characteristics of the General
Contents and Organization of the General-Plan Document

. 65

. 66

. 73

. 77

• 80

. 86

. 90

. 91

. 119

. 130

Plan 132
. 133

Conclusion

185

A Bibliographic Essay on the Urban General Plan

Introduction.

General References ....

Evolution of an Idea ....

Postwar Experience ....

187

189

191

196

203

Index .

211

x

ILLUSTRATIONS

Metropolitan Expansion and Municipal Governments ... xv

The Role of City Planning in Municipal Government ... 14

The General Plan and the Zoning Plan.36-37

The Urban General Plan.92-93

Major Policies and Proposals of the Berkeley Master Plan . . 106-111

Unified Summary of the Berkeley General Plan.114-115

Contents of the General-Plan Document.144-145

Summary of the General Plan for Washington.148-149

Unified Summary of the Oakland General Plan .152-153

Physical-Structure Concept of the Philadelphia Comprehensive Plan . 155

Main Ideas of the Copenhagen General Plan.160-161

Working-and-Living-Areas Elements of the General Plan . . . 164-165

Residential-Areas Element of the General Plan.167-170

Community Renewal and the General Plan.172-173

Park-and-Recreation-Areas Element of the General Plan . . . 175

Public-Transportation Elements of the General Plan . . . .178-179

xi

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the
people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise
their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from
them, but to inform their discretion by education.

Thomas Jefferson

. . . politics is the slow public application of reason.

Theodore H. White

PREFACE

Y i — s HE leaders of America’s cities have never before been so aware of
pressing problems and great opportunities. Postwar experience with
J the surging tide of urban growth has produced an entirely new genera¬
tion of civic, professional, and political leaders who have had, in effect, on-
the-job training in city planning. Today, these citizens are acutely aware
both of the shortcomings and of the powerful momentum of the postwar city¬
rebuilding and suburban-tract-development programs, characterized during
the 1950’s by large-scale urban-redevelopment projects, metropolitan free¬
ways, and fringe-area subdivisions. They are now re-examining, with a critical
eye educated by complex postwar experiences, the dreams of the 1930’s for
better cities.

In this context, the urban general plan for the physical development of
a community is a subject of great fascination for students, practitioners, and
professors of city planning. It has a similar appeal for a significantly large
proportion of those citizens who have participated directly in the work of
democratic municipal self-government. Thus, in addition to its use as a text¬
book for students of city planning and for students in the related fields of
architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, law, political science, public
administration, community organization, sociology, and urban-land eco¬
nomics, I hope that The Urban General Plan will be of use to the individual
members of citizen study groups such as the city-planning and related com¬
mittees of local chambers of commerce, service clubs, professional societies,
political parties, and the League of Women Voters. It is my hope, in
particular, that city councilmen, city-planning commissioners, mayors, and

Preface

city managers will find the ideas in this book directly related to one of their
major areas of responsibility, and that they will find it stimulating and of
practical value.

The Urban General Plan focuses on the legislative uses (Chapter III)
and the characteristics (Chapter IY) of the plan. The discussions of local
government, the role of city planning, and alternative plan concepts (Chap¬
ter I) are intended only to provide an adequate context for the material that
follows. Thorough consideration of these important, related topics is beyond
the scope of this book. Likewise, I do not attempt to cover the history of city
planning, although I judge it necessary to discuss in detail (Chapter II) the
general-plan concept embodied in the 1928 Standard City Planning Enabling
Act and to present my view of the historical context and consequences of
the Act. In Chapter V, I take up the contents and organization of the general-
plan document.

For several reasons, I discuss only the urban general plan, meaning the
general plan of a municipal government. Consideration of the county gen¬
eral plan and of the general plan for a metropolitan region is deliberately
excluded. Certain of the uses of the urban general plan would apply to county
and metropolitan-region plans. But some uses would not and some additional
uses would be involved. Therefore, while municipal governments through¬
out the United States do have a common need for general plans and while my
ideas may be generally applicable to the needs of such governments, I make
no claims of applicability with regard to types and levels of government other
than municipal.

Interest in metropolitan governmental and physical-development prob¬
lems has increased greatly since 1950. These subjects are and have been for
many years of special interest to me. Hence, in concentrating on the needs
of municipal governments, I do not wish to give the impression that I am
unaware of the needs of the great metropolitan communities that are grow¬
ing and reshaping themselves with such powerful vitality on every continent
of the world today. (For a discussion of basic relationships between munici¬
pal and metropolitan governments, see Report of Royal Commission on Local
Government in Greater London, 1957-60, Her Majesty’s Stationary Office,
Cmnd. 1164. My own views concerning these relationships are set forth in
my essay “City and Regional Planning for the Metropolitan San Francisco
Bay Area,” Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berke-
ley, 1963.) In The Urban General Plan, I have chosen to concentrate on the
needs of municipal governments because these governments exist today; be¬
cause they are the only general governments directly responsible for govern-
xiv

METROPOLITAN EXPANSION
AND MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENTS

It is anticipated that between 1955 and 1990 the population of the metropolitan San
Francisco Bay Area will have increased from 3,000,000 to approximately 7,000,000
persons. This tremendous population growth can be expected to accelerate the outward
physical expansion of the metropolitan community and the intensive redevelopment
of the central cities in a manner similar to that which has characterized post-World
War II urban growth throughout the world. It can also be expected that, regardless of
the success or failure of contemporary efforts to create some form of metropolitan
government, there will continue to be a significant increase in the number of municipal
governments within metropolitan areas in the United States, and in the authority of
these governments over physical-development activities. During the twenty-year period
between 1940 and 1960 in the San Francisco Bay Area, the number of municipal
governments increased from 67 to 83. By 1990 there probably will be more than 100
municipal governments in the Bay Area.

XV

■

Preface

ing physical-development activities; and because, as metropolitan govern¬
ments suited to our American political traditions gradually come into being—
as they must—I believe that our municipal governments should and will be
retained and strengthened, and that they will increase in number.

I began to practice city planning in 1939 and have been actively en¬
gaged ever since, in one capacity or another, in preparing, using, and revis¬
ing general plans for the physical development of cities—large, small, me¬
dium, and metropolitan in size. My academic colleagues describe me as a
“doer,” rather than as an “observer.” Consequently, although I have been
able to read and travel widely and have an intense interest in comparative
studies of city planning, local government, and local politics, it is natural for
me to express my ideas in the form of advocacy. I hope that the reader will
not be put off by this method of presentation, and that the ideas that are
presented in the following pages will be accepted, modified, or rejected on
their own merits.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

"T wish to express my appreciation to the many professional colleagues and

civic leaders with whom it has been my privilege to work in the metro-
il politan San Francisco Bay Area during the past twenty years. I am espe¬
cially indebted to Corwin R. Mocine and James A. Barnes, Berkeley city¬
planning directors from 1949—55 and 1955 to the present, respectively. I
have benefited greatly from their practical knowledge of city planning and
municipal government, and have been influenced by their ideas throughout
the entire fifteen-year period of our collaboration in the preparation and use
of the Berkeley Master Plan. (A full account of the Berkeley experience is
being prepared by Warren M. Campbell for publication in the Inter-
University Case Program series. Mr. Campbell’s excellent manuscript pre¬
sents additional evidence with which to judge the validity of the general-plan
concept as I have defined it.)

I am particularly indebted, also, to Alan Black. As a city-planning
graduate student at the University of California in 1959-60, he clarified for
me some of the basic features of the general-plan concept and he sum¬
marized, far better than I had been able to, the context within which the
concept must be seen to be fairly judged. With his permission, I have drawn
freely from his excellent thesis, “The Functions of the Urban General Plan”
(Masters Thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1960), particularly in
the preparation of chapters I and III. As an intellectual collaborator in the
task of putting ideas into words, I wish to express my admiration for his abil¬
ities and to acknowledge my debt to him.

Francis Violich and Melvin M. Webber, University colleagues, have

xvii

Acknowledgments

for many years been actively working on aspects of the general-plan con¬
cept that are of special interest to them. Their ideas have influenced me, as
have the challenging questions raised by my other colleagues, Catherine
Bauer, Donald L. Foley, and Mellier G. Scott, Jr. Contacts with other pro¬
fessors and work with several outstanding city-planning graduate students
since 1948 have contributed much to my thoughts about the urban general
plan.

I am indebted to Professor Victor Jones for his encouragement; and
to Mrs. Sallie Walker and the members of her staff for the final typing of
the manuscript and for effectively handling many other important details
and arrangements. It would be impossible to name all the others who have
helped me.

I wish to express a special word of appreciation to Mr. Holway R.
Jones for his very kind permission to include in this book, with minor changes,
his excellent bibliographic essay on the urban general plan.

T. J. Kent, Jr.

Berkeley, California
August , 1963

xvi 11

THE URBAN GENERAL PLAN

INTRODUCTION

TTN 1911 Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., in a statement presented at the third

National Conference on City Planning, described the urban general plan
] i in the following terms:

We must cultivate in our minds and in the mind of the people the conception of a
city plan as a device or piece of . . . machinery for preparing, and keeping con¬
stantly up to date, a unified forecast and definition of all the important changes,
additions, and extensions of the physical equipment and arrangement of the city
which a sound judgment holds likely to become desirable and practicable in the
course of time, so as to avoid so far as possible both ignorantly wasteful action and
ignorantly wasteful inaction in the control of the city’s physical growth. It is a
means by which those who become at any time responsible for decisions affecting
the city’s plan may be prevented from acting in ignorance of what their predecessors
and their colleagues in other departments of city life have believed to be the reason¬
able contingencies.

Today, more than half a century later, it would be difficult to obtain
agreement among the leaders of the profession on Olmsted’s definition of
the purpose and scope of the general plan. Ideas about the political* and
technical purposes and the substantive scope of the general plan, and the
basic physical elements of the community that must be dealt with in the
general plan, have evolved largely through the practical experience of pre¬
paring and using plans; they have not been based on extensive theoretical
thinking. City planners continually refer to the general plan, but they rarely
define it or explain its purposes and uses. Although there are certain basic

1

Introduction

similarities in most of the published general-plan documents, these similarities
result from practices handed down from one city planner to another, rather
than from the existence of any widely accepted conceptual basis.

It is also apparent from these general-plan documents that there are
disagreements on important questions concerning the general plan: Should
the plan represent goals or forecasts? How technical should it be? How gen¬
eral should it be? Should it include cost estimates? Whom is it primarily
intended to serve? Should it be adopted, and if so, by whom? Should it be
published? How often should it be reconsidered and amended? Should it
attempt to be at the same time both flexible and firm?

The validity of the basic general-plan concept itself is questioned by
some of the leaders of the city-planning profession today. These leaders sug¬
gest that since it is not possible to foresee the needs of the future scientifi¬
cally, it is dangerous to prepare a plan and misleading to suggest that it is
possible to do so.

Despite the questions, uncertainties, and misgivings within the city¬
planning profession, municipal governments must continue to govern and to
act. Every year an increasing number of city councils prepare and use long-
range general plans to assist them in determining their short-range physical-
development programs. I believe that the preparation and maintenance of
the general plan is the primary, continuing responsibility of the city-planning
profession. It will continue to be our most significant contribution to the art
of local government.

The ideas presented here are based on more than twenty years of ex¬
perience, mainly in the metropolitan San Francisco Bay Area. I first gained
a clear understanding of the reasons why a municipal government ought to
have a general plan while I was a graduate student at the Massachusetts In¬
stitute of Technology in 1942. Convictions concerning the essential physical
elements that should be dealt with in the general-plan document developed
as a result of my experiences as a member of the city-planning staff, and
later as Director of City Planning, in the City of San Francisco.

The belief that the municipal legislative body must be acknowledged as
the principal client of the plan and the emphasis I give to the idea that the
basic policies of the plan must be distinguished from the general physical-
design proposals of the plan result mainly from fifteen years of experience
in Berkeley, first as a citizen member of the City Planning Commission from
1948 to 1957, and subsequently, from 1957 to the present, as an elected
member of the City Council. Berkeley has a council-manager form of gov¬
ernment; San Francisco has a strong-mayor form of government.

2

Introduction

Since 1948 I have been a teacher, and my ideas, consequently, show
the influence of academic debates with colleagues and students and the prac¬
tical experiences of students following graduation. I have also been stimu¬
lated by the general-plan work carried out by the staffs of several of the
larger cities in the United States whose policies have been shaped by pro¬
fessional colleagues I have known since my student days.

I believe that we now have sufficient practical experience to attempt to
define the general plan and delineate its specific uses and characteristics. City
planning has made remarkable progress, but it has not reached the goals
expected of it. We need only look at our cities to realize this. Nearly sixty
years of experience and experimentation with general plans have produced
only modest achievements. What may be a workable general-plan doctrine
is just now appearing on the horizon. If it crystallizes and proves to be gen¬
erally applicable, the effectiveness of city-planning programs will be greatly
enhanced.

The discussion of ideas in the following pages to some extent depicts
an ideal state of affairs which will never be realized in any community. I in¬
tend, however, to present a concept of a general plan that can be used in an
actual American city, and not in a utopia. Although I make generalizations
to which there will be some exceptions, the general-plan concept I advance
represents an attempt to formulate a realistic doctrine which takes practical
considerations into account. The effects of politics, personalities, and human
traits and weaknesses are considered. It is acknowledged, however, that the
city-planning process advocated here will not be easy to apply and will not
always function smoothly.

Some of my proposals may not seem to advance the cause of the pro¬
fessional city planner; they involve restraint and discipline on his part. I
seek to advance the cause of better cities, of more effective physical-improve¬
ment policies and action programs, rather than the cause of the city planner.
I attempt to do this by clarifying the needs of the city council in its role as
the city builder of our era and, therefore, as the primary client of the city¬
planning profession.

3

I

MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT,

CITY PLANNING, AND THE
GENERAL PLAN

n

= ^ HE WAYS in which the general plan for the physical development of a
community should be used cannot be considered in a vacuum. It is

J_L not possible to make sweeping generalizations about how the plan
should be used without considering in a single context one’s beliefs about,
municipal government, city planning, and the general plan. There must be
an integrated system of ideas in which each part supports and is supported
by the other parts. The uses of the plan are dependent upon beliefs as to the
substantive scope of city planning, the place of city planning in the struc¬
ture of local government, the primary client of the general plan, and the
basic technical and political realities which make necessary a long-range
physical-development plan of some sort.

If the plan is to serve the specific needs of the particular people who
have to use it, it is essential to make a judgment as to who should be con¬
sidered the most important user—the primary client—of the plan. This judg¬
ment is of paramount importance in determining the uses, since the different
users will have varying and sometimes different needs.

If the chief executive is the primary client of the general plan, then a
particular set of uses will be predominant. If the city-planning commission
is an independent body, this will influence the uses of the plan. If the plan

4

Forms of Municipal Government

is simply a forecast, this fact will affect the uses. In similar fashion, the uses
of the general plan influence its characteristics and the contents and organi¬
zation of the general-plan document.

In this chapter I take up first the salient points about municipal gov¬
ernment and city planning which have shaped my ideas on the primary client,
the uses, and the characteristics of the general plan. The brief overview of
municipal government and city planning is followed by a discussion of my
own general-plan concept. This chapter and the historical perspective pre¬
sented in Chapter II establish the context for the subsequent exposition of
the legislative uses and characteristics of the general plan and the contents
and organization of the general-plan document.

FORMS OF MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT

In medium-sized and large American cities today there are two major
for ms of municipal government structure which have great vitality: that in
which the chief executive is an elected mayor who is independent of the
legislative body, and that in which the chief executive is a city manager ap¬
pointed by the legislative body. These may be called the “strong-mayor” and
“council-manager” forms, respectively. 1

The strong-mayor form is patterned after the organization of state gov¬
ernments and the federal government. It assures a system of checks and bal¬
ances by separating the legislative body and the chief executive and dividing
the governing powers between them. It also makes possible strong political
leadership by the mayor. This form of municipal government is common in
cities in the Northeast, and it is used elsewhere in the United States in most
of the large cities.

The council-manager form is an innovation of this century which was
sparked by the reform movement brought on by widespread corruption in
municipal government. It gained acceptance rapidly and is now widely used
by medium-sized cities throughout the country. It has achieved its greatest
popularity in California.

The strong- ma yor governments of the dozen or so American cities hav¬
ing more than three-quarters of a million population may be considered by
some readers to be in a special category. Most students of American gov-

1 See The Municipal Year Book (Chicago: The International City Managers’ Asso¬
ciation, 1313 E. 60th St., 1963) for complete information on the major groupings of the
17,997 American municipalities by size of population and type of governmental struc-
ture.

5

Government, Planning, and the General Plan

ernment who accept the premise that it is possible to have a single govern¬
ment for a city with a population of 750,000 or more that is also “local,”
find themselves seeking constantly to strengthen the position of the elected,
chief executive and his professional advisors at the expense of the legisla¬
tive body. Indeed, at the present time there are no prominent advocates of
the idea that the city council of a large city, like every other responsible
legislative body, should be expected to define and state the basic policies that
its specific legislative acts are intended to implement. On the other hand,
no serious student of democracy has ever advocated the abolition of the city
council—it has always been taken for granted that a “committee” of directly
elected fellow citizens is needed to legislate on behalf of the entire citizenry,
even m the big cities. Thus, while the general-plan concept may not seem
suited to what some judge to be the specific needs of the governments of our
major cities, the concept does suggest that there is a way to bring about the
open formulation, completion, and use of a coherent physical-development
policy m those major cities—such as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago—
where strong mayors and their professional advisors have no such policy as is
evidenced by a general plan.

There are forms of municipal government which do not include a strong
chief executive, either elected or appointed. The “weak-mayor” form, in
which the city council takes the place of a single chief executive, is common
m small cities. A significant proportion of the cities in the United States still
use the commission” form, in which the legislators also serve as the heads
of administrative departments; however, this form of municipal government
is declining in popularity. 2

In considering the general-plan concept set forth in this book, it is not
necessary to anticipate changes in the formal structure of local government
below the level of the city council. Since the primary uses of the general
plan as I define them are legislative in nature, I believe these uses have gen¬
eral applicability, now and in the future, wherever the political philosophy of
any society places final responsibility and authority for community policy¬
making and lawmaking in the hands of an elected group of citizens.

American citizens, within the context of the distinctive traditions of

Will conSue’m 1 an ^ ^ « ove ™ ts •» organized, I believe we

continue to see an increase in the number of citizens directly involved in local

fn theT fi 0n 0ffiC r? semiofficial boards and commissions and a steady increase

senL nf anCe ^ P3rtiSan P ° litiCal aCtivity - 1 also believe w e will see the emer-

L ^r a 'l,T p ” whi ? wm T ° f “» ScZ,

ai least m practice it not, for some time, in theory.

6

City Management and the Council-Manager Form

their respective state governments, will continue to experiment with different
forms of local government. Regardless of the present dominance of the two
forms—strong-mayor and council-manager—that have attempted to institu¬
tionalize a strong executive separated from the legislative body, the need for
city planning and the general plan will continue.

The legislative uses of the general plan for physical development as
defined in this book may seem especially appropriate to the council-manager
form of government. However, the ideas presented are not intended to be
viewed as an argument in support of the council-manager form. These ideas
do reflect the rise of this concept—and its contemporary appeal and vitality,
despite criticism and setbacks—and represent an attempt to learn from it,
as well as from other, older concepts of local government. The main object
of this book is to clarify the nature and purposes of the general plan for
physical development that is needed by municipal governments regardless of
the differences in their formal structure.

CITY MANAGEMENT AND THE COUNCIL-MANAGER FORM

The council-manager form of municipal government elevated the city
council to the unchallenged leadership of local government and concentrated
full authority and responsibility in the council. Under this form of govern¬
ment it was assumed that the chief executive would be a professional ad¬
ministrator, a subordinate appointed by the council and charged with carry¬
ing out its wishes. This assumption stimulated the development of the
profession of city management. It also gave rise to the central-management
concept of public administration, in which all administrative departments
are responsible solely to the chief executive, and the chief executive is the
spokesman for the entire administration. Thus, the appointed chief executive
theoretically can be held responsible for coordination of all policy-implemen¬
tation measures.

The original concept of city management held that the city council
should decide all matters of policy and the city manager should decide all
matters of administration. However, experience has shown the separation to
be unrealistic. The city council has had to concern itself with administra¬
tion—as by law it is required to do—and the city manager has always
played a major role in the formulation of policy. The “expert” status of the
city manager has given him more influence than was anticipated. It now
seems reasonable to some students of democratic local government to con¬
sider the city council and the city manager as partners in governing, with
the council having the last word in cases of conflict.

7

Government, Planning, and the General Plan

In general, the council-manager form has proven to be notably success¬
ful in a relatively short time in bringing about honest and apparently effi¬
cient local government. However, there are certain dangers in the system,
one being too great a centralization of power in appointed chief executives
and another being the tendency of forceful city managers to confuse and
weaken the authority of city councils. As with every system of human or¬
ganization, personalities have much to do with how the system operates in
actual situations. It probably will take another generation or two to bring
about effective solutions to the already apparent contradictions and flaws in
the central-management theory as applied to local self-government.

Some city councils, through neglect or ignorance, have virtually ceded
their power to their city managers. Some managers have attained dominance
over their councils from the unquestioning faith that the councils put in them.
Occasionally city managers have proven to be skillful in the political arena
and have become the political bosses of their communities—for a time.

These practices are contrary both to the council-manager concept and
to the principles of democratic self-government. The city manager is not
directly responsible to the people. Final and effective authority for major
policy decisions should reside only in those citizens—the members of the
elected legislative body—who are directly answerable to the people. City
councils must exercise their rightful prerogatives and must assert their su¬
premacy over their city managers. It is the duty of the city manager to help
his city council to perform its most important duties thoroughly and well.

On the other hand, the fact that the city manager serves at the pleasure
of a political body sometimes may make him unduly sensitive to the city
council and may cause him to weaken in his role as a professional man. A
weak manager, of doubtful professional integrity, is as unsatisfactory as a
politically strong manager. The city manager must satisfy the dominant ma¬
jority of the council to maintain his position. Because he must, particularly
if the council has no effective minority, some managers fail to stand up for
their department heads when professional recommendations conflict with
purely political considerations; instead, they try to quash disputes and present
an image of a harmonious, smoothly functioning administration. “Don’t rock
the boat” is their motto. I believe that constructive controversy is natural
and essential in democratic political affairs. There will always be under¬
standable differences of opinion and judgment among professional men.
These differences should be expected—indeed, looked for and encouraged—
and should be easily and openly expressed to the council.

I believe that some of the most important features of the council-

8

The City Council

manager form will be retained during the next evolutionary development of
municipal government, although there will be some changes of fundamental
importance. Changes will be required by the reality of widespread partisan
political activity in local affairs and by the realization that the manager should
not permit himself to become a political leader. Democratic government at
the local level will always, by definition, be pluralistic to a considerable ex¬
tent; citizen commissions and principal department heads must have access
to the council on an equal footing with the city manager when natural dif¬
ferences of political and professional judgment are evident and when a judg¬
ment has been made by the council that it must debate an issue vigorously
to educate the community and maintain control.

City managers have been a tremendous boon to both city councils and
city pl ann ers However, the argument is still heard that the training and
orientation of the city manager predispose him to take a short-range view.
He is pictured as a man of action, rather than as a man of ideas. Supposedly,
he is not apt to be sympathetic to the kind of long-range policies which con¬
cern city planners. While there is, I believe, some truth to these claims, they
do not qualify as valid generalizations. The central-management concept
places great reliance on long-range planning of all kinds. City managers ob¬
viously should be concerned with the future, and most experienced and suc¬
cessful city managers have established their reputations very largely as re¬
sults of their ability to help their councils formulate and use long-range
policies.

THE CITY COUNCIL

Regardless of the form of government, the city council is, and should
be, the principal legislative and policy-making authority of municipal gov¬
ernment. It is the city council that must enact legislation and make important
decisions every week at its regular meetings, ranging from broad policies to
minute details.

Under a council-manager municipal government, there is no question as
to the formal supremacy of the council. Under a strong-mayor government,
it is true that the mayor is directly responsible to the people and that he often
has a platform of broad policies and definite projects. However, the council
still passes the laws, is responsible for final action on the budget and the
capital- im provement program, sets the tax rate, and is, without question, the
final policy-making authority. The political power and initiative that can be
exercised by the mayor give him a key role in the formulation of the policies
finally acted upon by the council; but the mayor’s primary responsibilities

9

Government, Planning, and the General Plan

are those of a chief executive. Dominant members of the council usually serve
several terms, making the council more stable and not so liable to the drastic
policy changes which may occur when one mayor succeeds another.

For practical reasons, once a community has increased in population be¬
yond a certain size, the people do not govern themselves directly, but do so
through representatives whom they elect. The people exercise their control
when they vote for their representatives, normally every two years. They also
express their will directly at bond-issue elections and on other questions sub¬
ject to the referendum. Citizen participation is to be encouraged at all times,
so that the councilmen will be informed of the views of their constituents.
However, the councilmen should be leaders of the community and should
use their own best judgment of the public interest, rather than rely on pub¬
lic-opinion surveys, straw votes, or the protests voiced at hearings. Similarly,
they should not permit themselves to be unduly influenced by the views and
political pressures expressed and exerted by nonelected community leaders.
It is their duty to govern on behalf of the entire community, and not just of
special groups. 3

Many attempts have been made to dissipate the power of the city coun¬
cil. One approach has been to establish a host of independent government
bodies, such as the hundreds of special-purpose districts found in California.
Such situations have inevitably produced confusion and conflict. They make
effective coordination and control of local government difficult. It would be
better to place all of the functions of local government under the control of
the municipal government and its legislative body.

Another drain on the council’s authority has been the creation of semi-
autonomous commissions and agencies within the over-all structure of city
government. Often city charters deliberately provide for such arrangements.
One example has been the independent city-planning commission. Such efforts
tend to produce a multiheaded government in which authority and responsi¬
bility are harmfully diffused.

One motive behind this whittling away at the council’s domain is to
enhance the position of the “experts” in the government. When a specialized

8 Every community has a political structure which can be distinguished from its
ormai governmental structure. The general-plan concept presented in this book takes
his duality into account. It is assumed that there will continue to be an increasing in-
terest by individual citizens in municipal affairs, and that this will gradually create a
situation m which the influential leaders of both the formal and informal governing
groups will find it in their interests to develop, control, and use a general plan to guide
the physical development of their community.

10

The City Council

agency is relatively independent of the council, its professionals and tech¬
nicians enjoy more freedom. These people are often afraid that their sup¬
posedly impartial judgments will be subject to the political maneuverings of
the council; they want to be “above” politics.

Again, I would like to emphasize that it is contrary to the political
philosophy of democracy to place government in the hands of administrators
who are not directly responsible to the people. Career administrators become
dangerous when they begin to assume that they are able to interpret the public
interest better than the legislative body. No matter what the field of the public
official, his work will involve important value judgments which offer valid
subject matter for public debate.

While the city council should make the final determinations of municipal
policy, this view does not imply that the council should make policy alone
and unaided. Quite the contrary. The chief executive plays a prominent role
in initiating and recommending policy, while other municipal officials also
advise the council. Furthermore, interested and influential citizens partici¬
pate in policy-making by expressing their wishes and opinions to the legis¬
lators.

The concentration of authority in the city council places it in a decisive
role. The success or failure of the entire local government will depend largely
on how well the council does its job. The councilmen must accept their re¬
sponsibility and strive to live up to their challenge. Therefore, the key ques¬
tion is whether or not the councilmen are to be trusted with this responsibility.

It is true that the performance of councilmen is often disappointing.
Many councilmen are elected not on the basis of their ability or their views,
but on the basis of their popularity. Many councilmen seem to be mediocre:
they straddle the fence, they try to please everyone, they are afraid or unable
to face reality when it is unfamiliar to them. There are some who are even
worse, who display bigotry, stupidity, inexcusable ignorance, and favoritism.

On the other hand, there are many capable and intelligent councilmen
who are doing excellent jobs. They have integrity and they influence and lead
their fellow councilmen and fellow citizens. Councilmen do not always rely
on their administrators for ideas; they conceive and initiate sound proposals
on their own far more frequently than is generally realized. Not infrequently
it is apparent to close observers that legislators have stronger convictions and
are willing to go further than administrators. Although it is not generally
recognized, the leaders of practically every city council are influential pri¬
marily because of their intelligence, knowledge, logic, and personal leader¬
ship, and not because of their political affiliations.

11

Government, Planning, and the General Plan

Disenchantment with councilmen causes many people to develop a deep
distrust of city councils. Distrust stimulated the attempts at the turn of the
century to weaken the power of the council and to insulate much of the gov¬
ernment from it. Distrust is reflected in the post-1900 charters of many cities.
This viewpoint shaped the early philosophy of the American city-planning
movement and had a dominant influence on the practice of city planning until
after World War II.

I do not think the solution to this problem is to attempt to deprive the
city council of its authority. The effective and democratic functioning of
municipal government requires that authority and responsibility be clearly
visible. The city council can be made to work effectively by clarifying its most
important duties and procedures. 4 City councils spend too much time on
routine matters, which they must act upon formally as required by law. On
the other hand, many important policy issues are never brought before the
council in a way that can be understood, openly debated, and clearly decided.
Instruments should and can be developed which will assist the council in
accepting its responsibility and exercising its authority. The general plan for
physical development, as defined in this book, is such an instrument.

THE ROLE OF CITY PLANNING IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT

City planning has had to find its place in the complex, constantly evolv¬
ing institutions which are American local government. Different beliefs con¬
cerning human nature and the practical validity of the democratic philosophy
of government which is part of our heritage have led to different proposals
concerning the place of city planning in municipal government. In general,
there are three different concepts of the role of city planning. They are dis¬
cussed under the following three headings:

(1) An Independent Activity of the City-Planning Commission

(2) A Staff Aide to the Chief Executive

(3) A Policy-Making Activity of the City Council

4 Most councilmen want to and are sincerely trying to do a good job, although
their attempts under present conditions may at times seem abortive. The only answer
to the problem for one who has faith in democracy is to help the councilmen to do
their jobs better. Often they do not understand simply because no one has devoted
himself to the task of teaching them how to perform their most important duties. To
a great extent, councilmen learn their jobs from the administrators they work with, and
sometimes these administrators are poor teachers. It is the responsibility of every pro¬
fessional in city government to educate his council and to assist.them in performing
their jobs properly.

12

The Role of City Planning in Local Government

(1) An Independent Activity of the City-Planning Commission

This concept holds that city planning should be independent and in¬
sulated from the mainstream of political and administrative affairs. The city
planner is seen as a technical expert who should not be subjected to political
influence. The body in charge of city planning is the citizen commission,
which is semiautonomous. The commission is usually given some control over
the city council by the requirement of a greater-than-majority vote of the
council to overrule a recommendation by the co mm ission. This concept re¬
flects a basic distrust of the city council.

The independent-commission concept of the role of city planning pre¬
dominated during the years prior to World War II, and it is still held by many
city planners, especially those whose experience has been limited to the larger
cities with the strong-mayor form of government. The San Francisco, Cleve¬
land, and Philadelphia city-planning agencies are current examples of this
approach to city planning. The authors of the 1928 Standard City Plan¬
ning Enabling Act, especially Alfred Bettman and Edward M. Bassett,
believed in the concept of the independent city-planning commission. Bassett
said of the master plan: “It should be kept within the four walls of the city
planning commission.” 5 The 1928 Act, which is examined in detail in the
next chapter, had a great influence on city-planning legislation throughout
the country; consequently the organization it prescribed, with an independent
citizen planning commission, is still in common use. The Act, which was pre¬
pared as a model, was adopted by many state legislatures and cities during
the early 1930’s.

One able and experienced contemporary proponent of the independent-
commission concept is John T. Howard. His views are not as extreme as
those of the pioneers of the city-planning profession, but he does believe, as
they did, that the city-planning commission should be the primary client of
the professional city planner.' 1 He recognizes the importance of city planning
to the council, but argues that the council does not have enough time to give
it the attention that it must have.

Rexford G. Tugwell has been another strong advocate of the inde¬
pendent-commission concept. His view of the planning agency as a “fourth

5 Edward M. Bassett, The Master Plan (New York: Russell Sage Foundation,
1938), p. 142.

u See John T. Howard, “In Defense of Planning Commissions,” Journal of the
American Institute of Planners, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Spring, 1951), pp. 89-94.

13

THE HUNT Um\
CARNEGIE INSTITUTE 8f TEMHOLOST

THE ROLE OF CITY PLANNING
IN MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT

1. AN INDEPENDENT ACTIVITY
OF THE

CITY-PLANNING COMMISSION

2 . A STAFF AIDE TO

THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE

COUNCIL

AND

COMMITTEES

CPC

- -

]

: OTHER COMMISSIONS

B I-

I I

EXECUTIVE GROUP

I I I

DEPARTMENTS

3. A POLICY-MAKING
ACTIVITY OF
THE CITY COUNCIL

14

The Role of City Planning in Local Government

power,” in addition to the executive, legislative, and judicial powers set forth
in the United States Constitution, has had much influence. Tugwell was very
distrustful of both city councils and chief executives. He also was opposed
to any subject-matter limitation on the scope of the planners.

The heyday of the independent city-planning commission came to an
end in the 1940’s when permanent professional staffs began to be established
throughout the country. The assertion of control over the independent com¬
missions by the appointing authorities—either the city council or the mayor
—came with the increases in budgets and influence of the com m issions. In
the minds of some observers, the change was significantly speeded up by the
publication in 1941 of Robert A. Walker’s study 7 of thirty-seven city-plan¬
ning commissions. Walker’s conclusions constituted a telling indictment of
the independent commission, which he showed was not doing the job it was
supposed to do and was not having much effect on community development.
Walker advocated, in effect, the elimination of the citizen planning commis¬
sion.

(2) A Staff Aide to the Chief Executive

Walker favored the second concept of the role of city planning, under
which the planning director is a staff aide to the chief executive and the plan¬
ning commission advises and assists the planning director. Today this is the
most popular view among city planners, particularly in council-manager
cities, where the chief executive is appointed, not elected. The staff-aide con¬
cept is actually an outgrowth of the central-management idea, and it is in¬
corporated in most public-administration texts.

According to the staff-aide concept, the planning director is a full-
fledged department head who reports to the chief executive. The planning
director is a confidential advisor to the chief executive and a member of his
cabinet. The chief executive is regarded as the head planner of the admin¬
istration and presents all planning matters to the city council. The planning
director is regarded as the executive’s lieutenant in charge of central plan¬
ning and research activities. The scope of the planning agency advocated by
Walker has no subject-matter limits; it is as broad as the scope of city gov¬
ernment.

Under the arrangement advocated by Walker, the city-planning commis¬
sion is largely superfluous, although in practice it continues to exist. There

7 Robert A. Walker, The Planning Function in Urban Government (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1941). Second Edition, 1950.

15

Government, Planning, and the General Plan

are, in fact, no clear-cut examples of the organization for planning as advo¬
cated by Walker. Most council-manager cities have attempted, unsuccessfully,
to move in the direction of this concept at one time or another, but there are
no longer any recognized advocates of this concept in its pure form. Some
central-management advocates regard the commission as an advisory body
to the planning director, and some, as an advisory body to the chief execu¬
tive. The staff-aide concept also views the planner primarily as a technical
expert. It implies that planning is too esoteric to be comprehensible to city
councilmen except as interpreted to them by the chief executive. However,
this concept recognizes the practical implications of planning and the need
to bring planning into closer contact with the everyday affairs of city govern¬
ment.

(3) A Policy-Making Activity of the City Council

The third concept holds that the city council is the primary client of the
city-planning agency because it is the final policy-making authority in munici¬
pal government. This is my belief, and it is upon this concept that I base my
definition of the primary uses of the general plan. At present, a minority of
the city-planning profession holds this view. 8

The concept of the role of city planning as a policy-making activity of
the city council regards the city council not only as the body which must
be relied upon to make all the final decisions on major policy questions, but
it also regards the members of the council as being capable of understanding
what it is that they must do if effective civic-improvement programs are to
be developed and sustained. The city-planning commission in this concept
is advisory to the council, and the professional director and staff are advisory
to the commission. The city-planning director presents the recommendations
of the commission to the city council.

The chief executive’s importance is recognized, and the city-planning
director and staff also serve and advise him. Thus, the city-planning director
has two bosses, the city-planning commission and the chief executive. I be-

8 I have advocated this concept since 1954 when I described its main component
ideas to the Fourth Biennial Institute of Mayors and Councilmen held by the League
of California Cities in a statement entitled “Guiding City Development: A Major Re¬
sponsibility of the City Council.” (See published Proceedings of the 1954 Institute.)
In this concept the scope of the city-planning agency is limited to matters concerned
primarily with the general physical development of the community; it assumes that the
need for long-range planning to meet financial, social, and other community problems,
when recognized, will lead to the establishment of separate, parallel, and cooperating
planning agencies.

16

The Role of City Planning in Local Government

lieve that this dualism formalizes relationships that cannot be avoided or
eliminated. These relationships must be recognized and, indeed, encouraged
if the city-planning activities of the council are to be as effective as I believe
most city councils and most chief executives want them to be. The Berkeley
city-planning agency is a good example of this form of organization. 9

This concept places city planning in the mainstream of government by
putting it in the hands of the city council. Fixing the responsibility of the
council for city planning should be beneficial to both the city planner and
the city council. It gives the city planner and the city-planning commission
a much greater chance of having their proposals understood and realized. It
helps the city council, which must make a number of important decisions at
every weekly meeting affecting the physical development of the community.

The policy-making concept supports centralization of power and the
concentration of this power in the city council. It necessarily assumes con¬
fidence in the councilmen and the belief that they are competent to under¬
stand and decide on city-planning matters. This concept accepts the fact that
city planning is as much political in nature as it is professional and technical.

This concept of the role of city planning holds that the city-planning
commission is not autonomous; it is subordinate to the council, but it does
have a role of vital importance. The commission serves as the principal ad¬
visor of the council on all city-planning matters of major importance. The
commission must be trusted and respected by the council, which requires
that the commissioners be appointed by and serve at the pleasure of the
council. Like councilmen, the commissioners are laymen, but they devote
much more time and attention to city planning and in time acquire an under¬
standing of the technical aspects of city planning. 10

The city-planning director is regarded as the principal advisor of the
commission. He is also the chief administrator of the city-planning depart-

9 A complete description of this organization, and of the important role played by
City Manager John Phillips in creating it over a ten-year period, is included in a case
study of the Berkeley Master Plan. The manuscript, by Warren Campbell, describing
this study is scheduled for publication in 1964 in the Inter-University Case Program
series.

10 1 believe that the commission, although its members may not be councilmen,
should view its role as being that of a “committee of the council” on city-planning mat¬
ters in order to indicate clearly the close tie between the two bodies while at the same
time emphasizing the superior role and responsibility of the city council. I also believe
that if the membership of the council is increased significantly, as is typical of most
cities in Europe, the commission ought to be replaced by an actual committee of
council members.

17

Government, Planning, and the General Plan

ment. The proposals of the staff should go from the city-planning director
through the commission to the city council.

The city-planning director must also work closely with the chief execu¬
tive and seek to coordinate city-planning activity within the over-all admin¬
istrative program of the city government. The chief executive must be regu¬
larly informed in advance concerning all items on the commission-meeting
agendas. The chief executive should be consulted on controversial proposals
before they are presented to the city-planning commission. However, the ex¬
ecutive should not dictate what goes to the commission. After the commis¬
sion and the chief executive have considered all proposals, there is no reason
why they should not submit opposing recommendations to the city council.
The council is capable of understanding why officers and agencies under its
control will, at times, have different points of view and recommendations for
them to consider. The council will welcome this kind of direct relationship
on major issues and will be able to make its final decisions better understood
because of the open debate that precedes them.

The general-plan concept outlined in this book is based on the premise
that the city-planning process should be designed to involve directly and con¬
tinuously the city council and the city-planning commission, and not just the
city-planning staff and the chief executive.

THE GENERAL PLAN DEFINED

A definition of the general plan for the physical development of a com¬
munity is appropriate at this point, although the meaning of the phrase as I
use it will become clearer and sharper as the exposition proceeds. I advance
this definition: The general plan is the official statement of a municipal legis¬
lative body which sets forth its major policies concerning desirable future
physical development; the published general-plan document must include a
single, unified general physical design for the community, and it must attempt
to clarify the relationships between physical-development policies and social
and economic goals.

“Master plan” is the traditional phrase, while sometimes “city plan”
and “comprehensive plan” are used. Essentially, the phrases are synonymous
with “general plan,” but each has subtle connotations of its own. I began
to use “general plan” in 1948 because it seemed to give a more accurate em¬
phasis to the broad policy nature of the plan. This phrase is now widely used.

There are three basic physical elements of the urban environment which
are dealt with in virtually every published general plan: land use, circula¬
tion, and community facilities. Land use refers to the use of private property

18

The General Plan Defined

for commercial, industrial, and residential purposes. I prefer to identify the
land-use section of the plan as the “working-and-living-areas section” be¬
cause this phrase emphasizes basic human activities, rather than the con¬
venient but frequently misleading method of simply classifying the way land
is used. The phrase “land use” is also confusing because it has been used to
refer to all physical elements dealt with in the plan, since community facili¬
ties and streets are, in fact, uses of land. The section of the plan dealing
with the circulation element is concerned primarily with the street-and-
highway system and the public-transportation routes and stations. The com¬
munity-facilities section of the plan deals with the variety of public activities
that involve physical development, such as schools, parks, playgrounds, and
the civic center.

I believe that the general plan also should include sections on a civic-
design element and a utilities element. The section on the civic-design element
should focus on the major physical features and policy decisions of the plan
which are the result of aesthetic judgments. The section on the utilities ele¬
ment should deal with water supply, drainage, sewage disposal, and other
utility systems insofar as the other physical elements of the plan depend on
them.

In addition to these five physical elements, with which every community
is concerned, each city has particular needs which may call for additional
sections in its general-plan document. There might be sections devoted to
historic districts or to areas designated for comprehensive redevelopment.
The Berkeley Master Plan, for example, has special sections dealing with
waterfront development and with the campus of the University of California
in Berkeley.

With respect to presentation, the general-plan document should include
a comprehensive large-scale drawing of the general physical design of the
whole co mm u ni ty and a written summary describing the major policies and
proposals of the plan. A statement of community goals, including a descrip¬
tion of the primary and secondary social and economic roles that the city is
to play in the region, should be a key feature of every general plan..

Most existing plan documents include overviews of essential background
material concerning population, the local and regional economy, the geo¬
graphic setting, and the historical development of the community and its
government in relation to city planning. The plan document also should in¬
clude an assessment of the present conditions in the community, pointing out
major problems and issues. The opportunities and needs of the future should
be discussed. Assumptions and forecasts should be stated.

19

Government, Planning, and the General Plan

The bulk of the plan document should consist of a full description of the
proposals, standards, and principles which are intended to guide physical de¬
velopment toward the desired goals. These four things—goals, proposals,
standards, and principles—are crystallized in the unified general physical de¬
sign of the plan. From them will emerge the basic, major policies of the plan
that should be plainly stated in the summary, together with the major physi¬
cal-design proposals and a schematic drawing of the general physical design.

Policies are the most important ingredients of the general plan. A policy
is a generalized guide to conduct which, although subject to modification,
does imply commitment. To me, therefore, there can be no such thing as a
flexible plan, since there can be no such thing as a flexible policy in relation
to physical development. A so-called “flexible” plan is no plan at all. A policy
carries no legal force; it is not irrevocably binding. A specific decision to act
is not a policy; it should, however, be based on and express a policy. A stand¬
ard dictionary defines policy as “a settled or definite course . . .”

The relationships between the major physical-design proposals of the
plan and the most important city-planning standards and principles used in
making the plan should be stated. It is not possible to make a plan that does
not express significant value judgments concerning standards, such as the de¬
sirable size of elementary-school sites, or concerning principles, such as the
desirability of separating industrial activities from residential districts. Be¬
cause city-planning standards and principles are not scientifically determined
and because they have a major and direct impact on the final set of physical-
design proposals in the plan, the value judgments and relationships that are
implicit should be made as explicit as possible.

Since there can be no plan without decisions rejecting certain alterna¬
tives and adopting others, and since the understanding and support necessary
to implement the plan require constant explanation of the reasoning ex¬
pressed in the final plan, the major alternatives that were considered and
rejected by the legislative body should be described in the plan document.
Finally, there should be—and usually is in existing plans—a separate section
devoted to a general discussion of the methods by which the plan will be
carried out.

As an expression of desirable physical development, the general plan is
an affirmation of goals. It is not a prediction, although its policies and pro¬
posals, which express its physical-development goals, to be reasonable, should
be within the range of what is judged to be possible. The general plan is a
statement of willful intention.

The general plan is not a program. It states the desired ends, but does

20

The General Plan Defined

not specify the means for achieving them. Thus it should not include sched¬
ules, priorities, or cost estimates; these things can be handled in implementary
documents which spell out the means for achieving the desired ends. The
general plan should have inspirational value; it should not be inhibited by
short-term practical considerations. The fact that it is inspirational does not
mean that the plan will be impractical. Every long-range plan must be based
on judgments concerning the relative necessity and relative feasibility of over¬
coming short-range practical objections.

It is not correct to view the general plan as an ideal picture of the com¬
munity at some date in the future. Because of the incremental, gradual nature
of community development, no fixed date can apply to all the goals, policies,
and proposals expressed in the general plan. Because of the dynamic char¬
acter of the subject matter of the plan and, therefore, of the plan itself, the
end-state depicted is ever changing, always moving into the future well ahead
of the present.

City planners today talk about all sorts of plans, and some would make
a number of different plans integral parts of the general plan for physical de¬
velopment. There are city planners who talk about the financial plan, .the
economic plan, the social plan, the public-services plan, all reflecting funda¬
mentally different conceptions concerning the substantive scope of city plan¬
ning. A comprehensive-policies plan has been suggested which would include
all of these plans and, by implication, others such as a school-curriculum
plan, since it is an expression of public policy of paramount importance to
the future of the community. Some planners talk about an urban-form plan,
looking fifty years into the future, while others talk about a middle-range,
detailed, community-renewal plan, the latter having a time lead of ten to
fifteen years.

I have no doubt that some of these concepts will prove to be useful and
that the useful concepts will emerge as new policy-control instruments. How¬
ever, for the purposes of this book, I am concerned only with the general
plan that focuses on the physical development of a community and looks at
least twenty to thirty years into the future. City plans of this sort, in one form
or another, always have been and always will be essential for every respon¬
sible municipal government. This is the kind of plan widely used, in one form
or another, in cities in the United States today.

I do not think any other plans should be included in the general plan for
physical development. However, since the general plan for physical develop¬
ment will increasingly be related more closely to other long-range policy and
short-range program-control instruments which prove to be as necessary and

21

Government, Planning, and the General Plan

as workable as the general plan is for its specific and limited uses, city
planners, in cooperation with other planners in municipal government, will
naturally be concerned with efforts to clarify the relationships between such
control instruments.

Above all, the general plan for physical development should not include
such -detailed documents as the zoning ordinance, the capital-improvement
program, and detailed district-development plans. These detailed implemen¬
tary documents must be kept separate to avoid confusion of their distinctive
features with the more important features of the general plan.

THE CLIENT OF THE GENERAL PLAN

The general plan must be formulated so as to be useful to many clients.
However, since their needs will vary and at times be in conflict, it is neces¬
sary to determine the primary client of the plan—the client whose require¬
ments must be met first. The different views on the primary client of the plan
follow from the different concepts of the role of the city planning in local
government.

Those who believe in the independent city-planning commission think
that the general plan should be designed primarily for the use of the com¬
mission. If the plan is to be adopted, it should be adopted only by the
commission. This was common practice during the early period of the de¬
velopment of city planning. Under this arrangement, the city council is re¬
quired to refer all physical-development matters to the commission for its
recommendations. But, according to Bassett, “The commission and not the
plan should be the advisor of the legislative body and the various depart¬
ments.” 11 The plan is for the guidance of the commission only, and need not
ever be published and made generally available.

Those who see the city-planning director as a staff aide to the chief
executive think the general plan should be shaped to serve the chief execu¬
tive. The staff-aide concept has not been put into practice; there is no pub¬
lished general plan that has been designed expressly for the use of the chief
executive. Although there are exceptions, experience indicates that the typical
chief executive does not want a long-range plan to follow that will be pub¬
licly identified as his plan; he wants recommendations from the city planners
on specific proposals. Thus, the staff-aide concept of the role of city p lannin g
usually emphasizes the idea that the plan must be “flexible,” and avoids all

11 Bassett, The Master Plan, pp. 67—68.

22

The Client of the General Plan

attempts to establish a unified set of objectives and a definite physical design
for the community toward which current actions may be directed.

There are city planners who believe that the principal client of the plan
should be the professional staff. This idea does not fit into any of the three
concepts of the role of city planning presented earlier. However, it seems to
be gaining popularity, perhaps because many city planners are uncertain as
to their role and because some of the leaders of the profession today do not
believe it is possible to make a useful plan for a city in view of the tech¬
nological, social, and economic changes that make any kind of long-range
planning so difficult. Those who hold this view usually also consider city
planning to be too technical to be understood by laymen, including those lay¬
men who become city councilmen. They also tend to believe that the city
planner is best suited to interpret the public interest. Some want planning to
be isolated from politics. Others believe that planning is highly political and
that the planner should be a behind-the-scenes politician. Planners who hold
these views sometimes prepare plans for themselves to use as a basis for mak¬
ing recommendations to the city-planning commission or chief executive, but
they do not reveal their plans.

I believe that the city council should be the principal client of the gen¬
eral plan, and that the plan should be prepared for active use by the council.
This belief follows from my belief that city planning is primarily a policy¬
making activity of the city council. Every important physical-development
policy with which municipal government is involved must eventually come
before the city council for final determination and action. Effective city plan¬
ning cannot be sustained without the responsible participation of the council.

The general plan, thus, should be conceived of primarily as a legislative-
policy instrument, rather than as a complex technical instrument to be un¬
derstood only by the professional staff and possibly some members of the
city-planning commission. In reality, every city-planning decision of signifi¬
cance must sooner or later be made in the council chamber; such decisions
cannot be made in the city-planning office. The men who initially formulate
a plan must follow through and present it, with its controversial judgments
exposed, to the members of the council in terms that are understandable to
the council. The professional planners must seek to make their technical find¬
ings and professional judgments convincing to the councilmen.

Some planners would not even show the general plan to the council, but
most planners now recognize that the council must be involved with the plan
in some way. One concept—erroneous in my opinion—is that the general

23

Government, Planning, and the General Plan

plan is a kind of ideal picture which the council can look at when making
decisions. Councilmen can compare their own judgments against the staff-
made plan, but they can disagree with it whenever they wish. I believe that
the general plan is not something for the council to compare its policies
with; it should contain the policies of the council. If the council finds that
it disagrees with the plan, it should change the plan.

Some city planners argue that councilmen do not have the time to ac¬
quire understanding of a plan, much less decide what should go into it. It
is true that deliberation over the general plan will occupy much of the coun-
cilmen’s time; but, from the viewpoint of the community as a whole, this is
one of the most important subjects to which the council should regularly
devote its attention.

Another argument some city planners pose against council control and
official adoption of the general plan is that this procedure will make the plan
static (that it will “ossify” the plan, to use a favorite word of Bassett). It is
true that ossification would be fatal for the plan. At all times the plan should
reflect the current policies of the council. The plan must change when the
policies change.

Admittedly, some legislators deliberately shun their responsibility for
determining policy. They do not want to commit themselves to long-range
policies which might prove bothersome or embarrassing later. They want to
reserve the option to make all decisions on an ad hoc basis without regard
for consistency. They call this ad hoc procedure “deciding an issue on its
merits.” This attitude increases the opportunities for favoritism and allows
councilmen to decide an issue by counting up the potential votes on both
sides.

From my own experience with city councils, I believe that most council-
men do want to be reasonable—they do, in other words, want to deal with
problems and needs by establishing long-range policies and maintaining con¬
sistency in their actions in order to make some tangible progress. They feel
an acute need for a guide in passing on the diverse, complex physical-develop-
ment matters that come before them every week. A frequently voiced question
at council meetings is: “What is our policy on this kind of matter?” Often
this is answered by referring to previous decisions, regarded as precedents, on
similar matters. It would be better answered by referring to well-thought-out
policies expressed in the form of a general plan.

The general plan answers this need of councilmen for a policy guide on
physical-development matters. It will inevitably compel commitment or oppo-

24

The Purposes of the General Plan

sition to its policies. It will severely limit the latitude of action by legislators
who cannot learn to think of the long-range implications of their actions.
But once the general plan has been understood and adopted as a result of
favorable action by a majority of the members of the council, it will pro¬
vide a written and graphic record of the policies and the definite physical
design on which the council has agreed. The general plan will then be¬
come the basis upon which the council will gradually shape a positive
physical-improvement program that the entire community will understand
and implement.

THE PURPOSES OF THE GENERAL PLAN

The statement in this section of the broad purposes of the general
plan for physical development derives from my own concept of the plan.
The purposes are not all necessarily peculiar to the general plan; some
are also the purposes of city planning in general and of local government
in general. The fundamental purposes which the general-plan process is
intended to achieve are as follows:

(1) To improve the physical environment of the community as a
setting for human activities—to make it more functional, beautiful, decent,
healthful, interesting, and efficient. This purpose is in accord with the broad
objective of local government to promote the health, safety, morals, order,
convenience, prosperity, and general welfare of the community. These
phrases are customarily associated with the police power, they actually
pertain to all acts of government.

(2) To promote the public interest, the interest of the community
at large, rather than the interests of individuals or special groups within
the community. The comprehensive nature of the general plan contributes
to this purpose, for it facilitates consideration of the relationship of any
question to the over-all physical development of the entire community.
Because the plan is based on facts and on studies that attempt to be thorough
and impartial, it helps to prevent arbitrary, capricious, and biased actions.
The contributions of the plan to democratic, responsible government help
to safeguard the public interest.

(3) To facilitate the democratic determination and implementation
of community policies on physical development. The plan is primarily a
policy instrument. The plan constitutes a declaration of long-range goals
and provides the basis for a program to accomplish the goals. By placing

25

Government, Planning, and the General Plan

the responsibility for determining policies on the city council and providing
an opportunity for citizen participation, the plan facilitates the democratic
process.

(4) To effect political and technical coordination in community de¬
velopment. Political coordination signifies that a large majority within the
community is working toward the same ends. Technical coordination means
a logical relationship among the physical elements dealt with in the plan
and the most efficient planning and scheduling of actual improvements so
as to avoid conflict, duplication, and waste. Effective coordination of such
a complex subject requires a unified, integrated plan if the physical ele¬
ments of the environment are to be managed without costly conflicts of
function and if the political forces of the community are to deal with
controversial development issues, including the plan itself, in a construc¬
tive manner.

(5) To inject long-range considerations into the determination of
short-range actions. In effect, this purpose is intended to achieve coordina¬
tion through time, to attempt to make sure that today’s decision will lead
toward tomorrow’s goal. The extensive use of forecasts and the establish¬
ment of long-range goals are significant features of the general plan. The
plan represents an effort to add the important time dimension to the deci¬
sion-making process.

(6) To bring professional and technical knowledge to bear on the
making of political decisions concerning the physical development of the
community. This purpose is intended to promote wiser decision-making,
to achieve informed, constructive government. Through the general plan,
the special knowledge of the professional city planner is brought into play
in the democratic political process.

26

FIFTY YEARS OF EXPERIENCE
WITH THE GENERAL PLAN

tt"N this chapter an attempt will be made to develop a historical perspec¬
tive that will enable us to understand the significance of the first fifty years
of experience and experimentation with the general plan. We turn our
attention first to the initial concept of the general plan as it was formulated
by Frederick Law Olmsted and Alfred Bettman in response to the needs
of the municipal government officials who sought their advice during the
period between 1910 and 1930. During these years mayors, councilmen,
and civic leaders throughout the United States first became aware that
municipal governments alone were responsible for guiding the over-all
physical development of their communities, and that this responsibility was
going to remain, of necessity, in their hands.

The general-plan concept embodied in the 1928 Standard City Plan¬
ning Enabling Act is examined next. A full appreciation of the basic ideas
expressed by the authors of this historic “crystallization” is essential. The
1928 Act was widely adopted by cities throughout the United States and
was one of the major causes of the confusion that characterized city¬
planning practice with respect to the general plan during the 1930’s and
1940’s.

General-plan experience following World War II is then reviewed
briefly, and an attempt is made to understand the lessons of fifty years of
experimentation in the United States with the general-plan concept. The

27

Fifty Years of Experience with the General Plan

conclusions thus drawn provide the basis for the new approach and redefi¬
nition of the general-plan concept suggested in this book as to the pri¬
mary client, legislative uses, and characteristics of the urban general plan
for the physical development of a community.

THE OLMSTED CONCEPTION OF THE GENERAL PLAN

Among the early leaders of the American city-planning profession,
Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., stands out as a most remarkable man. Born
in 1870 and introduced by his father, a great landscape architect and
pioneer city planner, to the challenge and opportunity of the new profession,
Olmsted was mature and ready for the great surge of municipal reform
and city-planning work that came just after the turn of the century. His
city plans and his writings on the subject of the general plan are marked
by their simplicity, their logic, and their expression of quiet confidence
in the natural desire and ability of the American people to greatly improve
their cities once they understood how this could be done. To Olmsted, the
need for a general plan in carrying on the never-ending task of governing
the physical growth and development of a city was taken for granted. He
was a superb spokesman for the new profession in explaining what the
general plan was concerned with, how it should be used, and the essential
physical elements with which it should deal.

In 1911, in a statement presented to the National Conference on City
Planning, Olmsted described the scope of city planning and the subject
matter of the general plan in the following words:

The fact is we are concerned with a single complex subject, namely, the intelligent
control and guidance of the entire physical growth and alteration of cities; embrac¬
ing all the problems of relieving and avoiding congestion—congestion of people in
buildings and of buildings upon land, congestion of transportation facilities or of
recreation facilities, congestion in respect to the means of supplying light, air, water,
or anything else essential to the health and happiness of the people, but also em¬
bracing in addition to the problems of congestion, each one of the myriad problems
involved in making our cities year by year, in their physical arrangement and
equipment, healthier, pleasanter and more economical instruments for the use of
the people who dwell within them in carrying on that part of the work and life of
the world which is not to be done in the open country.

Having thus described and defined the subject matter of the general plan
in terms that are as appropriate today as they were more than fifty years
ago, Olmsted went on to state his understanding of the major political
and technical purposes of the general plan. The general-plan concept worked
28

The Bettman General-Plan Concept

out by Olmsted may be restated in contemporary terms as follows: The
governing groups of every city sooner or later will recognize the technical
necessity and the obvious political advantages of guiding the physical growth
and development of their community in accordance with a general plan.
This plan, which will be long-range and, as a necessary consequence, general
in nature, will deal comprehensively with all significant aspects of the physical
environment. It will deal with the physical elements involved in the general
location and extent of (a) the working-and-living areas of the city; (b)
the community facilities judged to be necessary and desirable in relation
to the commercial, industrial, residential, and civic activities provided for
in the working-and-living-areas section of the plan; and (c) a circulation
system designed to accommodate the anticipated movement of people and
goods within the city and within the larger region of which the city is a part.

Olmsted’s concept plainly recognized that the plan could not avoid
dealing with important controversial issues that would be of direct con¬
cern to the governing groups, however they might be organized, and that
because of this some procedure would have to be worked out to keep the
plan up to date and in accord with the judgments of the leaders of the
community at any given period, while at the same time assuring the main¬
tenance of a public record of other significant ideas that might prove to
be acceptable in the future.

THE BETTMAN GENERAL-PLAN CONCEPT

A few years after Olmsted spoke at the 1911 Conference, Alfred
Bettman became interested in city planning and began his long and con¬
structive association with the city-planning profession. Mr. Bettman was
bom in 1873, studied law at Harvard, and was active before World War
I in the municipal reform movement in his home city of Cincinnati. His
experience as city solicitor in the successful reform administration in Cin¬
cinnati made him aware of the need for city planning. Following the war,
his interest in the new profession was reawakened and, while he continued
to practice law, city planning gradually became the dominant interest of
his life.

By the end of the 1920’s, Alfred Bettman had become one ofi the
acknowledged leaders of the city-planning profession. His broad intellectual
interests and educational background, his sustained local experience as a
Cincinnati civic leader, and the wealth, of experience that he had gained
throughout the United States as an expert on the subject of city-planning
legislation led him to formulate and advocate definite ideas about the scope,

29

Fifty Years of Experience with the General Plan

uses, and nature of the general plan. He and Olmsted undoubtedly were
influenced and stimulated by one another, but Alfred Bettman was pre¬
eminently a man who thought things out for himself. What he had to say
concerning the general plan at this period in his career is, therefore, of
great significance. Speaking before the Twentieth Annual National Con¬
ference on City Planning in 1928, he said:

A city plan is a master design for the physical development of the territory of the
city. It constitutes a plan of the division of the land between public and private
uses, specifying the general location and extent of new public improvements,
grounds and structures, such as new, widened or extended streets, boulevards,
parkways or other public utilities and the location of public buildings, such as
schools, police stations, fire stations; and, in the case of private developments, the
general distribution amongst various classes of uses, such as residential, business
and industrial uses. The plan should be designed for a considerable period in the
future, twenty-five to fifty years. It should be based, therefore, upon a compre¬
hensive and detailed survey of things as they are at the time of the planning, such
as the existing distribution of existing developments, both public and private, the
trends toward redistribution and growth of population, industry and business, esti¬
mates of future trends of growth and distribution of population and industry, and
the allotment of the territory of the city in accordance with all such data and esti¬
mated trends, so as to provide the necessary public facilities and the necessary
area for private development corresponding to the needs of the community, present
and prospective.

Bettman’s description of the general plan specifies more exactly than
the 1911 statement by Olmsted the essential physical elements to be dealt
with in the general plan. Bettman’s concept is similar to Olmsted’s in that
it assumes the same subject-matter focus for the plan; it assumes the same
general purposes that the plan must be designed to serve; it calls for the
same qualities of generalness and comprehensiveness.

Because of the basic agreements expressed by these two outstanding
leaders of the city-planning profession, it might have been expected that
no serious weaknesses would develop in the general-plan concept that had
been defined and put into practice between 1910 and 1930. As a result
of an unfortunate combination of circumstances, however, just as the pro¬
fession was about to enter its first major period of expansion during the
1930’s, the lessons of the initial years of experience that were distilled in
the Bettman-Olmsted general-plan concept were ignored, misinterpreted, or
actively challenged by the next generation of men and women who entered
the profession at this time. And as we shall see, the uneven way in which

30

1930-1950: Twenty Years of Confusion

the practice of city planning was developing also caused Bettman and Olm¬
sted themselves, as members of the committee that wrote the 1928 Standard
City Planning Enabling Act, to contribute to the confusion that charac¬
terized the general-plan work of the 1930’s and 1940’s.

1930-1950: TWENTY YEARS OF CONFUSION

While Olmsted and Bettman and their colleagues in the young pro¬
fession prior to 1930 were seeking to clarify their ideas about the general
plan, they found themselves at the same time unavoidably engaged in
what is now recognized as the second continuing phase of city-planning
work. Following the formulation of a general plan, the next step in any
sustained city-planning program calls for work on detailed proposals aimed
at carrying out the plan. The existence of established municipal depart¬
ments responsible for the design, construction, and administration of the
proposed,publicly owned projects that were included in every general plan
kept the attention of city-planning commissions in connection with these
features of the plan focused where it should have been—at the general
physical-development-policy level. But the situation was completely different
with regard to general-plan proposals concerned with private property.

Without any recognized public program or regular department of
municipal government concerned with the privately owned working-and-
living areas of the city—areas that combined amount to approximately one-
half of the total land area of every city—it was only natural for most city¬
planning commissions and their professional advisers to move directly from
the general-plan level to the detailed, regulatory level for the working-and-
living-areas element of the physical environment. This was done during
the 1920’s at the request of city councils throughout the United States and
resulted in the creation of what we now know as zoning ordinances. The
emphasis given to this necessary activity at this particular time in the evo¬
lution of American city planning was the primary cause of a twenty-year
period of confusion as to the basic purposes and nature of the general plan.
There were other factors that contributed to what now may be seen as a
temporary but unfortunate diversion of the city-planning profession from
its principal task. But of all the causes for the uncertainty during the 1930 s
and 1940’s as to the basic purposes and nature of the general plan and,
indeed, of city planning itself—the confusion between the zoning plan and
the working-and-living-areas section of the general plan was paramount.

In order to appreciate the extent to which the remarkable pioneering

31

Fifty Years of Experience with the General Plan

work on the general-plan concept was obscured, it is helpful to consider
in detail the definition of the general plan that is expressed in the 1928
Standard City Planning Enabling Act. I have, therefore, used the Act as
the basic context in which to view and judge the major controversies and
competing ideas that developed during the twenty-year period following its
publication. Both Olmsted and Bettman were members of the committee
that prepared this influential document. This fact alone, when one becomes
fully aware of the contradictions expressed in the Act, is illuminating evi¬
dence of the difficulties that confronted the profession during this stage of its
development in fashioning its principal concepts and policy instruments.

The 1928 Standard City Planning Enabling Act was prepared by a nine-
man committee appointed by Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover from
among the nation’s most experienced and outstanding members of the city¬
planning profession. In his Foreword to the final report which presented the
suggested Standard Act, Mr. Hoover clearly described the purpose of the
undertaking and the main ideas expressed in the Act:

In several hundred American cities planning commissions are working with public
officials and private groups in order to obtain more orderly and efficient physical
development of their land area. They are concerned partly with rectifying past mis¬
takes, but more with securing such location and development of streets, parks,
public utilities, and public and private buildings as will best serve the needs of the
people for their homes, their industry and trade, their travel about the city, and
their recreation. The extent to which they succeed affects in no small degree the
return, in terms of practical usefulness now and for years to come, of several hun¬
dred million dollars of taxpayers’ money spent each year for public improvements,
as well as the value and serviceability of new private construction costing several
billion dollars each year.

The drafting of a standard city planning enabling act based on a careful analysis
of the wide experience gained by these numerous local efforts was undertaken three
years ago by the advisory committee on city planning and zoning of the Depart¬
ment of Commerce, in response to many requests. A State legislature, in adopting
such an act, grants to cities the authority deemed necessary for effective planning
and prescribes certain conditions as to planning organization and procedure.

The advisory committee members have each had many years of first-hand experi¬
ence in coping with local planning problems, both as local citizens and in connec¬
tion with the leading national business, professional, and civic groups which they
represent. During their three years’ work in drafting this act they have made la¬
borious researches into legal problems and have consulted with expert planners,
members of planning commissions, municipal officials, and other interested persons
throughout the country.

32

1930-1950: Twenty Years of Confusion

The report recommends, first, a clearly defined permanent planning branch in the
local government, in the form of a commission which formulates a comprehensive
plan and keeps it up to date. The commission then advises the legislative and ex¬
ecutive branches of the municipality, and the public, as to the importance of the
plan and promotes conformance to it in the laying out of new streets, the construc¬
tion of public works and utilities, and the private development of land. Close atten¬
tion was given to every detail here, as elsewhere in the act, that would help make
good planning popular and effective . . . [Emphasis added.]

It is vital for the reader to recognize the significance of the Standard
Act and the great positive contribution that it made to the development of
the American city-planning movement. In using it to illustrate and explain
the difficulties of the city-planning profession during the 1930’s and 1940 s,

I hope that the reader will attempt to appreciate as fully as possible the
historical context within which the Act was conceived.

The 1928 Standard Act specifies as the principal duty of the city¬
planning commission the preparation, adoption, and maintenance of a long-
range, comprehensive, general plan for the physical development of a
city. In explaining the primary purposes of the plan, the manner in which
it was to be used, and the nature of the plan, the authors became involved
in all of the major questions that are dealt with in this book.

In the following discussion of the difficulties that developed m the
application of the Standard Act general-plan concept during the turbulent
depression, defense, and wartime periods, the problems that confronted
the experienced consultants and the directors of the newly established city¬
planning departments of the time have been grouped under the following
five headings:

Problems caused by— . .

(1) Confusion Between the Zoning Plan and the Workmg-and-Livmg-

Areas Section of the General Plan

(2) Piecemeal Adoption of the General Plan

(3) Lack of a Specific Definition of the Essential Physical Elements
to Be Dealt with in the General Plan

(4) Basic Questions as to the Scope of the General Plan

(5) Distrust of the Municipal Legislative Body

(1) Confusion Between the Zoning Plan and the Working-and-Livmg-Areas
Section of the General Plan

The authors of the Standard Act believed that in order to promote

33

Fifty Years of Experience with the General Plan

and protect the general welfare of citizens living in urban communities it
was essential for municipal governments to assume positive responsibility
for guiding the growth and development of the physical environment of
the city. In Section 7 of the Act, which is titled “Purposes in View,” the
basic reasons why a general plan is needed and justified are expressed as
follows:

The plan shall be made with the general purpose of guiding and accomplishing a
coordinated, adjusted, and harmonious development of the municipality and its
environs which will, in accordance with present and future needs, best promote
health, safety, morals, order, convenience, prosperity, and general welfare, as well
as efficiency and economy in the process of development; including, among other
things, adequate provision for traffic, the promotion of safety from fire and other
dangers, adequate provision for light and air, the promotion of healthful and con¬
venient distribution of population, the promotion of good civic design and arrange¬
ment, wise and efficient expenditure of public funds, and the adequate provision
of public utilities and other public requirements.

With the broad governmental purposes expressed in the preceding passage
thus assumed and clearly stated as the basis for city planning and the general
plan, the authors of the Standard Act described the general, comprehensive,
and long-range nature of the plan in footnotes 31, 32, and 44 1 in the
following terms:

. . . The planning commission’s function . . . is to make a general design as to
location [of the physical elements of the city], which it is especially competent to
do in view of its knowledge of the needs of the city and the probable trend of the
city’s future growth . . .

“a master plan”: By this expression is meant a comprehensive scheme of develop¬
ment . . .

. . . Planning is intended to be a process whereby the larger lines and directions
of future public and private development will be influenced and to some extent
controlled . . . [The master plan] should be designed to cover a long period of
years . . .

In these explanatory footnotes the intent of the authors is clearly ex¬
pressed: The municipal government needs a plan that can be used as a

1 Because of the special nature of the Standard Act, many of the most important
ideas contained in the Act are fully explained only in the footnotes of the original re¬
port on the Standard Act. To simplify the references in the text above, and in the
following pages, the footnotes are identified by referring to them directly as they are
numbered in the report.

34

1930—1950: Twenty Years of Confusion

guide in governing public and private developments in the city, and the
plan, or over-all design for the layout and physical development of the city,
should be long-range, comprehensive, and general. But although this con¬
ception of the general plan is clearly and repeatedly presented in the de¬
tailed footnotes throughout the document, the language of the proposed
official Act also specifically includes the zoning plan among the list of
subjects that are considered appropriate for inclusion in the general plan.

A zoning plan is a specific and detailed regulatory device used to con¬
trol the use of private property. It must always be detailed rather than
general, and many of its proposals must, necessarily, be concerned with a
period of time that will be much shorter than the long-range period that
must be dealt with by the general plan. As will be shown, the importance
of distinguishing between the general plan, which must be long-range, and,
therefore, general in nature, and the endless number of specific, detailed,
and short-range projects, plans, and regulations that are based on the
general plan and are intended to carry it out, but which are not part of
the plan, was fully understood by the authors of the Act. Why, then, the
zoning plan was included in the official text of the Standard Act as a section
of the general plan is extremely difficult to understand. In any case, this
basic contradiction was written into the Act, and, because of the great
influence that the Act had on this particular question during the 1930’s and
1940’s it is important to know exactly what the specific provisions of the

Act contain. . . ,

In Section 6 of the text recommended for legislative adoption, under

the title of “General Powers and Duties,” the authors described the general
plan in the following language:

... It shall be the function and duty of the commission to make and adopt a
master plan for the physical development of the municipality, including any areas
outside of its boundaries which, in the commission’s judgment, bear relation to
planning of such municipality. Such plan, with the accompanying maps, P »

charts, and descriptive matter shall show the commission’s recommendations for

the development of said territory, including, among other things, t e genera
tion, character, and extent of streets, viaducts, subways, bridges, waterways 'water
fronts, boulevards, parkways, playgrounds, squares, par s, avia ion ’
other public ways, grounds and open spaces, the general location o p
ings and other public property, and the general location and extent of pub
utilities and terminals, whether publicly or privately owned or °P erate ^’ f ’

light, sanitation, transportation, communication, power, and other p P >
the removal, relocation, widening, narrowing, vacating, a an onmen,

35

GENERAL PLAN—1953

Downtown

Major Shopping;
Business and Services

Light Industry

Institutions and Open Areas
j | Low-Density Residential

j Medium-Density Residential

General Industry

High-Density Residential

THE GENERAL PLAN AND THE ZONING PLAN

The major land-use section of San Francisco’s long-range physical-development plan was
adopted by the City Planning Commission in 1953. As shown above, the 1953 general-
plan proposals called for drastic changes in the existing zoning map. A new zoning
map and new regulations were adopted in 1960. Although many important general-plan
proposals were effectuated by the new zoning ordinance, the long-range and general
nature of some of the most important plan proposals means that there always will be
distinct differences between the general plan and the zoning ordinance.

36

ZONING MAP BEFORE
GENERAL PLAN—1952

Fifty Years of Experience with the General Plan

use or extension of any of the foregoing ways, grounds, open spaces, buildings,
property, utilities, or terminals; as well as a zoning plan for the control of the
height, area, bulk, location, and use of buildings and premises. [Emphasis added.]

This official definition of the general plan is explained in four footnotes
that are of particular importance. In the first footnote the authors state
flatly that the zoning plan is to be included as an integral part of the general
plan; and in the second, third, and fourth footnotes, they contradict them¬
selves and state that the general plan must remain general; that it cannot
accomplish its principal objectives if it becomes detailed; and that zoning
is simply one method of carrying out the general policies dealing with
private property that are set forth in the working-and-living-areas section
of the general plan.

The first point is made in footnote 35:

“among other things”: The enumeration of the kinds of matters with which a city
plan should deal which follows these words, is purely illustrative and in no sense
meant to be exclusive. The power given to the city planning commission is to make
recommendations for the physical development of the entire territory covered by
the plan, and, whether the specific phase of that development happens to be men¬
tioned in this section or not, the power to deal with the whole field still rests with
the commission. The list included in the text of the act might be helpful to a new
city planning commission in undertaking its work; but they are all illustrations only
and not comprehensive.

By emphasizing their intent to be only illustrative in the official text,
the authors make it clear that while subjects other than those listed may
be appropriate for inclusion in a general plan for a particular community,
those subjects that are listed in what is, in effect, a legislative definition of
the general plan definitely are considered to be appropriate. Since the zoning
plan is specifically mentioned, and since zoning has always dealt with the
privately owned land areas that make up the working-and-living areas of
the city, anyone inexperienced with the practice of city planning and not
fully aware of the overriding importance of the requirement that the genera]
plan remain general, would naturally assume that the authors of the Standard
Act believed that the specific and detailed zoning plan was to be considered
as the working-and-living-areas section of the general plan. This, in fact,
is what actually happened in hundreds of cities throughout the United States
between 1930 and 1950.

To me, however, it is inconceivable that Mr. Olmsted, Mr. Bettman,
and the other members of the committee meant to be understood in this way.

38

1930-1950: Twenty Years of Confusion

The following quotations taken from footnotes 36, 31, and 41, respectively,
describe the relationship between the zoning plan and the general plan that
has finally been recognized—after many years of confusion and harmful
experience—by most of the leaders of the profession and by the city-planning
commissioners and city councilmen in those cities that have pushed ahead
during the past ten to fifteen years with the job of fashioning a useful in¬
strument—the general plan—to assist them in the complex task of governing
the physical growth and development of their communities.

In footnotes 36 and 31 the authors describe the essential quality of
generalness that the plan must have:

“general location and extent”: These words have very great importance. They indi¬
cate the demarcation of the commission’s functions. As pointed out m the general
discussion of the commission’s powers and duties, it is not intended that the plan¬
ning commission shall include in the master plan such exact details of location or
engineering plans and specifications as will come to be needed when the public
improvement or building is to be actually constructed.

... This act is based on the theory that a planning commission should view all

phases of a city’s development in a broad and comprehensive fashion . .

By emphasizing the meaning of the words, “general location and ex¬
tent,” and by emphasizing the significance of their inclusion in the legislative
definition of the general plan, the authors seem to be saying that because
of the vital importance of the characteristic of generalness that the plan
must have, the zoning plan cannot be considered as equivalent to the basic,
general proposals that will form the working-and-living-areas section o
the general plan. Indeed, in footnote 41, which discusses the constitutional
basis for the general plan, the following language is used which states
flatly that zoning is a method of carrying out the general plan.

Many of the phases of . . . carrying out the plan . . . as, for instance,
zoning legislation ...

The only logical implication of this statement is that zoning legislation,
which requires a precise and specific citywide plan of land-use zones and
detailed regulations for each zone, obviously cannot and must never be
considered an integral part of the general plan itself.

It may be that the phrase “zoning plan,” when used in the Act to
illustrate one feature of the general plan, was meant to refer to a longer-
range and nondetailed version of the precise zoning-district map which
is an essential part of zoning legislation. However, this critical point was

39

Fifty Years of Experience with the General Plan

not discussed. The need for emphasizing the distinction between the fun¬
damentally different uses of the working-and-living-areas section of the
general plan and the uses of the zoning ordinance is nowhere evident in
the Act. In any case, the fact is that for more than twenty years following
publication of the Act, the subordinate relationship of the zoning ordinance
to the general plan was obscured. Many zoning ordinances were adopted
without an awafeness of the long-term implications of overzoning, strip
zoning, strict separation of land uses, and the segregation of residential
districts by lot sizes. Cities everywhere in the United States today are con¬
fronted with serious economic and social problems as a result of the failure
to distinguish between the task of defining general-development objectives
and policies in the form of a general plan and the task of regulating, by
means of detailed zoning legislation, the use of private property.

The purpose of the preceding discussion, it must be emphasized, has
been to document one of the specific sources of the confusion concerning
the nature of the general plan that developed during the 1930’s and 1940’s.
There are compelling historical explanations of the difficulties that con¬
fronted the authors of the Standard Act that justify the decisions they
finally made. The facts are, however, that uncertainty and confusion did
characterize the technical general-plan work of the profession following
the publication of the Act, and that for more than two decades there was
no agreement on the vital necessity of distinguishing clearly between the
zoning plan and the working-and-living-areas section of the general plan.
Even today, despite the legislative definitions of the general plans that have
been enacted by local and state governments since World War II, despite
the promulgation of an “official” federal definition of the urban’ general
plan that is crystal clear, and despite formal approval in 1952 by the Board
of Governors of the American Institute of Planners of what is, in effect,
an official policy statement of the city-planning profession on this question,
all of which express exactly the same point of view on this particular issue
that I have expressed here, there are still many individuals within the pro¬
fession and among the thousands of citizens serving on city-planning com¬
missions and city councils who do not understand that the inclusion of the

zoning plan in the general plan will effectively destroy the latter’s usefulness
as a general policy instrument.

(2) Piecemeal Adoption of the General Plan

In the light of experience subsequent to preparation of the Standard
Act, it is clear that a second major weakness of the general-plan concept as
40

1930-1950: Twenty Years of Confusion

defined by the Act was caused by the endorsement that the Act gave to
the idea of piecemeal adoption of the plan. The Act repeatedly stresses
the unified nature of the plan and the vital importance of organizing the
city-planning program in such a way as to assure the completion of the plan
as an entity. Yet the authors compromised with the realities of small staffs
and of pressing city-development problems that were undeniably evident in
the 1920’s in a way that led—inevitably, it now appears—to one of the
worst features of American city-planning practice during the two decades
following publication of the Act.

The procedure suggested for adoption of the general plan is spelled
out in the official text in Section 8:

Procedure of Commission: The commission may adopt the plan as a whole by a
single resolution or may by successive resolutions adopt successive parts of the
plan, said parts corresponding with major geographical sections or divisions of the
municipality or with functional subdivisions of the subject matter of the plan . . .
[Emphasis added.]

The words “parts of the plan” in the suggested official text of the Act are
then discussed in footnote 42:

The city plan is an organic whole, every part of which, whether considered terri¬
torially or as to subject matter, is organically interrelated with every other part.
That means that every part needs to be studied with these interrelations in mind.
However, while the comprehensive or master plan should be envisaged and treated
as an organic single unity or whole, there may be no imperative necessity for with¬
holding the completion and publication of parts as they are finished to await the
conclusion and publication of the whole. By part may be meant a territorial part,
that is, that the plan of one of the major geographical divisions or sections of the
city, as, for instance, the territory on one side of a river which divides the city into
two sections, may be completed and published previous to the completion and
promulgation of the plan of the whole city. “Part” may also relate to subject matter,
as, for instance, the completion of the major thoroughfare part of the plan and its
publication previous to the completion of the park part or recreational part or
railroad part. The territorial part selected should have, in and of itself, some logi¬
cal basis; and nothing less than the whole of one subject matter, such as major
streets, should be treated as a part. Moreover, any such part adopted before the
completion and adoption of the whole plan should be clearly recognized and treated
as a part which is being adopted and published in advance pending the completion
of the plan, and always as a part, the significance and usefulness of which depends
on its relation to the other parts. [Emphasis added.]

The logical and practical intent of the authors is made very clear in

41

Fifty Years of Experience with the General Plan

this added explanation which, it must be emphasized, is not a part of the
recommended formal legislation. Once the Standard Act was adopted and
put into practice in numerous cities throughout the United States—which
happened very quickly—the clarifying footnotes were forgotten, and the
authorization in the formal text of the Act itself permitting piecemeal
adoption of the plan without any qualifications was taken at its face value.
Hundreds of city-planning commissions began the complex job of city plan¬
ning by authorizing the preparation of piecemeal plans, and once these
separate “plans” were adopted, the commissions promptly lost sight of
the other key general-plan sections that were needed to provide a logical
basis for the one or two piecemeal plans that had been adopted.

Street systems initially received most attention in general plans. Cities
throughout the country during the 1920’s and 1930’s adopted “compre¬
hensive thoroughfare plans that were, naturally, dependent for their validity
on the unstated land-use and mass-transit proposals and assumptions made
by the city-planning consultants and local staff members who had pre-
pared them. During the years that followed, these partial plans came to
be labeled as master plans. Thus, parts of the circulation sections of many
general plans were transformed into master plans of thoroughfares. The
illogical reasoning expressed by this use of the term “master plan” led
innumerable city-planning commissions to postpone indefinitely—in many
cases for twenty to thirty years—the completion of the other essential sec-
tions of the general plan. Needless to say, many of these commissions were
advised by members of the city-planning profession who had been misled
by their own illogical interpretation of the Standard Act on this point.

The only alternative that apparently was considered by the authors
of the Act was an “everything or nothing” approach—a requirement that
would have specified the completion of all of the key sections of the general
plan before permitting the adoption of any single separate section. The
mandatory-referral provisions of the Act did restrain the city-planning com¬
mission from active participation in the work of municipal government
until such time as the general plan or pertinent sections of it had been
adopted. If the Act had not permitted piecemeal adoption, the mandatory-
referral requirement, it now seems in retrospect, would have provided the
spur necessary to obtain the support needed to complete the plan.

Preparation and adoption of the general plan as a whole in pre¬
liminary form, pending completion of the careful studies needed to do
the job thoroughly, would have been a far more practical and reasonable
alternative than the piecemeal-adoption procedure which was accepted.

42

1930-1950: Twenty Years of Confusion

This, in fact, is the procedure many cities have finally adopted after living
with inadequate partial plans for many years. The successful completion
and effective use of such “interim” or “preliminary” general plans in recent
years, followed up by revisions based on subsequent studies and working
experience sufficient to transform preliminary plans into fully developed
general plans, has suggested the ideas on procedures for general-plan a op¬
tion and annual review and amendment that are called for in Chapter o
this book.

In many ways, the situation that has been briefly described here con¬
cerning the results of the piecemeal-adoption procedure authorized by
the Standard Act is comparable to the now settled but recently very active
controversy over the relationship of the zoning plan to the genera P a
The issue is settled, but the effects of the confusion linger on. For, a t oug
the unity of the essential physical elements that must be dealt with m the
general plan is now widely appreciated among professional practitioners
and citizen commissioners and councilmen, there still are cities, some a -
vised by members of the city-planning profession, authorizing t e prepa¬
ration of separate sections of the plan for subsequent piecemeal adoption.

(3) Lack of a Specific Definition of the Essential Physical Elements to Be
Dealt with in the General Plan

The authors of the Standard Act consciously attempted to exclude
from the formal text of the recommended legislation a specific definition
of the essential physical elements to be dealt with m the general plan, n
this issue, unlike their decision on the issue of piecemeal-adoption pro¬
cedure, they failed to elaborate on the reasons for their decision. It ap¬
parently was the intent of the authors of the Act to encourage every city-
planning commission to define the key physical elements to be dealt wit
in the general plan in its own way. Indeed, for more than twenty years-
during the 1920’s and the 1930’s—this point of view was championed by
Mr. Bettman. During this period, the possibility seems to have been al¬
most completely overlooked by Mr. Bettman and other leaders o e
profession that legislation authorizing the preparation and use of a general
plan which did not specify at the very least the essential physical elements
to be dealt with in the plan might enable and encourage illogical city-plan¬
ning programs to gain support in the name of comprehensive city p anning.

As a matter of fact, despite a specific statement m the explanatory
footnotes of the Standard Act that says an express definition of the general
plan is not deemed necessary or desirable, when the members of the com-

43

Fifty Years of Experience with the General Plan

mittee finally reached the point in the Act where it became necessary to
explain in legislative language what was meant by the master, or general,
plan, they were compelled to write a definition. The specific language con¬
stitutes, undeniably, a definition that actually does specify the essential
physical elements that a plan must deal with if it is to serve its purpose as
a comprehensive general plan that can be used to guide the physical de¬
velopment of a community. Thus, by saying one thing in the footnotes and
actually doing the opposite in the formal text of the proposed legislation,
the Standard Act added to the confusion and uncertainty of the period
on the fundamental question as to what constituted the basic physical
elements to be dealt with in the general plan.

The relevant provisions of the Act on this issue are included in Sec¬
tion 6, titled “General Powers and Duties.” The first sentence of this section
of the Act states that it is the duty of the city-planning commission to make
and adopt a master plan. At this point in the text the attention of the reader
is directed to footnote 32, which says:

"a master plan”: By this expression is meant a comprehensive scheme of develop¬
ment of the general fundamentals of a municipal plan. An express definition has
not been thought desirable or necessary. What is implied in it is best expressed by
the provisions of this section which illustrate the subject matter that a master plan
should consider. [Emphasis added.]

The next sentence of the formal text attempts to “illustrate the subject
matter that a master plan should consider.” This sentence reads as follows:

. . . (the) plan . . . shall [emphasis added] show the commission’s recommenda¬
tions for the development of said territory, including, among other things, the gen¬
eral location, character, and extent of streets, viaducts, subways, bridges, water¬
ways, waterfronts, boulevards, parkways, playgrounds, squares, parks, aviation
fields, and other public ways, grounds and open spaces, the general location of
public buildings and other public property, and the general location and extent of
public utilities and terminals, whether publicly or privately owned or operated, for
water, light, sanitation, transportation, communication, power, and other purposes;
also the removal, relocation, widening, narrowing, vacating, abandonment, change
of use or extension of any of the foregoing ways, grounds, open spaces, buildings,
property, utilities, or terminals; as well as a zoning plan for the control of the
height, area, bulk, location, and use of buildings and premises . . .

This legislative “definition” of the general plan may be paraphrased in
contemporary terms as follows: The master or general plan shall include,
among other sections on physical elements judged by the city-p lannin g

44

1930—1950: Twenty Years of Confusion

commission to be necessary to the particular requirements of the com¬
munity: (a) a section on working-and-living areas (which the Standard
Act, as we have already seen, unfortunately confused with the zoning
plan); (b) a section on community facilities; and (c) a section on circu¬
lation. In other words, having just said that they did not believe an express
definition of the general plan should be included in the Act, the authors
then found it necessary to write an “illustrative” definition that included
the word “shall” as applied to the subject matter of the three key physical
elements to be dealt with in the plan.

There are several possible explanations for this contradiction. Despite
what is said in the explanatory footnotes, the decision to attempt consciously
to omit what could be called an express definition of the general plan from
the Act probably was the result of basic differences of opinion among the
individuals in the group that drafted the document. We know from his
later writings that one of the members of the committee, Edward M. Bas¬
sett, believed that the scope of the plan should be precisely delimited, and
that the component parts of the plan should be specified. We also know
that Alfred Bettman during this period of his career argued that anything
that might come to be known as a “standard definition” of the general
plan might lead city-planning commissions throughout the country to do
their work in a perfunctory way, without really thinking for themselves,
and hence might cause them to ignore the special problems, features, and
opportunities that characterize every community. Thus, one who is aware
of the unavoidable limitations and problems of committee authorship might
draw the conclusion that Mr. Bassett wrote the legislative definition of the
general plan that is in the Act, that Mr. Bettman wrote the footnote saying
that no express definition was thought desirable or necessary, and that they
each succeeded in qualifying the other’s words sufficiently so that they could
agree to sign the final document. It is very important, however, that we
also remind ourselves that at the time the Standard Act was being written
the city-planning profession itself had not, as yet, been able to complete a
representative number of general plans for cities throughout the United
States. Hence, while there was broad agreement on the subject matter and
major purpose of the general plan, there probably was no easy, natural
agreement among a substantial majority of the leaders of the profession,
based on common practical experience, as to how to define in legislative
language what were then, as they are today, the essential physical elements
that must be dealt with in the general plan.

The harmful reality and widespread extent of the nongeneral, non-

45

Fifty Years of Experience with the General Plan

comprehensive, and nonlong-range work done as a result of the inability of
the city-planning profession to define its principal instrument can be verified
by a visit to any city hall in the country. The record of the 1930’s and
1940’s speaks for itself. Detailed zoning ordinances and piecemeal plans
that were unrelated to even the sketchiest framework of a general plan
were the familiar products of the times. Not until the huge backlog of post¬
poned public works forced the issue immediately after the end of World
War II did we rediscover the essential physical elements that must be dealt
with in the general plan and face up to the necessity of describing them
in straightforward language suitable for use in formal legislation. By this
time, Mr. Bettman had changed his point of view, and during the period
between 1940 and 1946 he made one of his most important contributions
to the development of the city-planning profession—a formulation of an
“express definition” of the general plan which will be considered at the end
of this chapter.

(4) Basic Questions as to the Scope of the General Plan

The three “soft spots” in the general-plan concept as expressed in
the Standard Act that have just been considered are concerned with ques¬
tions that to a great extent have been resolved as a result of the pressures
of experience. On each issue it is still necessary for clarifying definitions
of the general plan to catch up with and reflect accepted good practice. But
today there is, once again, a direct relationship between general-plan theory
and general-plan practice on these points. It does not seem unrealistic to
anticipate that there will be, therefore, a consolidation of experience sub¬
sequent to World War II that will (1) clearly distinguish the general plan
from the zoning plan, (2) require adoption of the general plan as an
entity rather than piecemeal, and (3) spell out in legislative language a
firm definition of the essential physical elements to be dealt with in a general
plan for physical development.

We now must acknowledge the existence of a challenge to the general-
plan concept that is still very much alive. This is the challenge posed pri¬
marily by social scientists, public administrators, and the architect-planner
advocates of “total design” to the self-imposed limitation of the scope of
the plan to questions of general physical development. 2

- There are several able and active proponents of the points of view held by the
groups I have identified. In the subsequent discussion I have in mind the principal
arguments made by Dr. Rexford G. Tugwell as a social scientist, Professor Robert A.
Walker as a public administrator, and Professor Henry Fagin as an architect-planner.

46

1930-1950: Twenty Years of Confusion

Between 1930 and the present time two main arguments have been
made against the idea that the general plan should continue to be limited
in scope to questions of physical development. The first argument advo¬
cates greater breadth, the second, greater depth. They raise questions that
are fundamental and that must, therefore, be acknowledged and answered.
They agitate the minds of students and professors, in particular. On the
other hand, they have no large significance for men and women of the
city-planning profession who have had sustained experience in municipal
government and who are motivated primarily to improve the physical en¬
vironment. Practitioners of all professions understand the need for subject-
matter limitation and for distinguishing general policy questions from specific,
detailed, short-range action proposals.

The first argument—the “breadth” argument—may be summarized as
follows: Since every general physical-development plan is admittedly based
on judgments concerning social and economic objectives and factors, and
since the physical environment is, also admittedly, of second-order im¬
portance—a means to an end, not an end in itself—the physical-develop¬
ment focus of the plan should be broadened to enable the plan to become
“truly comprehensive.” Only in this way, it is argued, can urban govern¬
ments be as rational as possible in comprehending and determining the
complete set of policies—social, economic, physical, and fiscal—needed to
govern wisely. 3

The response to this challenging argument is, of course, not directed
against reason and wisdom. Olmsted and Bettman and their works exemplify
reason and wisdom. The early advocates of the general physical-plan concept
simply assumed that a number of governmental policy-control instruments
would always be needed—such as the annual budget, the capital-improve¬
ment program, the personnel-classification system, and the school curriculum
—and that, given the limitation of the land resources of the city, it would be
sensible to add to these a long-range plan for the physical development of the
community. The contemporary advocates of the general physical plan like¬
wise assume that there will continue to be a number of governmental policy-
control instruments that will be practical; they assume that the general
physical plan is one such instrument; and they are working, together with
others, to develop additional control instruments, such as the community-

3 See Rexford G. Tugwell, The Place of Planning in Society, Puerto Rico Planning
Board Technical Paper No. 7, 1954, San Juan, Puerto Rico; and “The Fourth Power,”
in Planning and Civic Comment (Washington, D. C.: 1940).

47

Fifty Years of Experience with the General Plan

renewal program and public-policy statements concerning intergroup and
race relations, as the need and practicality of such instruments become clear.

The response of the traditionalists, however, does not seem reasonable
to the advocates of the “truly comprehensive” approach to governmental
planning. They wish to create a superior staff group of professional planners
who will prepare and maintain a “comprehensive-policies plan.” 4 In advo¬
cating this, they have confused the continuing need for a general physical
plan, and have failed to make a case directly for the new and different con¬
cept that they seek to have considered. How did this confusion develop?

Shortly after the publication of the 1928 Standard Act the nation was
plunged into the depression of the 1930’s. The special attention and em¬
phasis given to social and economic problems during this period was quickly
reflected in the work of the city-planning profession and led directly to dis¬
agreements and confusion as to the scope of the general plan.

For reasons that were plainly stated, Olmsted and Bettman and the
other authors of the Standard Act believed that the subject matter of the
general plan should be limited to the major issues of physical development
that were confronting cities. This view was questioned by many of the
younger men who entered the profession in the 1930’s and was challenged
by the activities and publications of the National Resources Planning Board
which were concerned with national and regional resources and socio¬
economic development problems as well as questions having to do with
the development and improvement of the nation’s cities. The NRPB, as
it came to be known, undoubtedly made a major contribution to the de¬
velopment of the city-planning profession in the United States during the
most active years of its existence (1932 to 1942). Many of today’s leaders
of the profession gained their initial experience as junior staff members in
the regional offices of this creative and controversial New Deal agency.
But the work of the NRPB and the influence of many of its senior officers
resulted in what now seems to me to have been an unnecessary diversion of
the creative energies of the city-planning profession.

The main theme that ran through the criticisms of the Standard Act
philosophy on the scope of the general plan during this period may be ex¬
pressed as follows: In order to plan logically for the future physical de¬
velopment of a city, it is necessary to make plans also for the financial,
social, and economic factors that are affected by, and that, in turn, them-

4 See Henry Fagin, “Organizing and Carrying Out Planning Activities Within
Urban Government,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners, Vol. 25 (August,
1959).

48

1930—1950: Twenty Years of Confusion

selves limit and control, the physical development of the city. Put in more
general terms, this argument says that since everything in the urban com¬
munity is related to everything else, it is illogical to attempt to make a
plan for only one aspect of the community. Put another way, this argument
seems to say that each of the traditional, limited-scope policy-control in¬
struments—the long-range financial plan, the annual budget, the five-year
capital-improvement program, the social and economic policies of the
community, however stated, and the general physical-development plan—
should be conceived of as a separate section in a single, ultracomprehen-
sive plan.

The impact of this point of view on the practices of the city-planning
profession reached its peak during the im m ediate period following World
War II when full-scale city-planning programs were being organized through¬
out the country for the first time and new staffs were being recruited. Many
social scientists interested in urban problems joined these staffs and partici¬
pated actively in the internal office debates that resulted from the necessity
to translate the theoretical notion of the general physical plan into practical
reality in order to solve obvious and pressing problems. In those cities where
plans were actually produced during the first postwar decade, such as Cin¬
cinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, San Francisco, and Seattle, the question as to
the scope of the plan was invariably decided in favor of the physical-develop¬
ment focus advocated by the Standard Act. In a significant number of other
offices that were and still are well organized and well directed, however, no
general plans of any sort have been completed, and the issue is still being
debated.

It is now generally recognized that, regardless of the outcome of the
arguments concerning the technical feasibility and political acceptability of
a truly comprehensive plan to be prepared by a unified central staff of pro¬
fessional planners—a plan that will deal directly with race relations, tax
policy, mental health, and community welfare in addition to over-all physi¬
cal development, capital improvements, and community renewal—there will
always need to be at the very least a general plan that focuses on physical
development, just as the budget and the long-range fiscal plan focus on the
subject matter of financial resources. Whether or not city planners of the
Olmsted-Bettman tradition will find themselves subordinate members of a
larger consolidated professional planning group remains to be seen. The ap¬
peal of this concept of consolidation can be expected to grow, however, and
the argument against the physical-development subject-matter focus of the
Standard Act general-plan concept that springs from it will be confronting
us for many years to come.

49

Fifty Years of Experience with the General Plan

A related argument against limiting the scope of the general plan to
physical development also grew out of the nonphysical, or completely compre¬
hensive, point of view that gained support among some city planners during
the depression years of the 1930’s, a point of view that was carried over into
the first decade following World War II. This idea attacked the very notion
of any broad-gauge plan at all. Social scientists and public administrators,
joined by anti-general-plan city planners, 3 argued that the very existence of
any such plan, regardless of its subject-matter focus, was harmful. These men
advocated the concept of continuous, flexible planning by a professional
central-management and planning group without any limitation as to sub¬
ject matter, and without a requirement to produce what they judged would
be the inhibiting and distorting device of a “completed” plan or series of
plans. The argument that continuous planning by a professional staff group
without the requirement of a stated comprehensive plan or series of subject-
matter plans makes control of the basic policies of the staff by the city
council impossible does not seem to have been fully appreciated by the pro¬
ponents of the continuous, comprehensive-planning approach.

The failure of city governments during the 1920’s to establish permanent
professional city-planning staffs so that the consultant-prepared general plans
for physical development that were developed during this period could be
kept up to date and, hence, kept useful, was one of the legitimate causes of
the attacks on the general-plan concept by the advocates of what may be
termed the continuous, comprehensive-planning point of view. 6 The authors
of the Standard Act were very much aware of this criticism and of the harm
that could result from a general physical plan that was not kept up to date.
In footnote 8, which explains the provision of the Act that authorizes munici¬
palities to make, adopt, amend, and carry out a general plan for physical
development, the authors of the Standard Act state:

The act contemplates that the planning commission shall not only make the plan
but also have a strong influence in protecting the plan against departures and in
getting the plan carried out. . . . While the making of the comprehensive master

5 See Adams, Howard, and Greeley, Report to the Board of City Planning Com¬
missioners, City of Los Angeles, on the Los Angeles City Planning Department, 1956
(Cambridge, Mass.: November, 1956) for documentation. The well-financed, and in
many respects outstanding, program of the Los Angeles City Planning Department,
established in 1941, has yet to produce even a preliminary general plan for physical
development.

I! See Robert A. Walker, The Planning Function in Urban Government (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1941). Second Edition, 1950.

50

1930-1950: Twenty Years of Confusion

city plan is the main initial piece of work to be undertaken by the planning com¬
mission, the completion of that plan does not represent the completion of its work.
On the contrary, the second main and equally important stage of its work com¬
mences with the adoption of the master plan. This stage is continuous and perma¬
nent, being the continuous process of adjusting the actual physical development of
the municipality to the plan, and also the continuous elaboration of the plan and
adjustment of the plan to new situations as they arise . . .

Despite the emphasis given in this explanatory note to the necessity for
continuous physical planning once the initial version of the general plan has
been completed, the Olmsted-Bettman Standard Act tradition is still criticized
as one that gives too much emphasis to the idea of a fixed plan and not
enough emphasis to the idea of continuous planning. In fact, the Standard Act
gives equal emphasis to the need both for a plan and for a program of con¬
tinuous city planning. It specifically calls for continuous review and revision
in view of the political role assigned to the plan as one of the major policy-
control instruments of the municipal government.

The contemporary practice of city planning is, unfortunately, still sub¬
ject to legitimate criticism as a result of a repetition of the practices of the
1920’s. Many of the smaller cities that took advantage of the city-planning
financial-aid program of the federal government between 1954 and 1962,
prior to the time when grants were available for continuous planning activi¬
ties, undertook programs that called for completion of general plans without
adequate provision for the establishment of a continuing city-planning pro¬
gram. As a consequence, the reasonable argument against spending money
on a useless plan continues to be heard. But despite this resurgence of bad
practice, and des*pite the continued support being given to the city-planning
programs of several of our major cities that are led by city planners who do
not believe in the necessity of a city plan, a general plan limited in its scope
and definiteness to a general physical design has been a necessary and useful
device in an ever-increasing number of American cities where the political
leaders have assumed direct responsibility for the basic policies being used
to guide the physical-development activities of their communities.

The second main argument—the “depth” argument—against the scope
of the Standard Act general-plan concept contends that the requirement that
the plan remain general is inhibiting and impractical. In recent years, among
those who do realize that a general plan for physical development is needed,
controversy has developed around the idea that the plan must not be per¬
mitted to become precise and detailed. It may be said that the same sort of
confusion caused by the failure to distinguish between the detailed zoning

51

Fifty Years of Experience with the General Plan

plan for all privately owned land and the working-and-living-areas section of
the general plan is now reappearing as a result of the failure to maintain a
distinction between the capital budget for public works and specific public
projects and improvements suggested by the plan and the broad policies
and general citywide physical-design proposals expressed in the community-
facilities and circulation sections of the plan.

Experience has shown that as soon as a community completes its gen¬
eral plan, serious consideration will be given to the most pressing problems
dealt with by the plan. In the 1920’s these were the problems caused by the
anarchy of unregulated use of that part of the city that was privately owned.
After the mechanics for coping with this situation were crudely worked out
and accepted, general-plan proposals that dealt with public projects came
into the spotlight. By 1945 the nation had been through defense and war
periods that had caused the postponement of essential municipal public works
for almost a decade. Thus when, following World War II, city-planning pro¬
grams got under way and general plans were completed, the widespread
tendency to convert the plan into a specific blueprint for public capital im¬
provements, including in many instances detailed financial programs, was
understandable. This tendency, which confused the continuing need for a
general statement of citywide physical-development policy, was expressed in
the first definition by the federal government, prepared in 1950, of the scope
of the urban general plan. It also found expression in England when, also
for the first time, the national government found it necessary, as a result of
the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act, to specify in the form of official
regulations the exact contents of the city- and county-development plans that
had to be prepared by all local governments by 1950. In both cases, the
higher-level governments required the inclusion of short-range and detailed
plans and programs in the official set of documents that had been intended,
initially, to assure the formulation and use, by local governments, of long-
range plans for physical development.

Today we are able to see the results of the debates and controversies
that have been and continue to be concerned with the scope—the breadth
and depth of the general plan for physical development. Although each
of the two main points of view discussed still has its adherents among the
members of the profession, the sustained practice of city planning in large
and small cities throughout the United States since the end of World War II
has demonstrated that the realistic needs of the governing groups in every
city include the need for a plan (1) that focuses on the major issues of physi-
cal development; (2) that outlines a single, definite, unified general design

52

1930-1950: Twenty Years of Confusion

for the principal elements of the physical environment; and (3) that, by re¬
maining general in nature, enables a clear focus to be maintained on the long-
range policies and physical design that are required if there is to be a func¬
tionally logical and politically fair basis for the ever-increasing variety of
detailed regulations and public projects that must be designed and imple¬
mented by municipal governments.

(5) Distrust of the Municipal Legislative Body

Of all the major ideas that were combined to form the general-plan con¬
cept that found its expression in the Standard Act, the idea that the principal
client of the plan should be an independent, appointed, citizen commission
rather than the directly elected members of the city council seems to be the
one that was and continues to be more widely taken for granted in most parts
of the country than any of the other key ideas. I believe that this idea, al¬
though not considered controversial at the time, was based on a fundamental
misinterpretation of the requirements of democratic self-government. It per¬
mitted the confusion on technical general-plan questions to continue for a
much longer period than would have been the case if the city-planning pro¬
fession had not been shielded from direct public inquiry by a citizen com¬
mission trained to think of itself as superior to and independent of the city
council. Needless to say, it also directly influenced the very nature of the
general plan itself, leading in most instances away from the idea that the plan
should focus on the major issues of physical development and toward the
conception of the plan as a detailed and increasingly precise scheme to be
seen and used only by the members of the city-planning commission and its
professional staff.

The political and governmental authority of the public body for whom
any major policy-control instrument is prepared has a very great influence on
the nature and form of the instrument. It now seems obvious that not until a
definite new decision is reached as to who really must be recognized by the
city-planning profession as the principal client of the general plan will we be
able to design, present, and maintain the plan properly for the combined
political and technical uses that it must serve if it is to meet the practical,
working needs of the client.

Before we examine in detail the reasons given by the authors of the
Standard Act for attempting to create a nonpolitical public body while at the
same time attempting to avoid a specific requirement that this body present
its basic policies in the form of a unified general plan, I believe my own views
should be restated. Personal judgments and values are of critical importance

53

Fifty Years of Experience with the General Plan

on this question. The decision one makes on this issue dictates one’s definition
of the uses and characteristics of the general plan.

I believe that the Standard Act concept was based on the assumption
that the members of the city council could not, realistically, be expected to
be competent to determine and maintain a wise policy to use as a basis for
governing physical development. The Act, therefore, called for an independ¬
ent citizen commission to do this necessary and important job. It was also
assumed by the authors of the Act that the task of preparing and maintaining
the general plan would continue to be very complex, technically. The Act,
therefore, imposed no requirement that the general plan should ever be pub¬
licly presented or described in its entirety, although it was assumed this should
and would be done eventually. Hence, two major assumptions made by the
authors of the Standard Act, one based on political considerations and the
other based on technical considerations, led citizen commissioners and pro¬
fessional city planners alike to accept—and in many instances to advocate—
the idea that the general plan as a unified entity did not ever have to be made
available, either to the city council or the citizens of the community. These
assumptions, although understandable in the historical context of the 1920’s,
no longer can be considered realistic or reasonable. If they are rejected, as I
propose, and replaced (1) by the belief that the city council, and only the
city council, should be the principal client of the general plan, and (2) by
the judgment that the technical complexity of the general plan is not such
that it is impossible to make the plan understandable, available, and amend-
able, then several of the most important characteristics of the general plan
as suggested by the Standard Act will necessarily have to be modified.

The convictions and basic assumptions that led the authors of the Stand-
ard Act to define the relationship of the city-planning commission to the city
council in the way that they did are openly presented and discussed in the
explanatory footnotes of the document. The official text simply spells out the
conclusions that logically follow from these judgments.

The specific proposals in the text of the Act that define the membership,
role, and authority of the city-planning commission with which we must now
become familiar may be summarized as follows: Since a general plan is
needed so that the physical development of the community can be governed
in a way that is both thoughtful and fair, a city-planning commission should
be appointed by the mayor, without confirmation by the council, to prepare
and maintain such a plan. Six of the nine members of this commission should
be outstanding civic leaders whose terms of office should be such that no
mayor, directly, or council, indirectly, during their terms of office, would be

54

1930-1950: Twenty Years of Confusion

able to change a majority of the members of the commission. Six-year, over¬
lapping terms are suggested, and removal procedures are spelled out that are
intended to assure the tenure of the citizen commissioners. The remaining
three commissioners are to be men who will become members of the com¬
mission by virtue of other positions they occupy, namely, the mayor, one of
the chief administrative officers of the government who is to be designated
by the mayor, and a member of the city council to be selected by the council.

The commission is charged with the primary duty of preparing, adopt¬
ing, and maintaining the general plan, and is given a staff that is responsible
to it exclusively and is, therefore, intentionally independent of the regular ad¬
ministration. The general plan is not to be adopted by the council.

Once the commission has adopted the plan, all proposals affecting physi¬
cal development that must be acted upon finally by the city council must first
be referred to the commission for review. After the council has received a
report from the commission presenting its views on the proposal as to its re¬
lationship to the general plan, the council may act. However, if the council
wishes to approve a proposal that the commission has recommended against,
the council is permitted to do so only if two-thirds of its full membership
votes to overrule the commission.

In the 1960’s, more than thirty years after the publication of the Stand¬
ard Act, after more than sixty years of municipal reform, and after a general
post-World War II reawakening of citizen interest in civic and political ac¬
tivity at the community level, many of the cities that are still operating with
the organization for city planning called for by the Standard Act have either
ignored the intent of the ordinances or charter provisions under which they
have been operating or they have already made major changes in their basic
city-planning organization legislation. Ways have been found to remove en¬
tire commissions whose members were hostile to newly elected political
leaders, and councils have united to overrule commission recommendations
based on a general plan that they had never seen and that, as a natural conse¬
quence, they did not understand. During recent years, the facts of political
life have reminded the American people convincingly that final power to en¬
act laws, to raise and spend money, to control or significantly influence the
appointments to citizen commissions that as a political reality can never be
more than advisory, and to define by ordinance or control in other ways the
organization and specific functions of such commissions, resides in the hands
of the elected representatives of the people—the members of the city council.
Even in the largest cities with strong-mayor governments, city councils are
rediscovering their powers, although some are still being manipulated by

55

Fifty Years of Experience with the General Plan

well-intentioned reform mayors or behind-the-scenes political bosses. In a
system of representative democracy it has always been considered a funda¬
mental principle that lawmaking, taxation, final action on all capital im¬
provements, and the formulation of public policies to guide actions in these
matters are direct responsibilities of the legislative body. Why, then, did the
authors of the Standard Act attempt to go against this principle?

The reasons given in the Act in answer to the question posed above are,
as usual, plausible and persuasive, as the reader will see for himself when
he considers the five explanatory footnotes presented below. In footnote 10,
which presents the opening argument for an independent commission, the
authors say:

■ ' planning function is quite different and distinct from the legislative func-
tion. The city council represents the people of the city for the length of the term
for which it is elected and during that term is to be deemed to possess the quali¬
fication for and has its time and energies taken up with the problems of current
legislation and current control of the public moneys. The making of a plan or de¬
sign for a long period of future years, a period which will cover the incumbency
of many successive councils, is an entirely different type of work, raises problems
which involve different factors, and requires different qualifications. The board
which has this work in charge should be free form the pressures of purely current
problems. Consequently council, by virtue of the very nature of its functions and
by virtue of its term of office, does not have the qualifications, the time, or the
political status which would make it an appropriate body for this long-term plan¬
ning work. That work needs to be intrusted to a board or body specially chosen
for the purpose and given a place in the structure of the government specially ap¬
propriate to the nature of this planning work. Later provisions of this act and later
notes explain the mutual relationships between the planning commission, the plan,
council, and current developments.

Having thus stated the reasons for attempting to create an independent
commission as free as possible from the political influence of the elected rep¬
resentatives of the people, the Act then proposes six-year, overlapping terms

for the members of the commission and describes the reasons for this decision
in footnote 20:

six years ’The principle which explains this period is that the terms of members
of the planning commission should so overlap the terms of councilmen and of the
officials of the city administration that, in the first place, the whole planning com¬
mission will not go out when a city administration or council goes out and, in the
second place, that no city administration shall during a single term have the power
to name a majority of the members of the planning commission

56

1930-1950: Twenty Years of Confusion

Next, in explaining the provision of the Act that calls for adoption of
the plan by the commission only, the authors say in footnote 44:

“adoption”: Planning is intended to be a process whereby the larger lines and di¬
rections of future public and private development will be influenced and to some
extent controlled. It should be designed to cover a long period of years, much
longer than the term of office of any single city council, including the city council
which is in office at the time of adoption of the plan or any part of it. Legislation
is designed to meet pressing and immediate needs, whether it takes the form of
penal legislation controlling persons or property or whether it be fiscal legislation
expending public funds. The two functions, planning and legislation, are important
and essential to the efficient working of city government, but they are quite different
from each other and involve differing considerations, differing points of view, and
differing talents and interests. The two functions, therefore, need to be reposed in
two separate bodies, one called in this act the planning commission and the other
the council.

Furthermore, a city council is elected for a specific term during which it is the rep¬
resentative of the people. Beyond that term it is not the representative of the people,
and its legislation, therefore, should be restricted to the matters which require de¬
cision and enactment into law and action during its specific term. For these reasons
the plan should not be required to be submitted to or approved by council. Each
council will finally determine the public improvements for which moneys are to
be expended during its term, and as to each council the plan will have the legal
status given to it in the later section of the act, a status which does not finally bind
council. In other words, in the end the planning commission cannot bind council.
To pass upon the plan itself, however, is, for the above reasons, not within the
appropriate functions of council; and a requirement that the plan be submitted to
and approved by council will have many disadvantages. For instance, in case of a
political overturn a latter council might be hostile to the plan as the work of its
overturned predecessor . . .

Finally, the “two-thirds” procedure specified in the Act which limits the
freedom of the council to legislate on all physical-development and general-
plan matters once the commission has adopted the plan is explained and justi¬
fied in footnotes 46 and 52:

“Legal status of official plan”: This section is one of the most important of the act.
Numerous matters are constantly before council for decision. Some of them may
represent a departure from or violation of the city plan. Others may represent mat¬
ters upon which the city plan contains no light but which involve a major plan¬
ning problem. As council proceeds from week to week with its work, pressed by
all sorts of pressures to pass this, that, or the other measure, there is great danger,

57

Fifty Years of Experience with the General Plan

especially in the early stages of the planning movement in any city, that the city
plan may come to be ignored or given rather casual attention. Consequently, the
State planning legislation should devise a means whereby, from the time there is a
city plan or a substantial part thereof, all matters which involve location of public
buildings, improvements, utilities, etc., should receive city planning consideration;
that is, full consideration of their bearing upon the city plan. The requirement con¬
tained in the text appears reasonable and adequate and has worked well where it
has been adopted. It provides that in the case of any improvement in which the
planning problem is involved the opinion of the planning commission must first
be asked. If the planning commission approves, the council will be free to proceed
with whatever affirmative vote is required by the general law governing it. If the
commission disapproves, there naturally ensues a reconsideration, with probably
a full discussion between council and commission. Council retains the power it
should have, namely, the power to decide in the end; but in order that this decision
may be after full consideration of the planning problem and of the relation of the
proposed improvement to other city developments, the requirement of a vote of
two-thirds of council is reasonable and justified.

overrule When a specific improvement has been submitted to the commission
after the comprehensive plan has been adopted and the commission disapproves,
the council should not be allowed to overrule such disapproval except by a sub¬
stantial majority. It is, therefore, provided that such action shall be by not less
than two-thirds of the votes of the entire membership of council and not merely
a majority of two-thirds of those who happen to be present on a given day. Such a
provision militates against hasty action, when a bare quorum might be present,
and will also necessitate full discussion and the members going on record where
important action is to be taken.

The two principal points that are made in these footnotes may be re¬
stated in this way: First, since councilmen are elected for relatively short
terms, and since immediate political pressures are always present and domi¬
nant in their minds, they cannot be expected to have any long-range objectives
or policies of their own that will serve as a logical basis for the decisions
they must make every week on so-called short-range matters. Second, since
the situation just described is assumed to be true and unavoidable, some way
must be found to force these politicians to permit a group of wiser men, whose
tenure the council is not supposed to control, to make a general plan for the
city and to limit the freedom of the council to legislate on all matters affect¬
ing the physical development of the community.

The underlying judgment here seems to be one of almost complete dis¬
trust and lack of confidence in the ability of the members of the city council
to be reasonable. The combination of this distrust and lack of confidence

58

1930—1950: Twenty Years of Confusion

with an undue concern about the technical complexity of the plan-making
job and the job of keeping the plan up to date led the authors of the Act to
attempt to create a nonpolitical public body, which was the objective of many
reformers during the first decades of the century, and, without really wanting
or intending to do so, to free this body from accountability by consciously
excluding from the Act any specific definition of the essential physical ele¬
ments to be dealt with in the general plan and by consciously permitting
piecemeal adoption of the plan with no provision requiring publication of
the plan in its entirety in any form.

As will be shown in the next section of this chapter, Mr. Bettman him¬
self by 1945 had changed his mind concerning the need for “an express defi¬
nition” of the general plan that could be understood and adopted by the city
council, and, shortly after his death in 1946, the post-World War II revision
of the Cincinnati general plan, which he had done so much to make possible,
was itself adopted by the city council after it had been summarized and made
widely available in a form that was understandable to the general citizenry.

During the past fifteen years an ever-increasing number of city councils
throughout the United States has taken formal action on the general plans
prepared by their commissions. Many leading members of the city-planning
profession, however, are still strongly opposed to this procedure on both
practical and theoretical grounds. 7 As a consequence, relatively few general
plans have been prepared with the city council as client in mind. Thus, since
1950 a large number of hybrid general plans have been completed, prepared
by professional staffs competent in their ability to grasp and deal with the
essential technical facets of the plan, but unconcerned and unclear in their
thinking as to who would eventually have to understand, control, and make
use of the plan in governing the physical development of their cities. In my
judgment, no way can be found to keep the council from exercising effective
control over the city-planning commission and the general plan once the
leaders of the council become aware, as they inevitably will, of the signifi¬
cance of the commission and the general plan. As a consequence, I believe
an attempt must now be made to encourage and assist the council to be as
wise and as fair as is possible by placing the general plan firmly in its hands,
in a form suited to its unique role as the primary policy-making and gov¬
erning body of the community.

7 See John T. Howard, “In Defense of Planning Commissions,” Journal of the
American Institute of Planners, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Spring, 1951), pp. 89—94.

59

Fifty Years of Experience with the General Plan

AFTER WORLD WAR II: REALITIES AND CRYSTALLIZATION

In the preceding pages! have attempted to single out and describe the
most important problems that developed as a result of the efforts of city
planners, city-planning commissioners, and city councilmen to make use of
the general-plan concept expressed in the Standard Act during the twenty-
year period following the publication of the Act in 1928. The practice of city
planning in the United States during these two decades was unavoidably ex¬
perimental. In a historical sense, the practitioners of this period were occupy-
ing strange territory in a hurry and, as a result of their difficult experiences,
they were making it possible for the next generation to see more clearly where
to build anew the foundations of the profession.

By the end of the 1950’s,' many medium-sized council-manager cities
had joined the larger strong-mayor cities in establishing permanent city¬
planning programs and professional staffs. Practitioners everywhere began to
see that the experience following World War II with the technical city-plan¬
ning job had clarified the essential physical elements to be dealt with in the
general plan. City councils and mayors began to assert their political su¬
premacy and control over the supposedly independent city-planning commis-
sions. A new crystallization of basic city-planning concepts was beginning to
take place.

During the first decade following World War II, two realities imposed
themselves on the prewar trends that had caused the confusion and uncer¬
tainty in the use of the general-plan concept of the Standard Act. First, as a
result of the slow but sure effects of the municipal reform movement, cities
throughout the country established permanent professional city-planning staffs
and began to give continuous, thoughtful, top-level attention to the job of
understanding and guiding the physical development of their communities.
And second, at the same time, as a result of the pressing demands created by
the wartime postponement of essential public works, by the tremendous post-
war growth of our cities and metropolitan regions, and by the natural urge
to do constructive tasks after the years of destruction caused by the war, city
governments changed from negative to positive their approach to the job of
city planning. Whether they realized it or not, the mayors, councilmen, and
city-planning commissioners of America’s cities following World War II
no longer thought of patching up bits and pieces of the urban environment.
The reality of the demand for, and the obvious interrelatedness of, the post¬
war freeway, urban-redevelopment, off-street-parking, school, recreation, and
metropolitan rapid-transit projects, coupled with the need for a complete

60

After World War II: Realities and Crystallization

overhaul of the twenty- to thirty-year-old original zoning plans that had been
used to govern postwar private development in the central business districts,
industrial areas, and residential neighborhoods and suburbs, forced civic
leaders in American cities everywhere to change their point of view toward
city planning. As a result of these two major changes, most of the newly
established city-planning staffs were pushed into the job of working out some
kind of over-all scheme for the physical development of their cities that could
be used by the leaders of their governments to relate in a reasonable way the
major postwar public-works projects to one another and to the proposed new
zoning plans. The years of skeleton staffs, of major concern with the admin¬
istration of crude, first-stage zoning ordinances, and of illogical and mis¬
leading piecemeal plans had passed. The first great period of general-plan
work and of thorough testing of the general-plan concept had begun.

Between 1945 and 1960 general plans were prepared and published, in
one form or another, by the cities of Cincinnati, Detroit, Berkeley, Cleve¬
land, and Seattle. These plans were comparable in their subject matter, in the
basic physical elements with which they dealt, and in their general charac¬
teristics. They expressed, in effect, a reassertion of the Olmsted-Bettman
concept of the general plan on these points. This is not surprising when it is
realized that the professional staffs and directors concerned were influenced
to a great degree by the ideas and experience of Ladislas Segoe, one of the
outstanding city-planning consultants in the United States.

Mr. Segoe, an engineer by training, was one of the principal professional
staff members involved in the 1925 Cincinnati general-plan effort, which
led to one of the first sustained comprehensive city-planning programs in the
United States. Beginning in 1925, Mr. Segoe and Mr. Bettman were closely
associated in their professional careers. During the decade following World
War II, when the first major opportunities for the widespread practice of
city planning throughout the United States materialized, Mr. Segoe was the
principal figure in the profession providing the link between the general-plan
concept as worked out by Olmsted and Bettman and the ideas that were
tested and developed by the post-World War II general-plan programs in
cities throughout the country. Perhaps the most important and influential
expression of Mr. Segoe’s outstanding technical competence was made in¬
directly, by Mr. Bettman, during the 1940’s when Mr. Bettman adopted one
of Mr. Segoe’s most important ideas and changed his position on the ques¬
tion of whether or not an express definition of the general plan should be
included in city-planning enabling legislation-.

In 1928, Mr. Bettman was, as we have seen, one of the leading pro-

61

Fifty Years of Experience with the General Plan

ponents of the “no express definition” policy. After years of experience fol¬
lowing the publication of the Standard Act, he reversed his position. In
1945, under the sponsorship of the American Society of Planning Officials,
he published a draft of a model urban-redevelopment act which included an
express definition of what by that time had been rediscovered as the essential
physical elements with which the general plan must deal. His definition reads
as follows:

The planning commission is . . . directed to make ... a master plan of the
municipality . . . which shall include at least [emphasis added] a land use plan
which designates the proposed general distribution and general locations and
extents of uses of the land for housing, business, industry, communication and
transportation terminals, recreation, education, public buildings, public utilities
and works, public reservations and other categories of public and private uses
of the land . 8

In contemporary terms this definition may be rephrased to read: The
general plan of the municipality must deal with, as an absolute minimum,
the following three essential physical elements: (a) working-and-living areas,
(b) community facilities, and (c) circulation. The most significant feature
of the general plans that were prepared by Cincinnati, Detroit, Berkeley,
Cleveland, and Seattle was their positive acceptance and use of the Bettman-
Segoe postwar conception of the essential physical elements to be dealt with
in the general plan. The fact that Mr. Bettman’s change of position on this
point was endorsed, in effect, by the American Society of Planning Officials
was of major significance because the executive director of the Society, Mr.
Walter Blucher, by 1945 had become one of the most influential and re¬
spected leaders of the city-planning profession.

There were many other cities that “learned by doing,” without the ad¬
vice of consultants, how to prepare and use general plans. Needless to say,
it took most of these cities longer to get under way and they made many time-
consuming and costly detours. It must also be acknowledged that there were
and still are a significant number of cities with active, sustained city-planning
programs that have not completed general plans, including some that have
not yet even begun that task of preparing a general plan. Some of these
cities, including Los Angeles and New York, are, in effect, continuing to
experiment with either the continuous, comprehensive-planning approach,
which places no value on a firm, unified general plan for physical develop-

8 Alfred Bettman, in City and Regional Planning Papers, edited by Arthur C.
Comey (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1946), pp. 263 and 264.

62

After World War II: Realities and Crystallization

ment, or the piecemeal-planning approach, which calls for citywide single¬
facet plans for obvious needs, such as freeways, rather than first dealing with
the basic physical elements that must be covered in the general plan, and in
particular the working-and-living-areas element. I believe that it will be simply
a matter of time before the comprehensive-planning concept and the piece-
meal-planning concept are judged to be less reasonable and less effective than
the general-plan concept. 9

The lessons of practical experience gained by the leading city-planning
directors, senior staff members, and consultants who had been directly in¬
volved in the post-World War II general-plan programs were brought into
focus, crystallized, and expressed in three significant documents that were
published in 1950, 1952, and 1955. In 1950, the Housing and Home Fi¬
nance Agency of the federal government, in carrying out the urban-redevel¬
opment provisions of the Housing Act of 1949, found it necessary to issue
a formal policy statement presenting an express definition of the general
plan. In 1952 the Board of Governors of the American Institute of Planners
approved, by official action, the final draft of an educational booklet en¬
titled “City Planning and Urban Development,” which was published that
year by the United States Chamber of Commerce, that included a definition
of the general plan. And in 1955, the California Legislature approved an
amendment to the City and County Planning Enabling Act, replacing the
25-year-old provisions of the Act which had originally been taken from the
Standard Act, and which had failed to explain in a logical manner the mean¬
ing of the general-plan concept, with an explicit definition of the essential
physical elements that must be dealt with in the general plan. The amend¬
ment had been proposed by the Legislative Committee of the California
Chapter of the American Institute of Planners with the approval of the of¬
ficers and executive committee of the Chapter. At the time this action was
taken, the membership of the California Chapter constituted more than one-
fourth of the membership of the entire Institute.

The general-plan definitions included in each of these three documents
are identical on three important points. They all reaffirm the Olmsted-
Bettman idea that the scope of the general plan should be limited to ques¬
tions of physical development; they all express agreement with the idea that

9 A great deal would be gained by everyone from a thorough study and docu¬
mentation of the full implications of governing a large city with the aid of a well-
financed city-planning program that does not call for the preparation of a general plan
for physical development that can be understood and controlled by the elected leaders
of the community.

63

Fifty Years of Experience with the General Plan

ever y general plan must deal with certain essential physical elements, includ¬
ing a working-and-living-areas element, a community-facilities element, and
a circulation element; and they all attempt to make the point that the detailed
zoning plan of a community must not be confused with the general, long-
range proposals set forth in the general plan itself. The consensus expressed
by the agreement on these three points represented, in my opinion, a major
forward step in the development of the city-planning profession in the United
States. Softie of the most confusing contradictions that had characterized the
practice of the profession during the 1930’s and 1940’s were faced and re¬
solved by the men who participated in the reformulation and restatement of
the general-plan concept that was made necessary by the preparation of each
of these documents.

However, while the area of agreement on the technical questions of sub-
ject matter, essential physical elements to be dealt with, and the distinction
between the zoning plan and the general plan is constantly growing and be¬
coming consolidated, the significance of the change in the basic uses of the
general plan, from a technical guide to be used by a supposedly nonpolitical
commission to a statement of public policy intended to be used by the city
council in governing the physical development of the community, has not
been generally recognized. In an effort to clarify the nature of the general
plan, therefore, we now turn to an exploration of the uses of the general plan
as determined by the needs of its primary client—the municipal legislative
body.

64

THE LEGISLATIVE USES
OF THE GENERAL PLAN

r~| r~SHE uses of the general plan cannot be dealt with in the abstract; they
must be related to the particular persons whose needs the plan must
_j_L serve. Accordingly, this chapter is subdivided into five sections in
which the primary legislative uses of the plan are considered in detail.

While it is recognized that the general plan will also serve important
needs of others—the chief executive, the city-planning commission, the di¬
rector of city planning, the heads of city departments, other government
agencies, the public, and the courts—the needs of the municipal legislature
are judged to be paramount. If a conflict should arise between the different
needs to be accommodated, it should be resolved in favor of the needs of the
municipal legislative body. The needs of the city council must be met first,
and after that the needs of the others should be met in the best way possible.
If this thesis prevails, we will see the evolutionary development of a new
group of supplementary control instruments aimed at meeting the primary
needs of the other users of the plan that will enable these users to play their
respective roles with ever-greater effectiveness in the collective work of im¬
proving the physical environment of our cities.

The legislative uses of the general plan as they are described in this
chapter recognize the partnership of the city council and the chief executive
in both formulation and implementation of policy. The chief executive uses
the general plan in the same way as does the city council. However, the chief
executive also has other, more detailed duties than the council in matters of

65

The Legislative Uses of the General Plan

physical development. If the general plan is prepared primarily as an instru¬
ment of the executive, rather than as an instrument of the council, the plan
necessarily will have a different focus and will be a different kind of docu¬
ment.

The primary legislative uses of the general plan presented here are
based upon the premises and beliefs stated in Chapter I. Although no general
information is available that gives any indication of how many city councils
in the United States operate in the manner described here, city councils will
sooner or later find it necessary to have a general plan and to make use of it
in the regular performance of their legislative work.

The attempt to clarify and describe the legislative uses of the general
plan should not be thought of as an attempt to classify or pigeonhole the
activities of the city council in any forced or unnatural way. The following
primary legislative uses are not mutually exclusive. The uses do not fall into
neat compartments. They are interdependent and overlapping, and at times
they operate simultaneously. What is described in this chapter, as compre¬
hensively as possible, are the five most important legislative uses of the gen¬
eral plan for the physical development of a community.

POLICY DETERMINATION

The general plan is first and foremost an instrument through which the
city council considers, debates, and finally agrees upon a coherent, unified
set of general, long-range policies for the physical development of a com¬
munity. The general plan should be designed, therefore, to facilitate the work
of the councilmen as they attempt to focus their attention on the community’s
major development problems and opportunities. Plan preparation enables the
members of the council to back away from their preoccupation with pressing
day-to-day issues and clarify their ideas as to the kind of community they
want to create as a result of their many specific decisions.

Since the city council must govern the physical development of the com¬
munity, the council must develop a group of policies and a general physical
design for the community. It is not possible -to govern a city without a plan
of some sort. A city council unaware of the general-plan concept develops
and uses policies that are implicit and unwritten. Unstated policies, which in¬
clude a scheme for the future physical development of the community, are
used to control physical development. Such policies may be understood by
all members of the council, or they may exist in the minds of and be apparent
only to the dominant members of the council. The general plan brings such
implicit policies into the open. It assures that these policies are determined

66

Policy Determination

through democratic processes. It puts these policies on record and fixes re¬
sponsibility for them on the council. In time, the general-plan policy-deter¬
mination process results in improved policies which lead to major citywide
physical improvements.

Policy determination covers everything from the realization that a policy
is needed to the final selection of a specific policy. Usually the early steps in
the process are taken by the council’s advisors—the chief executive, the di¬
rector of city planning, and the city-planning commission—but the final

steps are taken by the council itself.

Since the final policy decision will be made by the council, it is essen¬
tial that the plan be prepared in a manner that enables the members of the
council to be familiar with it and at ease with it. Just as councilmen learned
how to control the unified annual budget, and in so doing learned to deal
openly and confidently with such major controversial issues as salaries, capi¬
tal improvements, new programs and positions, and the tax rate, they will
learn how to control and use the general plan for physical development.

It is a mistake to underestimate the interest of councilmen in city plan¬
ning. They are very familiar with the community and soon learn that most of
their actions as council members involve questions of physical development.
In common with any group of persons, however, every council usually in¬
cludes some individuals who have not developed the habit of thought that
enables them to see the need for any general policy. In matters of physical
development, such persons usually can be educated to understand that they
must discipline their decisions. They learn that it is to their advantage to
acknowledge the need for a plan and to make a plan with their fellow council
members, or to dissent from the majority view on the basis of a definite al-
ternative set of policies.

Policy determination should include the consideration and evaluation of
the major alternatives that are open to the community, culminating in the
council’s decision to adopt one of the alternatives as its firm policy. Thorough
study of alternatives is not always necessary or possible in conducting every¬
day municipal affairs, but a thorough study is definitely feasible and desirable
in determining the important policies which comprise a general plan.

The council’s advisors should present to the council alternatives and in¬
dicate the consequences that they judge are most likely to result from pur¬
suing each alternative. In contemporary practice, the presentation of alterna¬
tives by city planners is not done often enough. Too many professionals make
their own selection of an alternative and present it to the council as a single
firm recommendation. City planners should make recommendations, but they

67

The Legislative Uses of the General Plan

should also point out other available choices. If the profession does not an¬
ticipate this important need, it will learn about it from the rough demands
made by reform groups and the leaders of forceful political minorities.

The alternatives chosen by the city council go into the general plan as
statements of adopted policy. It is also desirable to have a record in the gen¬
eral-plan document of the major alternatives that were considered and re¬
jected, along with the reasons for their rejection. When conditions change,
these alternatives will have to be reconsidered. They probably will be revived
for reconsideration when a different political bloc takes control of the city
council.

The general plan’s usefulness in policy determination operates at several
points in time, specifically during: (1) preparation, consideration, and initial
adoption of the general plan; (2) annual review and amendment of the plan;
(3) major reconsideration of the entire plan every ten years; and (4) con¬
sideration of day-to-day physical-development matters which call for review
of general, long-range policies. This day-to-day aspect of the policy-deter¬
mination use is continuous. It means that the plan is being used constantly
by the city council and that, from time to time, it will be necessary to amend
the plan during the year between the annual review and amendment sessions.

Determination of the initial policies that go into the plan is the most
important stage in this time sequence. When the plan is first adopted, it
should represent as accurately as possible the policies of the city council. If
this representation is successful, the legislators will be committed to the plan.
They will be ready to move forward in carrying out the policies of the plan.
They will be familiar with the major development issues confronting their
community and they will recognize that despite whatever controversies were
precipitated during the preparation of the plan, it is no longer possible to
govern without an explicit statement of their physical-development policies.

To achieve the degree of familiarity, confidence, and co mmitm ent re¬
quired by members of the council, there should be an extended period of
debate and education between the first presentation of the general plan in its
tentative form and final adoption by the council in revised form. During this
period the council should study the proposed plan thoroughly, devote work
sessions to it, and conduct formal hearings on it. During this period the pro¬
posed plan should be distributed to the citizens and to all private, civic, and
governmental groups and agencies active in community affairs. Before the
council can act, it needs to learn the reactions of its constituents to the pro¬
posed policies. The general-plan document must be designed with this need

68

Policy Determination

in mind. If the official statement of the proposed plan is not available to or
cannot be understood by the citizens and the leaders of the informal govern¬
ing groups of the community, the debate will be crippled. The council will
learn, to its discomfort, that its general plan deals with controversial issues
in a politically dangerous and irresponsible manner. When this happens, the
council usually, and quite properly, holds the director of city planning re¬
sponsible.

Council adoption of the general plan should not be recommended if it
appears that the action will be no more than a perfunctory formality or
gesture. Once the council learns to state and debate its community-develop¬
ment policies openly, however, it will need to adopt the general plan as a
formal expression of its unified policy. Only a formal expression of adoption
can make clear to the community that the plan does in fact represent the
policies of the council.

As conditions in the community change and new problems come to the
forefront, the city council will have to alter some of its long-range policies
on physical development. Subjects dealt with inadequately in the original
version of the plan will require fuller treatment, blew information that be¬
comes available will, in certain cases, call for revisions in the plan. It is
inevitable that the original plan will contain mistakes which will need cor¬
rection as time goes by. Some policies of the plan will prove to be unworkable
or unrealistic. City planners are limited in their ability to predict the future,
and some of their forecasts will turn out to be wrong. The 1950 Washington,
D.C., general plan is an excellent illustration of this point. Within a few years
after the completion of this plan, there was a tremendous, unexpected in¬
crease in population (the 1980 estimate was passed before 1960), racial
desegregation of schools was required, and the enactment of the interstate
highway program made possible highway construction on a scale and at a

rate that was not anticipated in the plan.

Although membership of the city council will change periodically, the
general plan should express as accurately as possible the policies of the cur¬
rent council. Freshmen councilmen sooner or later will become aware of the
policy agreements worked out by their predecessors; they will be required to
act as soon as they take office on proposals that will either implement or go
counter to the policies of the general plan. When there is a major political
turnover in the council, the new dominant group will find a way to shape and
express its own key policies. The general plan should be designed, as a legis¬
lative policy-control instrument, to facilitate a political turnover in the coun-

69

The Legislative Uses of the General Plan

cil; if the plan hinders the exercise of legitimate power, it will be, and indeed
should be, ignored.

Annual review and amendment is a formal procedure that is designed
to encourage the council to keep the plan up to date. It requires the council
to look over the plan once a year and decide whether any of the long-range
policies should be modified in light of physical-development activities during
the past year. It also serves to refresh the memories of the councilmen on
the provisions of the plan and to inform any newcomers on the council as to
the plan’s contents. Properly done, the annual review and amendment pro¬
cedure helps place the principal controversial issues of the preceding year in
perspective and encourages the leaders of the council to set their sights on
the major steps to be taken during the coming year to carry out the plan.

The annual review and amendment procedure should take place just
prior to the yearly reformulation by the council of its capital-improvements
program. A major portion of every municipal budget is concerned with capi¬
tal improvements, and since the general plan is designed to serve as the coun¬
cil’s policy guide on all major questions of physical development, the city
council will, once the annual review and amendment procedure is under¬
stood, find it extremely valuable to review the plan once each year several
weeks prior to the time when the councilmen must act on the budget. Such a
review procedure brings about a natural focus on questions of physical-
development policy by members of the city council shortly before they must
make decisions on questions of financial policy concerning the allocation of
funds for capital improvements. This timing of the annual review places the
general plan in a challenging, practical context. It compels the director of
city planning, the city-planning commission, and the chief executive to re¬
summarize, restate, and reclarify the main ideas of the plan. Annual review
compels the council to reassert its authority in an area that clearly involves
questions of basic policy and that always involves significant controversies
and conflicting ideas with which the council, sooner or later, must deal.

Before the idea of annual review and amendment of the plan by the
council became crystallized in my mind in 1953, I had no effective answer
to the argument that council adoption of the plan results in a policy state-
ment that dates quickly, and hence becomes an actual detriment to those
working to bring about improvements in the physical environment. Experi¬
ence m Berkeley since 1955 has demonstrated that the annual review and
amendment procedure does work and that it gradually builds up the con¬
fidence of the members of the council and the city-planning commission in
their ability, as nonprofessionals, to exercise the control necessary if the main

70

Policy Determination

proposals of the plan are to be carried out. Although annual review and
amendment now is generally accepted as an obvious and commonsense idea,
this was not the case just a few short years ago.

At least every ten years there should be a thorough reconsideration of
the entire general plan. This effort should be comparable to that undertaken
at the time of the original preparation of the plan. Much staff study will be
required and all the background data and forecasts must be brought up to
date. Again, there should be a lengthy period of community debate and edu¬
cation before the revised plan is finally acted upon by the council.

This thorough reconsideration is needed because the changes occurring
over a long period will not be merely the sum of the changes from year to
year. Some long-range trends are not discernible in the issues which arise
from day to day, or even at annual review time. Annual amendments to the
plan reflect rather specific current issues. From time to time, the city planners
and citizen policy-makers must step back from, re-examine, and recreate their
basic physical-development policies.

In addition to annual and decennial reviews of the general plan, amend¬
ments should be made at any time the council deems appropriate. When a
major physical-development issue comes before the council for decision, mem¬
bers of the council must study and restate the general-plan policies that apply
to the issue at hand and retrace the thinking that led to the policies. If the
policies are reaffirmed, no change in the general plan is needed, but if they
are changed, then the general plan should be amended.

This process of restating general-plan policies that apply to the issue at
hand results in the frequent testing of plan policies in the heat of legislative
debate. As a result, the policies of the plan are upheld, or they are modified.
The councilmen, the city-planning commissioners, and the director of city
planning cannot anticipate all the implications of the policies and proposals
inherent in the general plan at the time the plan is adopted. This inability to
anticipate is unavoidable. Later, when it is clear that certain policies of the
plan are producing results that were not anticipated or desired, these policies
should be changed. In such cases, the council should amend the plan as soon
as is possible through normal legislative procedures.

The policy-determination use of the plan operates simultaneously with
the policy-effectuation use, described in the next section of this chapter. In
addition to the major issues that may lead to general-plan amendments dur¬
ing the year, there always will be a substantial number of specific issues that
are not of major importance that must be acted upon every day by the coun¬
cil. Viewed together over a period of time, the total effect of the day-to-day

71

The Legislative Uses of the General Plan

actions on such matters is very important. In minor matters the council will
consistently attempt to carry out its general plan, or its actions, viewed over
a period of time, will reveal support for a different set of policies than those
set forth in the plan or for no coherent set of policies at all.

It is admittedly difficult to draw the line between too many and too few
amendments. This is a question which must be answered according to the
individual circumstances of each case. If a general plan truly represents the
policies of the council, and the councilmen understand it and, as a conse¬
quence, are committed to it, then they will not propose many impor tan t
amendments. Councilmen should realize that the amendability of the general
plan is intended to facilitate their direct, unhampered control of the plan.
They should understand that the amendment procedures must not be abused,
that the general plan must not be in a constant state of flux. The plan, to be
useful to the council, must have a substantial degree of permanence and con¬
tinuity; if policies continually change, then little progress will be made to¬
ward achieving any of them. The plan should not be merely a reflection of all
current council decisions, some of which are bound to be expedient; rather,
the great majority of council decisions on physical-development matters
should reflect the long-range policies expressed in the plan.

Responsibility for making the general plan usable as a legislative policy-
determination and policy-control instrument clearly rests with the city¬
planning director. If he makes sure that the original plan embodies the think¬
ing of the council and maintains a determined effort, with the support of the
chief executive and the city-planning commission, to teach the councilmen
how to use the plan, then he will enjoy the satisfaction of working with a
reasonably firm plan that provides the basis for a constructive community-
improvement program.

The policy-determination use of the general plan as described in the pre¬
ceding pages defines the need for a statement of council policy that success¬
fully brings into focus the major physical-development problems and oppor¬
tunities of the community and sets forth a unified group of basic policies and
a general physical design for the community that the council can use in gov¬
erning the affairs of the community. The policy-determination use highlights
the unavoidable responsibility of the city council to make basic policies and
to see that its policies are carried out. For the city-planning profession it
means that awareness of the policy aspects of plan-making work must be
greatly increased. The policy-determination use emphasizes the need for de¬
veloping a way of thinking and a method of documentation that distinguishes
between the policies and the physical-design proposals of the plan, and be-
72

Policy Effectuation

tween the different levels of policy inherent in the nature of the general plan
that must be clarified so that the council can make the plan its own and use
it intelligently.

POLICY EFFECTUATION

Most city councils meet regularly every week. The agendas for these
meetings require action by the council on a wide variety of specific projects,
policies, and laws that are directly concerned with the physical development
of the city. The general plan enables the council to make its decisions on
these matters on the basis of a clearly stated, unified set of general, long-
range policies which have been carefully thought out and adopted. Thus,
current issues are viewed against a clear picture of what the council itself
has decided is the most desirable scheme for the future physical development
of the community. The general plan serves as a practical working guide
to the councilmen in making everyday decisions.

This use of the general plan by members of the council in the per¬
formance of their policy-effectuation work frequently and naturally leads
to a new round of debate that is concerned directly with the policy-deter¬
mination use. When a specific proposal comes before the council for decision,
the pertinent portions of the general plan are reviewed and restated. In
most cases, recommendations for action by the council will be in accord
with the policies of the plan, and the council decision will be made with¬
out the need for debate. Frequently, however, the proposal will bring out
the need to alter certain of the council’s long-range policies, a clear indica¬
tion that the plan should be amended. To prevent confusion between the two
uses, it should be emphasized that policy determination leads to decisions
on general, long-range policies, while policy effectuation leads to decisions
on specific proposals and issues requiring definite and immediate action.
Also, the policy-effectuation use of the general plan is concerned directly
and solely with the use of the plan by the council in effectuating its own
policies through its day-to-day decisions. Others in city government also
effectuate the council’s policies, but these activities do not fall within the
categories of legislative uses of the general plan.

The policy-effectuation use of the plan is of critical importance. It is
in the exercise or lack of exercise of the policy-effectuation use that most
general plans succeed or fail. To be effective, the general plan must be
brought to bear on all physical-development decisions made by the city
council. The existence of an adopted general plan is without meaning or
significance unless it is actually used by the city council.

73

The Legislative Uses of the General Plan

In its use of the general plan as a guide to policy effectuation, the
council needs the assistance of its advisors—especially the city-planning
commission, the director of city planning, and the chief executive. The
council also needs the views of other commissions and department heads
as it moves to implement its plan. Once the general plan has been adopted,
the city-planning commission and director of city planning should b.e
specifically charged by the council with the duty of studying every current
development proposal to judge its relationship to the general plan. Such a
procedure of regular, automatic referral calls for a report and recommen-
dation by the city-planning commission on all physical development matters
that come before the city council for its decision. If a matter is important
enough to require action by the city council, it is important enough to
require a report from the city-planning commission.

Basically, however, the general plan, and not the city-planning com¬
mission, should guide the city council. This is the inevitable consequence
of recognition of the superior role of the council. Once the role of the
council is accepted, and after the need for an official statement of council
development policy is acknowledged, it is then necessary to guard against
rigidity in the application of the plan on one hand and expedient com¬
promise and destructive amendments on the other hand. Acceptance of
the council s role and the council’s use of the plan in policy effectuation
should lead to a new and much closer relationship between the council and
the city-planning commission than existed prior to adoption and conscious
use of the plan.

The general idea of referral is sometimes taken to mean referral only
to the city-planning director and his staff and not to the city-planning
commission. Formal action by the city-planning commission is essential.
Experience has demonstrated that inevitably situations develop in which
administrative officials bring pressure to bear on the city-planning director
if he alone is required to determine whether or not specific projects are in
accord with the general plan. The planning commission, since it is directly
responsible to the council and not subordinate to any administrative officer,
is in a far better position to handle such pressures and to assure the council
that it will receive the full range of advice that it needs in order to act
wisely on controversial issues.

The types of specific physical-development matters which require action
during the normal course of council business can be divided into two cate-
gories: (1) those measures which are designed to carry out the general
plan and give it legislative effect and (2) other matters which routinely re-

74

Policy Effectuation

quire council approval and should be viewed in the context of the general
plan. Generally speaking, the first category includes matters which come
up only once or at very infrequent intervals, while in the second category
are matters which continually arise in the ordinary conduct of council
business.

Examples of the first category are the citywide zoning ordinance, sub¬
division regulations, the annual capital-improvements program, plans for
urban-renewal project areas, and detailed development plans for specific
districts or precincts and for citywide physical facilities, such as the park
system or the circulation system.

The detailed plans in the first category are instruments devised by
agencies of the city government to enable the council to effectuate its policies,
to carry out its general plan for physical development. Although for many
years the relationship between detailed effectuation measures and the general
plan was obscured—very largely because the need for such measures is
more apparent than the need for a general plan—once a council has adopted
a plan it will continue to adjust its way of dealing with physical-develop¬
ment issues until it works out a justifiable relationship between policy and
effectuation. Measures that fall into the first category are usually drawn
up by the city-planning staff, considered and acted upon by the city-planning
commission after review by the particular departments concerned and in
most, but not all, cases by the chief executive, and are then forwarded to
the city council for final action. There is no question of referral for these
matters, since they almost always originate in the city-planning depart¬
ment. Consequently, there is no question concerning the nature of these
measures as policy-effectuation devices. The fact that they exist, that they
are essential, and that they must be coordinated with one another and
must point in some definite direction insofar as the future physical develop¬
ment of the community is concerned illustrates the reality both of the need
for a general plan and the need for a procedure that will enable the council
to grasp readily the relationship between major physical-development
measures and its own long-range general plan.

Examples of the second category include rezoning cases, use-permit
and variance appeals, subdivision plans, street closings, park-development
plans, specific street plans and similar public-works department projects,
transit-route proposals, and school, fire-station, library, and similar public¬
building projects. Also included in the second category are a wide variety
of other matters which the council must act upon that affect the physical
development of the community, such as decisions concerning diagonal

75

The Legislative Uses of the General Plan

versus parallel parking, overhead wires versus underground installations,
and traffic signals and traffic regulations of all kinds.

The items in the second category constitute the day-to-day business
of city planning and, to a very large extent, of city government. Usually
they do not originate in the city-planning department, but are the result
°f proposals developed by private citizens and builders, other departments
in city hall, or other public agencies. Some of these proposals normally are
considered by the city-planning staff and the city-planning commission prior
to submission to the council, but some are not and do require referral by the
council.

Clearly the general plan should serve as a guide to council action on
the detailed physical-development and control measures in the first category.
The general plan provides the context for such measures, and the city¬
planning staff should rely on the plan in preparing them. These detailed
instruments are very significant in city planning, and the general plan must
be used in their preparation.

It is not clear whether the general plan is the proper guide to decisions
on the day-to-day matters falling in the second category. If the decision is
large in scale and importance, then the council should rely on the general
plan. This would be true of the location of a freeway interchange or the
rezoning of a sizable area. But if the decision is minor, such as the location
of a fire station on a specific lot or the rezoning of one piece of property
on the boundary of a neighborhood shopping district, the general plan,
because of its generality, may not be much help to the members of the
council.

The general plan will not provide the answers to all the small ques-
tions which come before the council. It is not supposed to; if the general
plan were -to be made into a detailed development plan it could not play
its primary role in policy determination; it is not intended to be either an
exact zoning map for all private property or a detailed blueprint for the
development of all public property. As a consequence, the general plan will
seem to be ambiguous if the cpuncil searches in it for a “yes” or “no”
answer to certain kinds of detailed questions. Use of the general plan in
such cases enables advocates on both sides of the issue to interpret the
plan as supporting their position.

The remedy for this inadequacy is the detailed physical-development
plan, which is based on the general plan and attempts to deal with specific
development questions. If the council has adopted a physical-development
plan for the area under consideration, then that plan will usually provide

76

Communication

the “yes” or “no” answer for which the council is looking. In general, all
of the control instruments mentioned in the first category are intended to
mediate between the general plan and detailed development questions.

Despite the “general” character of the plan, the council should look
at the general plan before ruling on specific proposals, even the minor and
detailed ones. The general plan will give the council an idea of how the
particular neighborhood dealt with in a specific proposal fits into the city¬
wide scheme. The general plan provides a longer look into the future than
does a development plan. The general plan may bring out possible future
problems and conflicts which the councilmen, if they fail to look at the plan,
might overlook in their necessary concentration on specific issues and the
need for i mm ediate decisions.

The successful use of the general plan in policy effectuation is difficult
to achieve. It requires patience and realism on the part of the director of
city planning and the members of the council. It must be acknowledged
that a substantial proportion of the citizens who become councilmen are
not accustomed to using policy guides, and they may forget or ignore the
general plan until they have learned from experience why a general policy
is needed.

The policy-effectuation use of the general plan is the most tangible
and practical use to the councilmen. In a way, it focuses on the present,
rather than the future. It helps the council to make specific decisions now.
It helps the council to make better current decisions by placing proposals
for specific action in the context of a comprehensive, long-range scheme
for the future physical development of the community.

COMMUNICATION

Through the general plan, the city council presents a clear picture of
its long-range, general policies on community development to all other
persons concerned with development. These persons include the city-plan¬
ning commission and staff, the chief executive, other municipal departments,
other governmental agencies, private developers, civic organizations, the
general public, and the courts.

The general plan communicates to these persons the policies which
the council has adopted. The council is on the “sending” end. Once the
general plan is adopted and published, the councilmen themselves are not
as actively engaged in communication as they are in policy effectuation;
the general-plan document communicates for them.

The communication process is of greatest value to those on the “re-

77

The Legislative Uses of the General Plan

ceiving” end. The general plan enables public and private interests engaged
in physical development to anticipate decisions of the council. The people
involved can relate specific projects to the general plan at the time they
study projects and before the projects are submitted to the council for
approval City officials can use the plan as a guide to administrative deci¬
sions which do not require council confirmation.

Charles Haar has written that the general plan serves property interests
as a prophecy of public reaction:

The master plan is at the very minimum an intelligent prophecy as to the probable
reaction of the local governmental authorities to a given proposal for development.
Notice is thereby served on parties (public as well as private, it should be noted)
dealing in decisions affecting urban conditions as to the probable outcome of their
proposals, where these are dependent upon planning approval, or even where less
direct but often more important sanction of needed public cooperation is in¬
volved. . . . In the light of the master plan, the private land owner may shape
his own plans in the plastic stage when they have not yet crystallized; collision with
the public interest can in some instances be deflected. Hence, the inclusion of the
public interest in programs of local development may be effected without con¬
troversy. 1

Haar’s comments point out that as an instrument of communication
the general plan acts as a positive force. It persuades private developers
and suggests development projects to them. There are many physical-
development proposals which never require council action—for example,
the inauguration of a land use which conforms to the zoning ordinance.
In such cases, the general plan in effect acts on behalf of the council by
communicating its policies. Many important private decisions, which the
council members never know about in any direct way, are made to carry
out the plan as a result of publication of the plan by the council.

Although the councilmen may not be personally involved when the
general plan is used to communicate council policy, the communication
use is of tremendous benefit to them. It saves the council time by screening
out many proposals which conflict with the council’s policies as stated in
the plan. To the extent that the plan is persuasive and self-fulfilling, it
carries out the council’s policies.

The plan is the basis for many programs and activities of the adminis¬
trative staff which are aimed at effectuating the council’s policies. The

1 Charles H. Haar, “The Master Plan: An Impermanent Constitution,” Law and
Contemporary Problems , Vol. 20, No. 3 (Summer, 1955), p. 363.

78

Communication

city-planning staff, for example, prepares revisions of the zoning ordinance
based upon policies which are expressed in the working-and-living-areas
section of the general plan. This is an illustration of the communication use.
In deciding whether to approve the proposed revision of the zoning ordi¬
nance or to make changes in it, the councilmen refer back to the general
plan. This “referring back” is the policy-effectuation use in operation.

The general plan is not an infallible “predictor” of the council’s actions.
Some people will make the mistake of interpreting the plan as being more
specific than does the council. The council may amend any part of the plan
at any time, so there is never a guarantee that the council will sustain
the plan in all of its particulars.

This is as it should be. No one should accept the plan as final and
immutable. Everyone has the opportunity of pressing proposals before the
council and trying to persuade the council to change the plan. This, in effect,
reopens policy determination. Thus the communication use also produces
a feedback which may result in revision of the policies originally stated
in the plan.

The success of the communication use depends upon widespread dis¬
tribution of the general plan. For this reason, the general plan should be
published and made available free of charge. The general-plan document
should be written and designed in a manner that will be both under¬
standable and interesting to the average citizen. (The contents and organiza¬
tion of the general-plan document are discussed in detail in Chapter V.)

The general-plan document should include an explanation that the
document is presenting the plan adopted by the city council as the official
statement of the council’s long-range, general policies, and that this is the
plan used by the councilmen at every meeting in acting on physical-de¬
velopment proposals and issues.

The communication use is severely hampered if there is confusion
as to what is the official plan of the city. If the council, city-planning com¬
mission, city-planning staff, and the chief executive all have their own
plans, there will be confusion. If the plan is changed drastically from month
to month, there will be confusion. If the plan is presented in a series of
separate reports issued at different times, there will be confusion. If the
plan consists of only one set of maps on the walls of the city-planning
department office, there will be confusion.

To serve the communication use successfully, it is important that
there is one official plan, that it is reasonably stable, that it is complete
and self-contained in one document, and that it is readily available to the
public. Council adoption of the general plan is the prerequisite to these

79

The Legislative Uses of the General Plan

requirements. The results of experience in Berkeley on these points were
summarized by me in 1958 in a statement to newly elected California
councilmen:

• • • °nly recently have we had city planning commissions and city councils giving
serious attention to the vitally important need for effective communication between
the citizens and the officials of local government. In Berkeley, these qualities of
the general plan have been interpreted to mean that the plan must be described
in a single document that is prepared in such a way that it can be readily under¬
stood by every interested citizen and is available to every citizen who requests it.
It has seemed to us that in no other way can we really succeed in making it
possible for the interested citizen to consider at one time all of the related elements
of policy and design that are involved in the plan. 2

The necessity for communication requires that while the general plan
must be suited primarily to the needs of the city council, it also must be
suited to the needs of those to whom the council must communicate its
policies if the policies are to be understood and carried out. Experience
will help us find a way to satisfy the different users of the plan, although
there always will be some unavoidable difficulties caused by the different
needs of the various users. As long as the general plan is consciously
limited to general, long-range policies, then the same kind of document
should satisfy the primary needs of all the users of the plan.

A plan that has no meaning for the citizens or is in conflict with
their views will not receive public support. Such a plan cannot be effective
in influencing development. Conscientious, sustained effort to improve the
general-plan document to serve the communication use is the only possible
course of action open to the council and its advisors and staff in the context
of the ideas developed in this book. Such efforts will result in far broader
and far more effective citizen participation in plan-making. Such efforts
also will result in frequent and desirable controversy on major physical-
development issues, open and constructive debate, and sustained improve¬
ment of programs for the community.

CONVEYANCE OF ADVICE

The general plan enables the members of the legislative body to receive

2 T. J. Kent, Jr., “City Planning: A Legislative Policy-Making Job,” in Proceedings ,
6th Biennial Institute of Mayors and City Councilmen (Berkeley, Calif.: League of
California Cities, 1958), San Diego, June 5-6, 1958.

80

Conveyance of Advice

the counsel of its advisors in a coherent, unified form which assists them
in determining and effectuating general, long-range development policies.
The principal advisors involved are the city-planning director, the city¬
planning commission, and the chief executive.

The general plan is the major instrument by which the city-planning
staff and the commission present their findings and recommendations to
the city council. Through the plan, the professional planners and the citizen
commissioners call attention to the development problems facing the com¬
munity and propose solutions to the problems. Through the plan, they make
an assessment of the present conditions in the community and suggest what
the future might be like. The plan enables them to offer their advice in a
studied, comprehensive form, rather than on a piecemeal, expediency basis.

It is true that the clear expression of the council’s policies is more
important to the general plan than is technical merit. The plan, however,
should have technical merit. If it does not, the commission will not be able
to fulfill its advisory role. The council’s policies should reflect reliance on
the professional city-planning staff. A statement of development policies
which disregards what city planning has to offer is likely to be unsound.

The advisory use of the general plan encompasses much more than
just research. It also includes initiating and advocating proposals which will
have varying mixtures of factual information and scientific knowledge, pro¬
fessional judgments, and political and social value judgments. The advisory
use also signifies the need for leadership on the part of the advisors in
guiding and educating the members of the city council.

It has been argued that the city-planning staff is really the group which
formulates the general plan, and therefore it is really the staff’s plan. The
premise is correct, but the conclusion is not. City planners do contribute
most of the thought and effort that go into the initial preparation of a
general plan. Usually the first complete preliminary version of a plan
represents primarily the thinking of the professional staff. However, as
the preliminary plan goes through the long period of study and discussion
leading to council adoption, the plan increasingly is shaped as the council
wants it and becomes less and less the staff’s plan. Only after the plan is
adopted by the council is it possible for the council’s advisors to give advice
of the sort that the council needs in a context of policies determined by
the council.

The advisory use of the general plan operates when the council specifi¬
cally requests information and recommendations on special items, when

81 ,

The Legislative Uses of the General Plan

the city planners advance proposals or point out problems on their own
initiative, and when the routine procedures of municipal government, such
as regular referral, call for reports and recommendations to the city council
on questions of physical development. The general plan makes it easier
for the council to comprehend the long-range, citywide context in which
all specific proposals are set. The plan makes it easier for the advisors to
put across their recommendations.

The advisory use of the plan is a continuing process. It leads every¬
one concerned to a far more critical knowledge and awareness of the plan
than is possible if the advisory use were not continuous, not only as the
plan is used as a definite framework within which current proposals can
be judged, but as a group of policies that constantly must be reconsidered
and reaffirmed or modified as they are used. The advisory use operates in
this way formally whenever the commission and staff advise the council
on proposed amendments. The use of the plan by the staff as required by
the advisory use exposes conflicts and weak spots in the plan which the
staff can discover in its day-to-day work. Once the director of city planning
fully accepts this use of the plan, he will learn the advantages of the regu¬
lar annual review and amendment procedure and the necessity for the
supplementary procedure that enables the council to amend the plan at
any time between the scheduled review periods. The advisory use requires
the professional staff to keep the plan up to date and to constantly re¬
examine their own professional judgments.

The advisory use is an important concomitant of both policy deter¬
mination and policy effectuation. The advisory use complements the com¬
munication use. The city council is on the sending end of the communica¬
tion use, and the city-planning commission and staff are on the receiving
end. The opposite movement is true of the advisory use. In the communi¬
cation use, the council transmits its policies to the city planners. In the
advisory use, the city planners develop ideas to implement the council’s
policies, react to these policies, and, when necessary, suggest new policies.

The advisory use highlights the significant role of the city planner as
a professional, a role which tends to be obscured by the other uses of the
the plan. Experience has shown that the proper functioning of a general
plan is virtually impossible without the constant counsel of a professional
city planner. No municipal legislative body is sufficiently equipped or
educated to carry out its responsibility for governing the comprehensive
physical development of its area without professional assistance. In em-

82

Conveyance of Advice

phasizing the role of policy in defining the uses of the general plan, it must
be stated that it is detrimental to the work of the council if procedures
are not devised to assure proper recognition of the importance of technical
and professional knowledge. Every policy should have a firm basis in tech¬
nical fact and professional judgment.

The council is responsible for policy and the city planner is responsi¬
ble for technical and professional support. It is the job of the city planner
to make sure that the council bases its physical-development policies on
accurate factual knowledge and sound professional judgment. He must
attempt to convince the councilmen of the applicability and merits of his
findings and recommendations. This requires that he present his advice
to the council in a form which the council can readily comprehend. He
must learn to express the complexities and nuances of city planning in
terms which the layman can grasp.

Realistically, it must be recognized that the city-planning director
will not always be successful in this task. But he should also openly ac¬
knowledge that frequently he will not be able to determine which course of
action is clearly correct solely on the basis of professional principles and
standards. There will be occasions when members of the city council will
devise better answers to particular city-planning problems before them than
those recommended by the city-planning director. The city planner should
not expect the councilmen to agree with him all the time. He must believe,
however, that councilmen attempt to work out reasonable, impartial deci¬
sions all the time, and that they attempt to understand and act on behalf
of the general public interest all the time. However, in a democracy, the
final judge of the merit of legislative decisions is not the city planner, but
the citizens through their elected representatives.

The advice of the city planner has been referred to as being “technical
and professional.” By this is meant that city planning is not a scientific
discipline. The recommendations of city planners are based not only on
facts, but also on personal experience, conviction, and understanding ac¬
cumulated during years of practice and testing, both as professionals and
as individual citizens in our society. Political judgments also are almost
invariably involved in the formulation and timing of recommendations.

The relative contributions of the council’s advisors to the different
parts of the general-plan document are indicated in the following table.
The figures are meant to be suggestive, and not definitive. Actually, the
council is responsible for everything in the plan.

83

The Legislative Uses of the General Plan

Authorship of Parts of the General-Plan Document *

Percentage by

Advisors

Council

Background material

100

0

Forecasts

90

10

Assumptions

80

20

Assessment of present conditions and problems

70

30

Community goals and major policies

10

90

Summary of the general plan

Proposals (including the unified

20

80

general physical design)

50

50

Rejected alternatives

50

50

Standards and principles

60

40

Methods for carrying out the plan

70

30

* Based on an illustration in The Functions of the Urban General Plan (Masters
Thesis) by Alan Black, University of California, Berkeley, 1960.

The advisory use of the general plan is most apparent in the back¬
ground and statistical material on geography, population, the local economy,
existing land use, and physical conditions. The advisory use is evident in
the forecasts and assumptions on which the plan is based and is reflected in
the general assessment of present conditions and problems in the community.

Ideally, the staff has little to do with the community goals expressed
in the plan. The bulk of the plan, the proposals embodying technical-
political judgments, should represent joint efforts by advisors and council.
This includes the general physical design which integrates the council’s
physical-development policies and proposals and brings out the significant
design decisions, including their relationships to one another and to the
city site.

It is important to emphasize that the city-planning commission and staff
are more than merely passive advisors to the council. They offer ideas,
they initiate proposals, they point out problems, they actively attempt to
influence the council. This is as it should be, and is one reason why there is
an administrative branch of government to help the municipal legislative
branch in governing.

But, the final tribunal for the city planners’ proposals is the city
council. It is up to the city council to accept, modify, or reject the recom¬
mendations it receives from its advisors. The city planners must convince

84

Conveyance of Advice

the councilmen sufficiently so that they will make the proposals their own,
and will adopt them and see that they are carried out.

There are always some professional men in government who look
upon the city council as an obstacle to overcome. They believe the public
administrator should manipulate the councilmen. They want him to protect
and to promote the public interest by mobilizing the informal governing
groups and the leaders of the private power structure of the community
to bring pressure on the councilmen. In recent years this concept of municipal
government has been practiced by some city managers and has been advo¬
cated by some political theorists. Also, some city-planning directors see
manipulation of the council as part of the role they should play.

Such tactics contravene the democratic political process. It is the role
of the public administrator—including the professional city planner to
inform, enlighten, advise, and serve the city council, not to blindfold it.
It is the responsibility of the professional city planner to try to guide an
educate the municipal legislative body, since many councilmen do not
understand their proper role until someone explains it to them. The advisory
activities of the city planner must be conducted openly and with a sense
of respect for the powers that rightfully inhere in the city council.

There are cases in which a city council or a city-planning commission
exerts excessive dominance over a city-planning staff. The staff s activities
in such cases are usually restricted and confined to housekeeping duties.
Such a situation is demoralizing to the staff and obviously will damage
the city-planning work of the council. But the answer is not found in
private political activities. A middle ground must be found between the
two extremes. This is especially true if the advisory use of the general

plan is to be effective. .

The following remarks of Hyman G. Rickover apply to the professiona

city planner:

Service ceases to be professional if it has in any way been dictated by the client
or employer. The role of the professional man in society is to lend his special
knowledge, his well-trained intellect, and his dispassionate habit of visualizing
problems in terms of fundamental principles to whatever specific task is entrusted
to him. Professional independence is not a special privilege but rather an inner
necessity for the true professional man, and a safeguard for his employers and
the general public. Without it, he negates everything that makes him a profession
person and becomes at best a routine technician or hired hand, at worst a hac .

3 Hyman G. Rickover, Education and Freedom (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co.,
1959), pp. 64-65.

85

The Legislative Uses of the General Plan

It is possible to conceive of a recurring cycle of the four general-plan
uses discussed so far. The general-plan process starts with the advisory use
the staff and commission prepare and submit to the council a preliminary
version of the plan. Next comes the policy-determination use—the council
debates the preliminary version and adopts a final version. Then the stream
divides into two branches, one leading to the policy-effectuation use and
the other to the communication use. In policy effectuation, the plan is
used by the council to carry out its own policies; in communication, the
plan is used by others to carry out the council’s policies. Both streams con-
verge back on the advisory use when the staff realizes the need for certain
changes in the plan. The staff and commission propose amendments to
the council, and the cycle starts over again.

Such a picture simplifies reality, in which there are many other inter¬
changes between uses of the plan and many other people involved. There
is feedback directly from policy effectuation to policy determination when
specific matters before the councilmen spur them to change their policies.
There is feedback directly from communication to policy determination
when citizens persuade the councilmen to alter their policies. And the
advisory use bears directly on policy effectuation when the staff and com¬
mission help the council to take action on specific issues.

The simplified recurring-cycle description of how the general plan is
actually used, however, does highlight the four basic uses defined thus far.
It also clarifies the close interdependence of the four uses and the need
for distinguishing each use from the others.

EDUCATION

The general plan helps to educate the councilmen and everyone who
is involved with it or who reads it as to the conditions, problems, and oppor¬
tunities of their community. It arouses the interest of people, awakens them
to the possibilities of the future, offers them factual information on the

present status of the city and probable future trends, informs them about
the operations of their local government in matters of physical development,
and stimulates them to be critical of city-planning ideas.

While the education use of the plan is closely allied to the communi¬
cation use, it is much broader. The general-plan document does more than

just communicate the council’s adopted policies. It provides the context in
which citizens can take the measure of the council’s policies. It offers a
wide range of essential background information which will be interesting
and useful to many people who initially will not be directly concerned

86

Education

with the plan itself. The general plan stimulates people to think about their
city and its future. It is an extremely valuable tool in making possible
effective, responsible citizen participation in local self-government.

Education does not have any special section in the plan document,
nor does it have any special place in the procedures of adopting and using
the plan. It goes on all the time and pervades the whole general-plan proc¬
ess. The education use is not isolated from the other four legislative uses
of the plan, but rather is inextricably interwoven with each of them.

The councilmen are the major recipients of the educational impact o
the general plan. In considering, debating, and finally agreeing on a plan,
the councilmen are educated. Newly elected councilmen are educated as
a result of the annual review of the plan. All members of the council learn
how to view the physical city as a whole as they use the plan to e p t em
reach decisions at their regular meetings. The plan also helps councilmen
to appreciate the practical, powerful influence of big ideas and high standards.
In receiving the advice of the city-planning commission and staff and in
conducting public hearings which involve the plan, councilmen are con¬
stantly made aware of the ways in which others interpret their plan.

One of the major facets of the educational use of the plan is that it
makes it possible for councilmen to become informed as to the reactions an
opinions of their constituents in the quiet periods between controversies
and the formal council meetings at which decisions must be ma e. 1 e
distribution of the plan document will bring responses from civic and busi¬
ness organizations, newspapers, individual citizens, and even sc oo c 1
dren Communication between councilmen and voters always nee s o e
improved. The general plan inevitably will spur thoughtful consideration
of the city’s future and will lead to an increase m communication between
the citizens and their elected representatives. In doing this, the plan focuses
attention on fundamental questions, rather than on trivia or the type o
emotional issue which tends to become dominant in any controversy if the
participants have not had an opportunity to educate themselves prior to

the debate.

The council contributes to as well as benefits from the education use
of the plan. The attention and support the council gives to the plan attract
attention to it. The council’s financial backing of plan preparation an
publication is an essential prerequisite. Council adoption and implementa¬
tion of the plan lend prestige to it. The knowledge that the plan represents

the council’s policies commands respect for it.

The period of plan preparation has tremendous educational value

87

The Legislative Uses of the General Plan

for the people most involved—the city-planning commission and the city¬
planning director and his staff. Realistically, it may not be possible to in¬
volve the councilmen and the chief executive at the time the plan is initially
prepared to the extent that they eventually will become involved with the
plan after it has been adopted by the council and the councilmen and the
chief executive learn that they can no longer operate without a public plan.
But also speaking realistically, every plan that has been adopted by a council
has been understood by the citizen members of the city-planning com¬
mission. They will educate the members of the council if the councilmen
have difficulty doing so themselves.

Public response to initial presentation of the general plan can be ex¬
pected to be less intense than it should be, considering the issues of vital
importance to the welfare of the community that are dealt with in the plan.
But here again, once the city-planning commission has educated itself
sufficiently to bring about adoption of the plan by the council, the educa¬
tional impact of the plan will inevitably make itself felt as a result of the

subsequent, unavoidable controversies before the council that will involve
the plan.

The publication and wide distribution of the general-plan document
is the culmination of the education use. The principal recipient is the
general public. The educational benefits of the plan document continue in¬
definitely and are constantly broadened as subsequent editions are published
and distributed.

Charles Haar attaches great importance to the education use of the
plan, and has said the plan is “a device for stimulating public interest and
responsibility.” He writes:

What die previous categories of the values served by the master plan may very
wel add up to is simply this: the chief purpose of the master plan is that of
mutual education. In the process of making a master plan, the planner may learn
which issues are the relevant ones so far as the people are concerned, what terms
are meaningful to them, and which alternatives make sense as they view them.
This education of the planning board and staff is crucial for any plan to survive.
Concomitantly, mustering public interest and participation in city planning is
one of the most serious problems faced by the profession: preparing the plan can
be an effective channel of communication. It is generally understood that today
full use must be made of the democratic process to achieve understanding and
acceptance by the people who are affected by planning, and who must undertake
txie responsibility of enacting and maintaining it . 4

4 Baar, The Master Plan: An Impermanent Constitution,” p. 359.

88

Education

If the educational use of the plan is to be effective, the general-plan
document must succeed in bringing about a clear understanding of the
need for maintaining a distinction between general, long-range policies and
the action programs designed to implement them. There is a natural and
powerful tendency to move from general policy-making to specific projects
and regulations. City planners and the general-plan document must con¬
stantly reiterate the fact that the general, long-range policies that together
comprise the plan will become confused if attempts are made to include
in the general plan short-range, detailed development plans.

Once a general plan has been adopted, it will start in motion efforts to
implement its major policies and proposals. As these are successfully carried
out, new issues will be dealt with by the plan. There will be a constant
resetting of sights, a constant re-evaluation of standards and of the quality
of the proposals in the plan. Without a continuous and effective educa¬
tional effort to explain why the general plan must remain general, the
entire process of city planning will become distorted and the primary and
vitally important continuing social need to which city planning is a response
will once again be neglected.

The most critical test of the general plan in its performance as an
educational agent is the degree to which it commands the respect of newly
elected councilmen. If the context out of which the policies of the plan have
been shaped is clearly presented, is obviously concerned with the major
background factors that must be taken into account if the plan is to be under¬
stood, and is fairly presented, then the plan itself will have a fair chance
of being considered, approved, and supported by the new councilmen. But
if the document does not deal with these factors in an open and educational
manner, there will be no common ground for judging the adopted policies
in relation to the major rejected alternatives. If the general plan is to serve
the council, the presentation and description in the plan document of the
context, including the rejected major alternatives, should be acceptable as
fair to all members of the council, even to those who disagree with the
plan as finally adopted.

89

IV

CHARACTERISTICS OF
THE GENERAL PLAN

T N THE followi ng pages an attempt is made to identify and consider in de-
tad the most important,characteristics of the general plan which are im-
-L- P^ e< ^ ky its legislative uses. By characteristic, I mean a significanl,g,uality
or property that the general plan should possess. The list of characteristics
also serves as a recapitulation of the discussion of uses, since it summarizes
many of the key points made throughout the preceding chapter.

The following discussion of characteristics essential to the general plan
carries the exposition down to a more concrete level. The general-plan
characteristics provide the basis for evaluating actual general plans and en¬
able the reader to judge for himself whether or not the general-plan/concept
presented m this book meets his own tests of reality. The plan characteris¬
tics also can be used as a checklist by a city planner about to launch prep-
aration of a general plan.

The characteristics apply to both the general-plan process and the
official plan document. They are rooted in the plan uses; a different set of
uses would undoubtedly require a different set of characteristics.

Ten characteristics are identified. The first five concern primarily the
subject matter of the plan; the five remaining characteristics relate 'the plan
to the orderly and desirable procedures of representative, democratic, muni¬
cipal self-government in the United States. They will be considered in the
sequence indicated in the following outline:

90

Subject-Matter Characteristics

Subject-Matter Characteristics
The General Plan—

(1) Should Focus on Physical Development

(2) Should Be Long-Range

(3) Should Be Comprehensive

(4) Should Be General, and Should Remain General

(5) Should Clearly Relate the Major Physical-Design Proposals to the
Basic Policies of the Plan

Characteristics Relating to Governmental Procedures
The General Plan—

(6) Should Be in a Form Suitable for Public Debate

(7) Should Be Identified as the City Council’s Plan

(8) Should Be Available and Understandable to the Public

(9) Should Be Designed to Capitalize on Its Educational Potential

(10) Should Be Amendable

SUBJECT-MATTER CHARACTERISTICS

(1) The General Plan Should Focus on Physical Development

The reasons for this subject-matter limitation were stated in Chapter
II. As discussed there, during the 1930’s and again in the early post-World
War II period the influence of social scientists and central-management
advocates compelled a re-examination of the scope of the general plan.
With the rapid increase in the number of university teaching and research
programs in the field of city planning in recent years and the new surge
of interest in executive management and coordination techniques, this
subject-matter limitation is being questioned once again. It seems necessary,
therefore, to retrace the reasons for judging that the physical-development
focus of the general plan is a reasonable and a permanent quality that
the plan should have.

When the problems created by the rapid, haphazard development of
our cities after the Civil War became acute, the need for enlarging the
scope of the design professions that had been concerned with the detailed
physical elements of the urban environment—buildings, streets, and parks
—was gradually recognized, and in the United States the profession we
now know as city planning emerged. The scope of the city-planning pro¬
fession was initially, and consciously, limited to questions dealing primarily
with the physical development of urban communities. This is what the clients

91

THE URBAN GENERAL PLAN

A. USES

1. POLICY DETERMINATION: Enables the city council to consider and agree (a)
upon a definite set of policies that will be used to govern the future physical develop¬
ment of the community, and (b) upon a general physical design for the city site
showing how the policies are to be carried out.

2. POLICY EFFECTUATION: Enables the city council to view every specific project
upon which it must act against a definite framework of desirable long-range develop¬
ment for the entire community.

3. COMMUNICATION: Enables the city council to convey its long-range physical
development policy to the citizens and to leaders and executives of government,
civic, and business organizations; enables constructive debate and stimulates political
action.

4. CONVEYANCE OF ADVICE: Enables the city council to receive recommendations
concerning physical-development matters from the city-planning commission and
other advisors in a coherent, unified form.

5. EDUCATION: Enables the members of the city council to educate themselves and
others concerning the physical-development problems and opportunities of the
community and the relationship of these problems and opportunities to the social
and economic issues involved.

B. CHARACTERISTICS

If the General Plan is to serve the five uses defined above, it must have the following
ten characteristics:

SUBJECT-MATTER CHARACTERISTICS

1. G.P. should focus on physical development.

2. G.P. should be long-range.

3. G.P. should be comprehensive.

4. G.P. should be general, and should remain general.

5. G.P. should clearly relate the major physical-design proposals to the basic policies
of the Plan.

CHARACTERISTICS RELATING TO GOVERNMENTAL PROCEDURES

6. G.P. should be in a form suitable for public debate.

7. G.P. should be identified as the city council’s plan.

8. G.P. should be available and understandable to the public.

9. G.P. should be designed to capitalize on its educational potential.

10. G.P. should be amendable.

92

C. ORGANIZATION

r

'the' URBAN GENERAL PLAN.;,• •*•.

INTRODUCTION: Reasons for G.P.; roles of council, CPC, citizens; historical
background and context of G.P.

SUMMARY OF G.P.: Unified statement including (a) basic policies, (b) major
proposals, and (c) one schematic drawing of the physical design.

BASIC POLICIES I

1. CONTEXT OF THE G.P.:

Historical background; \ f acts
geographical and physical I trends
factors; social and economic > assumptions
factors; major issues, 1 forecasts

problems, and opportunities. J

2. SOCIAL OBJECTIVES AND URBAN
PHYSICAL-STRUCTURE CONCEPTS:
Value judgments concerning social
objectives; professional judgments
concerning major physical-structure
concepts adopted as basis for G.P.

3. BASIC POLICIES OF THE G.P.:
Discussion of the basic policies that
the general physical design is intended
to implement.

GENERAL PHYSICAL DESIGN
Description of plan proposals in relation
to large-scale G.P. drawing and citywide
drawings of:

1. Working-and-living-
areas section.

2. Community-facilities

section.

3. Civic-design section.

4. Circulation section.

5. Utilities section.

These drawings
[must remain general.
They are needed
because single G.P.

drawing is too
complex to enable
each element
to be clearly seen.

(Plus regional, functional, and district
drawings that are needed to explain G.P.)

This diagram also suggests the contents of the offidsi G.P. _ and P“|>Ucadon^

' :iT ' V '' .^ 'T / K

Continuing Studies Based on G.P. that Sugge st G.P . Improvements and Formal Amendment

- _ ..N/

Studies of basic policies
and of all social and
economic factors
that control
policies, objectives,
assumptions, principles,
and standards.

Up-to-Date Record
of Suggested Revisions |
of Major

Development Policies

Detailed Development Studies
Individual-District Citywide Studies

Development Studies for
Working and Living Areas

of Individual
Functional Elements

General Physical Design

_i__

i

i_

C.B.D.

Res. Dist.

I

1_

Indust. Dist.

Res. Dist.

I

1 _.

Etc.

Etc.

General Physical Design

Living and
Working

Transit

_!__

Civic Design

Traffic

Ways

Separate Com
Facilities

Railroads

Separate

Utilities

Etc.

*—— J

Combined Citywide
Studies of 5
Sections of General
Physical Design

Combined Studies
on One Drawing

Up-to-Date Record
|of Suggested Revisions
of General
Physical Design

93

Characteristics of the General Plan

—at that time the legislative bodies of our cities—unmistakably defined
as the subject matter of the field.

With the spread of the council-manager form of government and the
consequent application of the central-management idea during the last
twenty years, some city-planning commissions were assigned tasks wholly
outside the field of city planning as traditionally defined. Because they
had been able to build up permanent staffs that included analysts and
research workers, they were asked to conduct surveys of unemployment,
to work out detailed financial plans, and to collect and analyze information
dealing with social and economic problems of many kinds. The theory im¬
plicit in this new and different role of the city-planning agency is that
city planning provides a jumping-off place for planning of all kinds. That
the application of this theory has led to confusion and uncertainty concern-
ing the scope of the general plan is completely understandable. It also
has made it necessary for the city-planning profession to re-examine its field
of endeavor and to restate its definition of the scope of the general plan.

The point of view adopted in this book, which calls for the general
plan to focus on problems of physical development, may be restated as
follows: |Since there is a demonstrated need for a general physical-develop-
ment plan that the municipal legislative body can use as a guide, and since
the task of preparing and maintaining such a plan requires a special staff
engaged continuously in the work of general physical planning, the agency
responsible for this task must not be required to perform additional tasks
in ways that will disrupt its work or confuse its primary mission. This does
not mean that a new and carefully defined set of duties may not be given to
the city-planning commission by the city council. It does mean, however, that
if this is done, it must be done in a way that avoids misunderstandings as
to the clearly defined focus of the general plan on problems of physical
development and as to the primary role of the city-planning commission
in performing its general physical-planning function. Only by avoiding
misunderstandings and by a reasonable and workable division of labor can
the general physical-planning task, along with all of the other important
kinds of planning that must be done in governing a city, be successfully
carried out. 1

1 An interesting solution to this problem is included in the Report of the British
Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London , 1957-60 . The model
metropolitan government proposed in the Report would have an “Intelligence Agency,”
in addition to a general physical-development plan-making agency.

94

Subject-Matter Characteristics

Financial and social problems that must be dealt with by municipal gov¬
ernments can be more intelligently handled, I believe, by city councils with
long-range financial plans and long-range plans focusing on complex social
problems, such as those caused by residential racial segregation. In Berkeley
we are cautiously attempting to strengthen “planning” efforts in these
subject-matter areas. But it is inconceivable that the city council would
ever assign the professional staff work on financial and social planning to
the same office that is attempting to do the complex, always controversial
job of physical-development planning simply because the city-planning office
has the term “planning” in its title.

There are obvious relationships between every kind of planning activity.
But planning, in the broadest sense, is not a “professional activity and can
only be performed by those who must do such planning city councils
and boards of directors—on the basis of separate plans developed by groups
having special competence in a particular field. City planning as traditionally
defined is such a field. Experience has shown that coordination of physical
development is a practical necessity, that a general plan that focuses on
physical development can be understood by the city council, and that the
general plan has gained increasing recognition as an important policy in¬
strument needed by the city council in carrying out its over-all responsibility
to promote and protect the general welfare of the community.^Therefore,
while acknowledging the fact that a long-range, comprehensive, general plan
for the physical development of a community must take into account basic
social and economic factors, it is considered essential that its major policies
and proposals be consciously limited and dealt with in such a way that they
can be plainly identified by the council as being concerned primarily with
questions of physical development.

(2) The General Plan Should Be Long-Range

Since the earliest days of the American city-planning movement the
terms long-range, comprehensive, and general have been used by city planners
to describe to citizens and city councilmen the nature of the general plan.
[Long-range has always meant, in simplest terms, that the plan should be
rorward-looking, that it should attempt to provide for the future needs of
the community insofar as it is possible to make reasonable judgments as to
what these needs will be. Comprehensive has meant that the plan should en¬
compass all the significant physical elements of the urban environment, that
the plan should be related to regional-development trends, and that the plan
should recognize and take into account important social and economic fac-

95

Characteristics of the General Plan

tors. And the term general has meant that the plan should not involve ques¬
tions of detail, but should attempt to define the main outlines of desirable
future development by showing the general location, character, and extent
of the major physical elements of the community and the significant relation¬
ships between these elements.

To anyone not familiar with contemporary city-planning practice, the
reasonableness of these brief definitions may seem apparent. However, since
1940, during the first period in our history when we prepared and used gen¬
eral plans on a continuing basis as a result of the establishment of permanent,
well-organized city-planning staffs throughout the country, these three basic
general-plan characteristics have been interpreted so loosely and in such con¬
tradictory ways that their essential meanings have almost been lost. There
are, for example, general-plan documents that are intended to be long-range
and yet include proposals that are clearly of only immediate and short-range
significance, such as relatively minor adjustments in the existing zoning ordi¬
nance. There are general-plan documents in which the meaning of compre¬
hensive is extended to justify the inclusion of a financial program as well as
a physical plan, and there are documents in which the meaning of the term
general is ignored by including exactly described specific sites for certain
relatively unimportant physical elements of the community. If the city¬
planning profession is to continue to serve the basic social needs that brought
it into being, the logic and meaning of the original definitions of long-range,
comprehensive, and general must be re-examined and modified, reaffirmed,
or completely recast by each new generation.

^2!}g~ ran 8 e ^ or mos t communities means at least a twenty-year time
scale for the general plan; but only careful study of all the factors involved
and informed judgments concerning the controlling factors can establish the
most reasonable time period to be covered by the general plan for a particu¬
lar community.

^ , ID0S ^ cases the time scale of the plan is determined by a combination
of the population and economic forecasts and the predictability and stability
of the subject matter relevant to each major physical element dealt with in
the general plan. For example, if conditions are such that a reasonably firm
population forecast can be made for a twenty-year period, then the portion of
the plan concerned with residential areas should be designed either to accom¬
modate or to limit, as determined by the basic policies of the plan, the pre¬
dicted population in accordance with desirable standards of residential
density. And once this portion of the plan is blocked out, the essential key
has been provided for planning those community facilities and utilities that
96

Subject-Matter Characteristics

are directly related to residential population densities, such as schools, parks
playgrounds, circulation facilities, fire stations, and the water-supply and
sewage-disposal systems. Likewise, the location and extent of needed com¬
mercial areas that are directly dependent on residential density, such as
neighborhood and district shopping centers, must be determined to a great
extent by the basic proposals expressed in the residential-areas section o t e
plan. Since residential areas and their related uses occupy far more land than
any other major physical element of the urban community, the time scale use
in planning for future residential needs usually becomes the dominant time
scale of the plan as a whole.

The factors that must be dealt with in developing reasonable forecasts
of the economic activities of a community are more variable and more com¬
plex than those involved in making population forecasts. Technologica
changes are continuously making possible, and forcing, adjustments in ways
of doing business and in methods of industrial production. And these changes
result in organizational changes, which affect physical facilities, that m many
cases can be reasonably anticipated for only short periods of time. But the
primary locations of industrial and business activities which are dependent to
a very large extent on obvious geographic features, such as deep water an
flat land, are also dependent on the location of the residential districts that
house the working population, and on those urban facilities, such as the
water-supply and transportation systems, that must be designed to accommo¬
date the residential and the industrial and commercial areas of the com¬
munity. Thus the time scale for the development of the industrial and central-
business-district areas dealt with in the living-and-working-areas section of
the general plan is closely related to and in many cases is dependent on the

time scale of the population forecast.

To a certain extent the opposite is also true—the residential-area time
scale is held down by the shorter ranges of the industrial- and business^
activities forecasts. For even if national and regional conditions affecting \
population growth for a particular community made it possible for planners
to look ahead more than twenty to thirty years with reasonable certainty the,,
rate of change created by modern technology affecting the location of in¬
dustries and businesses is so great today that it would not be reasonable to,
plan ahead more than twenty to thirty years for those physical elements of
the urban community that are not automatically tied to a longer time period.

There are certain important features of the plan that must be based on
judgments concerning the future that involve time periods much longer than
two or three decades. Some features, such as the costly water-supply, sewage-

97

Characteristics of the General Plan

disposal, and drainage systems, must be based on definite design features
intended, hopefully, to accommodate all needs for periods of as long as fifty
years or more. Others, such as large park and greenbelt proposals, should
be based on a time perspective of indefinite length, but one that extends far
beyond the dominant time scale of the plan. The inclusion of such proposals
in the general plan should be dictated by the logic of the particular situation.
In most cases they will have to be included to indicate why the more easily
planned for physical elements of the community, such as elementary schools,
are placed in the locations assigned them by the general plan.

As described above, long-range means that the general plan usually will
have a dominant time scale of twenty to thirty years. The general plan may
refer to a specific target date, but this is merely a useful guide for coordinat¬
ing certain forecasts and should not be taken too seriously. It is not even
necessary that the plan have a specific target date, since parts of the plan
must have time scales differing from any arbitrary target date. The general
plan is not supposed to be a picture of an end-state at some particular year,

but rather a statement of end-directions which are continually adjusted as
time passes.

T Perhaps the most important point to emphasize in attempting to spell
out hnd clarify the meaning of long-range is that the plan should not con¬
fuse needs that are immediate and pressing, but in the long view are relatively
unimportant, with the presentation of a clear statement of the major require¬
ments that must be provided for to promote desirable physical development
over a period of several decades.~ 7 rh.us, although the plan must include, in
an appropriate general context, projects of vital importance to be carried out
in the near future, it must be successful in relating such projects, which at¬
tract attention because they are aimed at solving current problems, to the
larger scheme of long-range growth and development. The plan must specify
distant objectives so that the community can make sustained progress in one
direction. J

(3) The General Plan Should Be Comprehensive

L Comprehensive, as defined by city-planning practice, has three specific
meanings: (1) It means that the general plan should deal with all of the
essential physical elements of the urban environment within the boundaries
of the city, ( 2 ) it means that the general plan should take into account the
development trends in the larger geographic setting within which every city
is situated, and (3) it means that the general plan should be consciously re¬
lated to the social -and economic forces that it proposes to accommodate and

98

Subject-Matter Characteristics

that are themselves bound to be affected by the scheme for physical develop¬
ment expressed in the plan. Comprehensive means, in other words, that a
general plan for physical development, in order to be a logical reasonable
and useful plan, must recognize and define its relationships with all significant
factors, physical and nonphysical, local and regional, that affect the physical

growth and development of the community.

Before the need for community control over the use of all private y
owned urban property was generally recognized about fifty years ago it was
not uncommon for city-planning reports to be published that did not describe
the basic judgments that had been made concerning the future development
of the privately owned commercial, industrial, and residential areas o t e
city upon which the plan for related public facilities was based. Such reports
gave the impression that a general plan could be prepared without taking
into account the basic privately owned physical elements of the community.
However, even before the constitutionality of zoning was finally established
in 1927, some of the leaders of the profession had demonstrated the logical
necessity of making proposals for the commercial, industrial, and residential
areas of the city, regardless of the lack of direct public control over the private
property affected, in order to provide a rational basis for determining the
general location, character, and extent of those publicly owned physical ele¬
ments dealt with in the general plan for which the community as a whole was
directly responsible. Today, this meaning of comprehensive as applied to the

scope of the plan is taken for granted. , ,

It is obvious from the foregoing discussion of the basic elements of the
physical environment that must be considered in a general plan that the p an
must cover the entire city, not just one or two districts. Although this mean¬
ing of comprehensive is also unquestioned today, early city-planning repor
frequently failed to make this clear because of the emphasis given to par icu-
lar districts that were already publicly identified as problem areas such as
slum neighborhoods or waterfront districts. Today, the need for defining the
relationships between special problem areas and the remainder of the city is
fully recognized. In the 1949 Housing Act, Congress offered to assist com¬
munities in their efforts to redevelop blighted areas, but only after each com¬
munity had prepared a general plan showing how the proposed redevelop
ment projects would fit into the future development of the city as a w o e

Comprehensive is sometimes used in contemporary city-planning reports
in the description of a single functional element, such as the street-and-hig -
way system. In this instance comprehensive should mean simply that e pr -
posals in the plan for the street-and-highway system have been related to all

QQ

Characteristics of the General Plan

other significant factors that affect or are affected by the proposals. Compre¬
hensive should not be used in such a way as to give the impression that a
comprehensive street-and-highway plan” constitutes, by itself, a compre¬
hensive general plan for the city. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to see
the term comprehensive misused in this way even today.

Two additional relatively common misinterpretations of the meaning of
comprehensive as applied to the physical' scope of the general plan should
be noted. One is the suggestion that the general plan, in order to be compre¬
hensive, must be complete in the sense that it must deal with every physical
element, regardless of its significance as part of a plan that must be long-
range and general. And the other is the suggestion that the plan must eventu¬
ally become a detailed blueprint. These misinterpretations conflict directly
with the primary legislative uses of the plan, since they unavoidably tend to
confuse policies of major and minor importance with one another, and ques¬
tions of detail with proposals that are of a general nature and of a much
broader significance. The need for completeness and for detail in planning

for the effective improvement of the urban environment can be provided for
in other ways.

Every responsible effort to prepare a general plan for the physical de¬
velopment of the territory within the boundaries of one city has recognized
the fact that development trends in both the immediately adjacent urbanized
territory and the larger geographic region must be studied and taken into
account if the general plan for the individual community is to be a reasonable
plan. This requirement means, *in effect, that the urban-general-plan concept
recognizes that eventually there must be a regional general plan, and is an

expression of the second meaning of comprehensive as applied to the urban
general plan.

There are some excellent examples of the way in which the logical steps
involved in the preparation of a general plan for a specific municipality lead
to recognition of the need for defining regional relationships and to the
preparation of a regional plan. The Cincinnati metropolitan-area general
plan, completed in 1948, is an outstanding example. Guided by an able city¬
planning commission and a well-informed city council, Cincinnati financed
the preparation of a metropolitanwide general plan under the direction of a
voluntary joint commission representing all of the local governments in the
area m order to provide the most reasonable regional framework within which
to develop a general plan for its own territory.

Sooner or later local and state legislative bodies will recognize, either
as a result of the force of events or enlightened political leadership, the need
100

Subject-Matter Characteristics

for regional planning and for some form of regional government, and it will
then be possible for the general plans for each local urban community and
for the larger geographic regions to be determined on a more comprehensive
and a more logical basis than is possible at the present time. In the inter¬
vening period, the essential quality of geographic regional comprehensiveness
required of urban general plans will lead to voluntary, cooperative, educa¬
tional regional-planning efforts in many locales. And in every instance involv¬
ing an urban general plan it will lead to conscious recognition of the regional
setting and an open statement of the regional assumptions upon which the

plan is based. 2 .

The one remaining quality associated with the characteristic of compre-

siveness” that must be considered has to do with the way in which a physical
plan is related to social and economic factors. As defined in this study, and
as emphasized and explained in the discussion of the fifth characteristic of
the general plan, this quality of comprehensiveness means simply that there
must be an open recognition at every stage of plan preparation and use that
a plan for physical development is an expression of the social and economic
objectives of the community as determined by the city council. It must not
be interpreted to mean that the city-planning commission and staff m carrying
out their general physical-planning responsibilities should also assume re¬
sponsibility for social and economic planning. As previously stated, I believe
that our municipal governments will continue to foster and to maintain sev¬
eral general planning activities, each one focusing on a subject-matter area
of major importance. Each such activity should be characterized by continu¬
ing efforts on the part of those responsible to understand and state the basic
social and economic objectives of the community that have special sigm -
cance for their work.

In recent years, an increasing number of city-planning programs have
produced plans, such as the Berkeley Master Plan, that illustrate, however
crudely, the meaning of the quality of comprehensiveness called for here. They
attempt to state openly the judgments made concerning the most significant

2 The general plan for the metropolitan San Francisco Bay Area published in
1956 by the Bay Area Rapid Transit Commission could not have been completed in
the time available if most of the city and county governments in the Say Are had
not already completed their general plans and considered their metropolitan socio¬
economic functions. For a proposed metropolitan regional plan-making agency and
limited-function metropolitan government based on the evotutionary approach sug¬
gested here, see my essay “City and Regional Planning m the Metropolnan San
Francisco Bay Area,” Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California,

Berkeley, 1963.

101

Characteristics of the General Plan

nonphysical factors upon which the physical plan is based, they place directly
in the hands of the council the task of setting the social and economic objec-
tives which the physical plan seeks to accomplish, and, by an open statement
of their limitations, they foster recognition by the city council of the need
for a more effective system of social, economic, and physical planning than
we now have.

(4) The General Plan Should Be General, and Should Remain General

If it is to be effective in its primary policy-determination uses, the gen-
eral plan must focus on the main issues and the “big ideas.” The plan docu¬
ment should not include any details that will tend to obscure or distract at¬
tention from the major policies and the major physical-design proposals. The
plan is intended only to provide a general picture of the locations and sizes
of the major physical elements of the urban community and to indicate the
desirable relationships between them. The plan is a schematic guide, and not
a map or a blueprint. Above all, the general plan must be distinguished from
those specific and detailed documents which are intended to implement it,
such as the zoning ordinance, subdivision regulations, development plans,
and the capital-improvements priority and financing programs?)

The characteristic of generalness is troublesome, and admittedly it can¬
not be maintained invariably. The plan cannot be so general that it is vague,
as some plans are; its general physical-design proposals must be clear and
firm so that there will be no question as to what the council’s policies si gnif y
Every general plan is a mixture of the general and the specific, and it is
necessary usually to explore specific proposals before reaching decisions on
general policies. When a city council is considering a general plan, some-
times it is required to express general policies and proposals in specific terms
in order to satisfy some of the citizens. When this is necessary, the plan docu¬
ment should include an explanation of the reasons for being specific and
should restate the general policy that is expressed by the decision.

There are many illustrations that could be used to show how difficult
it is to achieve, and to retain, the quality of generalness that is required by
the continuing policy-determination use of the plan. The tendency to seek
support for the plan primarily on practical grounds, which is most compelling
when the plan has just been completed, usually results in efforts to translate
the plan into cost estimates and time schedules. For example, the authors of
the Philadelphia long-range physical-development plan, when the plan was
first presented to the public in 1960, consciously chose to emphasize in the
plan document’s Introduction that they had conceived of the plan as a “blue-

102

Subject-Matter Characteristics

print for the Philadelphia of tomorrow.” They called attention to the detailed
studies that had been made of the financial implications of the plan and de¬
scribed these implications in a separate section of the plan document present¬
ing estimates of the funds that would be needed to construct the capital im¬
provements called for by the plan. In the third chapter, “Costs and Strategy,”
of the document the authors state:

... In order to carry out all the proposals outlined in this Plan, it will be
necessary for government as a whole to make capital investments of some
$3,482,839,000 in Philadelphia . . .

At the present rate of $25,000,000 per year, it will take approximately 37 years
to accomplish the tax-supported projects implied by the Comprehensive Plan . . .
However, if the rate increases as fast as Philadelphia’s total personal income is ex¬
pected to increase, then all tax-supported projects can be accomplished m 28

years . . .

These statements give the reader the impression that the plan has been worked
out in detail and that the main emphasis, now that the plan has been com¬
pleted, should shift from policy determination to policy effectuation. The
need to distinguish between the work of policy determination and the work
of policy effectuation seems elemental in considering the needs of the mem¬
bers of the municipal governing body; the same needs exist for the citizen
members of the city-planning commission. Since both policy determination
and policy effectuation are of continuing importance, and especially since
the latter is, and will always remain, so dependent on the former, it seems
essential to consciously avoid doing what the authors of the Philadelphia
plan have done. This point is well stated in the introductory chapter of A
Guide to the Cambridge [England] Plan,” published in 1956:

... it is meaningless to talk of the “cost” of a plan in money terms. Plan or no
plan, money will go on being spent on development, and with no plan—or a bad
plan—much of it would be wasted. The Cambridge Plan does not seek to prescribe
how much development of one kind or another ought to be undertaken; it simp y
tries to estimate how much development of one kind or another will m any case
take place in Cambridge during the next twenty years, and indicates the forms m
which the planners think it would yield the best value for the money.

. a plan is not a blueprint or a working drawing, but a statement of policy/
Its Submission by the planning authority (the local legislative body) and its
approval by the Minister do not necessarily imply a final decision that the pro¬
posals it contains shall be carried out. They mean that, as far as can be seen at
the time, the developments proposed appear to the authority and the Mmister

103

Characteristics of the General Plan

to represent the best use of the resources likely to be available, and that the
authority and the Minister will accordingly do what they can to promote such
developments . . . unless and until it becomes apparent that the public interest
demands an amendment of the plan . . .

I believe that the overriding necessity on the part of the councilmen to
understand the main ideas of the plan, in order to justify to themselves and
their constituents the controversial decisions which they inevitably will have
to make and by which they inevitably will either implement or ignore the
plan, will spur the councilmen to become more and more insistent on their
demands that the city-planning commission and the director of city planning
express accurately, in language and drawings that everyone can understand,
.just what the “main ideas” of the plan actually are. Most professionals tend
to underrate and misunderstand the importance of the quality of generalness
that the plan must achieve and maintain. It is a quality upon which most
councilmen will sooner or later insist.

(5) The General Plan Should Clearly Relate The Major Physical-Design
Proposals to the Basic Policies of the Plan

dEvery plan for the^physical development of a community is an expres-
sion of value judgments ./Value judgments must be made when the primary
community objectives are determined and when assumptions are made con¬
cerning governmental, economic, social, and physical factors. They are also
expressed in the city-planning principles and standards used to shape general
physical-design proposals. To clarify the subordinate relationship of physical-
design proposals to policies, and to bring about, insofar as it is possible to
do so, a full awareness and recognition of the nontechnical value judgments
upon which the plan is based, it is essential to give special and continuing
attention to the relationship between physical-design proposals and basic
policies in the official general-plan document.

This requirement presents a major challenge to the city planner, for
knowledge about the interrelation between socioeconomic factors and the
physical environment is largely intuitive and speculative. In most cases it is
not possible to know with any certainty what physical-design measures should
be taken to bring about a given social or economic objective, or what social
and economic consequences will result from a given physical-design pro-
posal. Therefore, the city council and the city-planning commission, rather
than professional city planners, should make the final value judgments upon
which the plan is based. The general-plan characteristic identified here is in¬
tended to facilitate this, and to guard against the danger of having basic value

104

Subject-Matter Characteristics

judgments made solely by the city-planning director and the members of
the professional staff.

The open relationship between policies and physical-design proposals
which is specified here is recognized by many experienced city planners as
desirable. It is, however, very difficult to achieve. To illustrate the difficulties
and to clarify what is meant by “basic policies,” the Berkeley official general-
plan document will be used as an example.

The major physical-design proposals of the Berkeley Master Plan can
be understood without too much difficulty. The document contains as an in¬
tegral feature a drawing of the citywide physical-design proposals which is
titled “Master Plan for Berkeley,” and there is a twelve-point Summary that
is presented as a separate chapter. The Summary is preceded by chapters titled
“Introduction,” “Background,” “Assumptions,” and “Objectives” that attempt
to place the Summary in its proper context. This explains why the Summary
itself does not include a statement of the broad objectives of the Plan; they
are presented in the chapter directly preceding the Summary.

If, in preparing the Berkeley Master Plan, an attempt had been made
to determine and set forth the “basic policies” of the Plan, the eleven judg¬
ments described in the “Assumptions” chapter and the five general objectives
stated in the “Objectives” chapter would have been reduced in number and
stated in different terms. Since this was not done, what is called the Summary
of the Master Plan” focuses almost entirely on the design proposals of the
Plan. For reference purposes, the “Assumptions,” “Objectives,” and “Sum¬
mary” chapters of the document, together with the general-plan drawing, are

reproduced in full on the following pages.

The first two points of the Summary, although cast in physical terms,
are concerned with questions of basic policy. The first recommendation of
the Plan calls for “the allocation of the existing area of Berkeley among . . .
four basic uses (residential, commercial, industrial, and the University of
California) in such a way as to achieve a balanced community, with each
part of the City devoted to its most suitable purpose.”

The second recommendation of the Plan “sets a limit of 180,000 persons
for Berkeley—this being the maximum number of persons which the City
Planning Commission believes may be accommodated in Berkeley without
damage to the existing predominantly open character of the City . . .

Of the remaining ten points in the Summary, nine are directly concerned
with the general physical-design proposals and, when studied together with
the general-plan drawing, give a reasonably complete, outline picture of the
main physical elements and features dealt with in the section of the Plan on

105

Characteristics of the General Plan

physical-design proposals. The one exception is simply a procedural recom¬
mendation, calling for continuing coordination by the University of Cali¬
fornia and Berkeley of their long-range development plans.

It will be noted that the major physical-design proposals concerning the
University, which is the dominant physical element in Berkeley, are not sum¬
marized, and that neither of the two basic policies that are included in the
Summary refer in any way to the role that Berkeley is to play in the metro¬
politan Bay Area. These issues were faced when the Plan was prepared. Their
omission from the Summary is explained partly by the evolutionary way in
which every plan must be developed and clarified. It is very difficult to sum¬
marize a general plan accurately until after it has been completed and used.
Ten years of experience in using the Berkeley Master Plan , in its preliminary
and final form, has helped to determine and to clarify the most important
(Text continued on page 112.)

MAJOR POLICIES AND PROPOSALS
OF THE BERKELEY MASTER PLAN

CHAPTER III. ASSUMPTIONS

Future plans must be based upon research, forecasts, and assumptions. Carefully
formulated assumptions are necessary when more precise data are not available, or
when time has not permitted sufficient research and study to determine precisely
how present trends will develop or the exact nature of future needs and desires. The
Planning Commission believes that the assumptions which underlie the Master Plan
should be clearly stated as a part of this report. Each citizen may then interpret and
evaluate the Plan in the light of the stated assumptions. In the future, when new and
unexpected developments occur, the Plan can be more readily revised when it is under¬
stood why certain proposals were made and how they should be changed in respect
to new data or new conditions.

Berkeley is a part of the large metropolitan area surrounding the San Francisco Bay.
As part of this metropolitan area, Berkeley’s future is influenced to a great extent by
developments throughout the entire region. For this reason, the assumptions for the
Master Plan are developed for the San Francisco Bay Area as a whole as well as more
particularly for Berkeley.

In addition to these more specific assumptions there are some general assumptions
implied in any planning process. Any event such as a major change in our form of
government or economy, a large-scale disaster, or an all-out war would have unpre¬
dictable effects, possibly nullifying the best prepared plans. Therefore, we must assume
that such catastrophic changes will not occur.

1. A regional planning agency will be established to coordinate the planning activi-
ties in the Bay Area. The proposals in our Master Plan are assumed to be based upon
principles similar to those which will guide the regional planning agency.

2. The population will continue to grow due to the strategic location and desirable
living conditions of the Bay Area and the economic development of the West. The

106

Subject-Matter Characteristics

* population of the nine Bay COUNTIES WILL INCREASE FROM 3,638,322
PEOPLE IN 1960, TO 4,788,000 IN 1970, TO 5,890,000 IN 1980.

3. Residential development will continue to spread over the Berkeley hills and all the
more accessible and buildable portions of the Bay Area, as a result of the continued

growth in population. .

4. With the growth of the region, Oakland and Berkeley will become increasingly
important parts of the urban core during the next twenty-five years. Countering this
trend will be a continued decentralization of commerce and industry throughout the
region.

5. An area-wide circulation network will be constructed between all major cities
from San Jose to Santa Rosa and will include both freeways and rapid transit lines. The
circulation network will incorporate at least two more crossings of San Francisco Bay.
A centrally located airport will be constructed on the presently submerged lands of the
East Bay Area. Planned port expansion will be carried out in Oakland and Richmond.

6. Recreation facilities will be further developed with emphasis on the conservation
and development of natural bayshore, mountain, and ocean-beach recreation resources

throughout the nine-county area. .

7. There will be continuing development of the submerged lands bordering San

Francisco Bay.

Assumptions Concerning Berkeley, 1960—1980

1. Berkeley will be a major city in its own right and at the same time it will retain a
satellite relationship to San Francisco and Oakland, thus performing a dual function
in the core of the metropolitan area.

2. There will be a high volume of traffic between Berkeley and San Francisco,
Oakland, Richmond, and the interior of Contra Costa County. Traffic routes of the East
Bay which traverse Berkeley will carry increasingly heavy volumes of traffic.

3. Enrollment on the Berkeley Campus of the University of California will rise to
* about 27,500 as state population increases. Academic policies will emphasize graduate
and research activities.

4. Development of the submerged land west of Berkeley’s present waterfront will
become economically feasible within the next twenty-five years.

CHAPTER IV. OBJECTIVES

The Master Plan is a comprehensive and coordinated guide for the future development
of the community, including both private and public activity. Implicit m this statement
is the necessity for general public agreement on the kind of community we wish to
achieve. Without such agreement on objectives, it will obviously be impossible to de¬
velop and carry into effect a comprehensive and coordinated plan.

For the past several years the Planning Commission has been studying the City of
Berkeley and consulting with its citizens in order to formulate a set of general goals
or objectives which will represent the needs and desires of a majority of the people of

* Text printed in capitals was amended as a result of the Berkeley City Council Resolution

#38563-NS of September 19, 1961. .

+ Text printed in capitals was amended as a result of the Berkeley City Council Resolution
#38563-NS of September 19, 1961. [In this case, the footnote refers to the figure 27,500.]

107

Characteristics of the General Plan

Berkeley, and which will at the same time be physically, economically, and politically
possible of achievement.

These broad objectives of the Master Plan are stated here in order that each citizen
may decide for himself how well the Planning Commission has realized the potentialities
of the Community and interpreted the aspirations of the people. The objectives are as
follows:

1. To preserve the unique character of Berkeley which has grown out of its un¬
paralleled physical setting and its generally harmonious development. Conservation of
the physical and social values that characterize Berkeley can only be accomplished by
facing squarely the problems of growth and change. Berkeley cannot retain its character
and charm by retiring into the past.

2. To reach a balance between the number of families in Berkeley and the space we
have to live in. Optimum living and working conditions cannot be attained when there
is either overcrowding or underdevelopment.

3. To establish a pattern of land uses which will promote the highest degree of health,
safety, efficiency, and well-being for all segments of the community. There should be
a smooth-working relationship between lands used for residence, commerce, industry,
and the University.

4. To develop a circulation system—both highways and mass transit—which will
provide for the safe and convenient movement of people and goods within Berkeley and
other parts of the region. Such a system must be designed so that the trafficways will
serve rather than interfere with and destroy the industrial, commercial, and particularly
the residential areas of the community.

5. To secure for Berkeley her rightful place in the long-range development of the
San Francisco Bay Area. Berkeley should receive a just proportion of the economic and
population growth of the region. At the same time, Berkeley should strive to preserve
her unique position as a residential city and educational center. Berkeley should work
with her neighbor cities for the sound development of the entire Bay Area.

CHAPTER V. SUMMARY OF THE MASTER PLAN

This summary is a word picture of Berkeley as our community can develop during the
next twenty-five years when the fundamental recommendations for its future develop-
ment, as set forth in the Master Plan are accepted and carried out by the citizens of
Berkeley.

These major recommendations, broadly stated in this chapter, are developed in greater
detail in the following sections of this report and illustrated on the Master Plan Map.

1. The Master Plan is based upon the finding that there are four essential uses of land
in Berkeley. These are: (a) residential land use with the accompanying schools, parks,
churches, etc.; (b) commercial land use; (c) industrial land use; and (d) the University
of California. The Plan proposes the allocation of the existing area of Berkeley among
these four basic uses in such a way as to achieve a balanced community, with each
part of the City devoted to its most suitable purpose. (Land Use Section, pages 25
through 60a.)

2. Because of its limited land area the City of Berkeley cannot be permitted to grow
indefinitely without serious overcrowding and a resulting deterioration in living con¬
ditions. The Master Plan sets a limit of 180,000 persons (exclusive of residential
areas in the waterfront development) for Berkeley—this being the maximum number
of persons which the Planning Commission believes may be accommodated in Berkeley

108

Subject-Matter Characteristics

without damage to the existing predominantly open residential character of the City.
The Master Plan provides for the distribution of population in Berkeley in planned resi¬
dential areas, varying from low-density single-family areas to high-density apartment-
house areas. (Population Section, page 23; Residential Areas Division, and pages 26
through 36.)

3. The Master Plan defines within the residential areas of Berkeley a series of resi¬
dential neighborhoods, each of which will be of a proper size to support essential
residential services such as schools, churches, and shopping centers, and each of which
will, insofar as is possible, be kept free of large volumes of through traffic and other
disturbing influences. (The Neighborhood Plan, pages 34 and 36.)

4. The Master Plan recommends the improvement and enhancement of the Berkeley
Central District in order to better serve the community. The District is concentrated
within the boundaries of Grove Street, Oxford Street, Hearst Avenue, and Durant
Avenue. The Master Plan calls for improvements in off-street parking, pedestrian circu¬
lation, the number and quality of business establishments, and the physical appearance
of the area. (Commercial Areas, pages 37 through 48; Central District, pages 41 to 44.)

5. The Master Plan groups the business establishments of Berkeley in conveniently
located commercial centers, each of which will fit into one of the following four cate¬
gories : The Central District, commercial service districts, community shopping centers,
and local shopping centers. (Central District, pages 41 to 44; Commercial Service Dis¬
tricts, pages 44 and 45; Community Shopping Centers, pages 46 and 47; Neighborhood
Shopping Centers, pages 47 and 48.)

6. The Master Plan provides for a limited and selective industrial expansion in
Berkeley, exclusive of the waterfront development. The Plan provides for the establish¬
ment of a firm and logical boundary between industrial and residential areas in West
Berkeley. Solution of this longstanding boundary problem will: (a) stabilize the two resi¬
dential neighborhoods in West Berkeley, and provide security which will lead to new in¬
vestment and rehabilitation of residential properties; (b) encourage sound industrial de¬
velopment free from the interference which results from scattered dwellings within the
industrial district. (Industrial Area, pages 49 through 53.)

7. The Master Plan recognizes the interdependent roles of the City of Berkeley and
the University of California, and calls for the continuing coordination of long-range
plans in order that the University and the City may each continue to benefit from the
presence of the other. (The University of California Division, pages 55 through 60a.)

8. The Master Plan proposes that Berkeley’s trafficways be improved to a standard
adequate to handle anticipated traffic volumes for the next twenty-five years. The most
important traffic way plans are as follows:

a. Improvement of the Sacramento Street thoroughfare in order to provide a con¬
nection at the north into Colusa Avenue and San Pablo Avenue.

b. Widening of Grove Street between Berkeley Way and The Alameda.

c. Provision of a new access road to the Berkeley hill area by way of La Loma
Avenue, Glendale Avenue, and Campus Drive.

* d. EXTENSION OF THE SHATTUCK SECONDARY THOROUGHFARE
THROUGH TO SOLANO AVENUE TO PROVIDE A DIRECT CONNEC¬
TION BETWEEN THE SOLANO SHOPPING CENTER AND CENTRAL
BERKELEY.

* Text printed in capitals was amended as a result of Berkeley City Council Resolution
#37160-NS of January 27, 1959.

109

Characteristics of the General Plan

e. Development of Dwight Way and Haste Street as one-way streets from Piedmont
Avenue to Grove Street, and widening of Dwight Way west of Grove Street.

f. Opening and widening of Cedar Street between Sacramento and Chestnut Streets
in order to provide a trafficway from the Eastshore highway to the Berkeley hill
residential neighborhoods. (Circulation Section, pages 61 and 62; Trafficways Di¬
vision, pages 63 through 80.)

9. The Master Plan proposes that everything possible be done to increase transit pa¬
tronage. To further this goal, the Master Plan recommends provision of an adequate
local transit system with service within approximately one-fourth mile of each Berkeley
residence, where topography permits, and the development of an integrated, regional
rapid transit facility linking Berkeley to all parts of the Bay Area. (Circulation Section,
pages 61 and 62; Transit Division, pages 81 through 84.)

10. The Master Plan recommends that present and future school facilities be care¬
fully studied in the light of the anticipated growth and distribution of population and the
pattern of Berkeley neighborhoods provided by this Plan. The Planning Commission
believes that school grounds should be increased in size in order that they can better
serve their educational as well as their recreational and community-center functions,
and that the responsibility for this enlargement should rest jointly with the City of
Berkeley and the Unified School District. (Public Facilities and Services Section, page
85; Schools Division, pages 87 through 90.)

11. The Master Plan adopts the policy of increasing Berkeley’s park and recreation
areas in order to meet the needs of present and anticipated future population. Preserva¬
tion and development of existing streams and canyons and provision of hiking trails
and viewpoints are particularly recommended. (Public Facilities and Services Section,
page 85; Recreation Division, pages 91 through 96.)

12. The Master Plan outlines the development of Berkeley’s submerged waterfront
lands for a balanced combination of uses including residence, commerce, industry, and
recreation. Careful attention must be given to the appearance of the area both from
within and as seen from the Berkeley hills. Industrial development must be carefully
regulated to prevent creation of dust, smoke, odors, or unsightly establishments. (Water¬
front Section, pages 97 through 102.)

Elements of the Plan

The following pages will describe and discuss the Master Plan which has been prepared
to achieve the stated objectives. The Plan will be presented in four sections:

1. The LAND USE SECTION considers the needs of the City for lands to be used
for residence, commerce, industry, and the University of California.

2. The CIRCULATION SECTION considers the safe, efficient, and convenient
movement of people and goods throughout Berkeley and between Berkeley and other
parts of the Metropolitan Area.

3. The PUBLIC FACILITIES AND SERVICES SECTION considers the proposals
necessary for the functioning of a modern community. Included in this section of the
Master Plan are the problems of public utilities, schools, and recreation.

4. The WATERFRONT SECTION establishes broad policy for the future filling
and development of Berkeley’s submerged lands.

110

BERKELEY MASTER PLAN

THE MASTER PLAN CONSISTS OF THIS
MAP AND THE ACCOMPANYING TEXT
BERKELEY PLANNING COMMISSION

(Note: That portion of the plan drawing showing schematic proposals for the development of the
tidelands west of line A-A has been deleted.)

RESIDENTIAL AREAS
NET RESIDENTIAL DENSITY

0-30 Persons Per Acre
30-50 Persons Per Acre
50-80 Persons Per Acre
80-150 Persons Per Acre

f 6 Neighborhood Boundary and Number

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL AREAS

Central District
Commercial Service District
Community Shopping Center
Neighborhood Shopping Center
Special Industrial District
Industrial District

PUBLIC SCHOOLS

□ Existing
| Proposed
K Kindergarten-Primary
E Elementary
J Junior High
H Senior High

RECREATION AREAS

A Existing
A Proposed
A Viewpoint
o o o o © Scenic Drive
_Trail

CIRCULATION SYSTEM

■■■■ Major Thoroughfare
■■■■■ Secondary Thoroughfare

in.. Feeder Street

• ••• Rapid Transit Route
(§) Rapid Transit Station

Characteristics of the General Plan

issues, as well as the ability of the governing groups in the community to deal
with these issues openly.

Experience with the Berkeley Master Plan has demonstrated to me re¬
peatedly that there should be, as an integral part of the official document, a
single, unified summary that presents (1) the basic policies of the plan, (2)
the major physical-design proposals of the plan, and (3) a schematic draw¬
ing picturing the citywide physical-design proposals of the plan. If the sum¬
mary does not attract attention to the basic policies of the plan, recom¬
mendations intended to implement the physical-design proposals that should
be measured against the basic policies tend, unnecessarily, to be considered
and argued about as though they are the kind of recommendations on which
compromises—in many cases damaging—can readily be made.

Major policies and physical-design proposals are implemented not only
by decisions on projects and regulations that will obviously affect the entire
city. They are also implemented or not implemented, to a far greater degree
than is generally recognized, as a result of the several decisions made every
week by the city council on what may seem to be relatively minor matters.
This decision-making context requires that emphasis be given to the fact that
the physical-design proposals are dependent on the basic policies of the plan.
If this can be done, the nontechnical, intuitive, subjective nature of the basic
policies will have to be recognized. Once this has happened, the municipal
legislative body will realize that it must and is able to take control of the
general plan.

On the basis of more than a decade of direct experience in the capacity
of a user of the Berkeley Master Plan, as a citizen commissioner from 1948
to 1957 and as a city councilman from 1957 to 1963, I believe that if the
distinction between the basic policies and the major physical-design proposals
of the plan is made in the summary of the general plan, and is made success¬
fully, without unduly complicating the summary, the value judgments that
are implicit in every physical-design proposal will be much more readily un¬
derstood by everyone concerned.

The restatement of the Berkeley Master Plan Summary presented on
pages 114-115 illustrates specifically what is meant by “basic policies” and
shows the practicality of the unified, three-part summary suggested here. It
must be remembered that in actual practice the summary would be one sec¬
tion of the official general-plan document. Hence, it is assumed that the
reader is already familiar with the local and regional geographic setting,
historical background, existing conditions, and major development issues, as

112

Subject-Matter Characteristics

well as the major assumptions and forecasts that have been made concerning
the economic, social, and physical factors with which the plan deals.

The five basic policies of the Plan, as I have restated them, include many
important assumptions, secondary policies, and other judgments concerning
social values, economic trends, and questions of feasibility. The ten major
physical-design proposals as restated also have many value judgments em¬
bedded in the city-planning principles and standards mentioned that may
seem to be taken for granted.

I believe that the kind of all-inclusive, rough groupings I have made
here in an effort to pin down the “main ideas” of the Plan are essential, how¬
ever, to make clear the most important value judgments upon which the
Plan is based. Differences on fundamental issues will have to be clarified if
these judgments are openly talked about. Eventually, a consensus among
those directly responsible will be reached on fundamental values, and on the
secondary judgments that will be needed to translate these values into the
kind of physical-design proposals for the city that are most likely to reflect
the agreed upon values.

For example, the policy I have termed “Metropolitan Opportunities”
leads to a commitment to support the Bay Area regional rapid-transit plan.
This physical-design proposal is an expression, to me, of the following basic
social, economic, and professional city-planning judgments: Our society
values the dignity of the individual; we believe that the individual should be
as free as possible to develop his unique abilities and personality as he sees
fit; we believe that by increasing real incomes, individuals will have more
freedom and real opportunities to shape their lives as they wish.

The value judgments stated above, which can be challenged most readily
only if they arc openly stated, lead to the following assumptions that express
a secondary group of judgments: The physical concentration of people in
cities increases the production of ideas, goods, and services; this increase in
productivity, which makes possible rising real incomes, is a direct result of
the division of labor and the resultant development of specialized skills and
abilities; the largest effective urban labor supply, therefore, will create the
most productive urban concentration. Enterprises of all sorts will be fostered
by great cities, production will increase, incomes will rise, freedom of indi¬
vidual development will be enhanced.

These judgments form the basis for the following professional city¬
planning judgments: Most distinctly urban enterprises are more productive
if they are concentrated in the central districts of cities; to foster this physical

113

THE HUNT LIWUIY
GA.RHE61E INSTITUTE OF TIIHWIM

UNIFIED SUMMARY OF

THE BERKELEY GENERAL PLAN

This three-part restatement of the summary of the Berkeley General Plan for physical
development is intended to be an integral part of the official general-plan document.

1. BASIC POLICIES

1. BERKELEY—A UNIVERSITY-RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITY: The Plan pro¬
poses that Berkeley should continue to emphasize its specialized social and economic
functions in the metropolitan San Francisco Bay Area as an educational-residential
city. This policy is of fundamental importance to the Plan. It means that industrial
and high-density-apartment developments, although of importance to Berkeley, are to
be subordinated and limited.

2. UNIVERSITY DEVELOPMENT: The Plan proposes to accomodate, but at the
same time to influence, the growth and development of the University. The physical
size of the campus must be limited if the unique character of the City, which is vital
to the life and work of the University, is to be preserved and enhanced.

3. POPULATION LIMIT: The Plan proposes to protect and renew low-density resi¬
dential neighborhoods in all parts of the city. This policy, combined with an increase
in the high-density apartment house areas surrounding the campus and the central busi¬
ness district, means that the population of Berkeley, which was 120,000 in 1950, will
not be permitted to exceed 180,000. The Plan encourages other cities in the Bay Area
to provide the additional high-density districts that will be needed, just as the Uni¬
versity plans to encourage new campuses elsewhere by limiting the Berkeley campus
to 27,500 students before 1970 (an increase of 7,500 over 1950).

4. METROPOLITAN OPPORTUNITIES: The Plan proposes that Berkeley help to
develop a unified metropolitan region in order to make a wide range of jobs and cultural
opportunities accessible to Berkeleyans, and, in turn, to enable the University and
Berkeley businesses to draw upon and be accessible to Bay Area citizens. This policy
will, it is believed, enable Berkeley to share in a more productive Bay Area, higher
family incomes, and greater individual choice and freedom. The physical expression
of this policy calls for major concentrated business, cultural, and employment centers
in San Francisco and Oakland, to which Berkeley will be linked by a regional rapid-
transit system. This policy also is supported by recognition of the need for a metro¬
politan regional plan and a limited-function metropolitan government.

5. BERKELEY S “UNIQUE” CHARACTER: The Plan, basically, represents an
attempt to respect the special qualities that have resulted from the City’s historical
development as an educational-residential community. This policy, although admittedly
difficult to define, is the basis for the most important proposals of the Plan. The domi¬
nating role and cosmopolitan atmosphere of the University, the tree-covered hill dis¬
tricts, the influence of the City’s large group of San Francisco commuters, the excep¬
tionally high quality of the residential areas on the flatlands for families of moderate
incomes, and the magnificent physical site facing San Francisco, the Bay, and the
Golden Gate all of these have contributed to what is known throughout California
and the world of universities as Berkeley’s unique character. In its attempts to appreci-
ate and strengthen these qualities, while at the same time attempting to provide for
growth and for those changes that are judged to be necessary and desirable, the Plan
represents a cautious, positive approach.

114

2. GENERAL-PLAN DIAGRAM

JII

nh

•••

"V

A

Metropolitan Rapid Transit
Freeway

Waterfront—Undecided
Expansion
Containment
Berkeley Hills

Unique View of Golden Gate

7 ^

T

3. MAJOR PROPOSALS

1. UNIVERSITY: Physical expansion to
the south and into the hills; firm bound¬
aries determined. Campus shopping dis¬
tricts protected.

2. FAMILY RESIDENTIAL AREAS:
Neighborhoods in all parts of the City
to be enhanced and renewed. Plan re¬
quires rezoning of 8,000 lots from high
to low density. Population of 800,000
possible under 1920 zoning ordinance.

3. CENTRAL DISTRICT: Compact cen¬
tral business district. Mainline metro
transit station in center. Expansion of
office, cultural, and retail activities to be
encouraged.

4. APARTMENT-HOUSE AREAS:
Fifty per cent increase in present popu¬
lation to be accomodated mainly in a
ring around the central business district
and the University. New zoning district
required. High standards specified.

5. INDUSTRIAL DISTRICTS: Limited
expansion of selected University-related
industries.

6. SHOPPING CENTERS: Seven dis¬
trict and ten neighborhood shopping cen¬
ters to be strengthened. Gadual elimina¬
tion of strip zoning and most existing
strip development.

7. SCHOOLS AND PARKS: Five dis¬
trict recreation centers proposed. Schools,
playgrounds, and parks to be developed
jointly. Higher standards recommended;
major expansion required.

8. TRANSIT: Metro Bay Area rapid-
transit system assumed; three Berkeley
stations planned; underground construc¬
tion recommended. Radical improvement
in local public transit service called for.

9. TRAFFICWAYS: City linked to re¬
gional freeway network; one state free¬
way opposed. Primary and secondary
street system for most of City; narrow
feeder streets to serve hills. University-
City parking problems unresolved.

10. WATERFRONT AREA: Tentative
proposal calls for 2,000-acre development.
Final decisions require further design stud¬

ies.

115

Characteristics of the General Plan

concentration and at the same time make possible the largest possible labor
supply for the enterprises to draw upon, a peak-hour system of daily trans¬
portation is required that will permit large areas in the metropolitan region
to be devoted to residential uses, and, relatively speaking, small areas to be
devoted to the economic and cultural activities that benefit from concentra¬
tion.

Finally, a third level of judgments, also primarily professional, leads to
the physical-design proposal: Present and foreseeable transportation tech¬
nology indicates that a system of grade-separated rail rapid transit will pro¬
vide the most advantageous, most efficient, least costly physical system needed
to create the kind of metropolis that has been judged to be desirable for the
encouragement of rising production, rising incomes, and individual values.
The suggested principal alternative system, based on the automobile, was
considered and rejected because it was judged that the physical problems of
the automobile caused by the facilities necessary to provide approaches to,
storage at, and circulation within compact central districts are insurmountable
if the objective is to enlarge the central-district concentrations and the effec¬
tive daily metropolitanwide pool of specialized skills and abilities.

I realize that the chain of reasoning I have attempted to describe here
may seem far-fetched to many readers as a set of propositions that have
relevancy to city planning. But to me, every general plan unavoidably in¬
volves the making of physical-design proposals that will affect the way of life
of the community concerned. This is illustrated just as well, I hope, by the
other four basic policies of the Berkeley Master Plan. The decisions (1)
to attempt to strengthen the educational-residential role of Berkeley, (2) to
attempt to control the physical size of the University campus, (3) to attempt
to maintain a limit on the future population holding capacity of Berkeley,
and (4) to move cautiously on all matters that might adversely affect the
things that are judged to have made Berkeley “unique” will, if implemented—
as they have been for ten years—shape Berkeley life in a definite way. If the
professional city planners state their basic policy decisions to themselves and
others as clearly as possible—regardless of how elemental or dull or mundane
or ridiculous or dangerous they may seem—they will sooner or later learn
how to inform themselves as well as the councilmen and citizenry as to most
of the underlying value judgments with which, as a practicing profession,
they will always be required to deal.

I believe that the kind of intellectual effort suggested here is as impor-
tant in preparing a general plan for a small summer-resort community, such
as the town of Inverness forty miles north of San Francisco, as it is for the

116

Subject-Matter Characteristics

great metropolis of London and the municipal governments of the large
specialized cities, such as San Francisco and Berkeley, that make up every
metropolitan region.

Many other value judgments of seemingly lesser importance that are
expressed in the five policies and ten physical-design proposals of the Berke¬
ley Master Plan could be used to emphasize the point made here. The
neighborhood concept, the organization of commercial, industrial, and resi¬
dential activities into separate areas, the idea of a “balanced” community,
the notion of combined school and recreation centers, the idea that low-
density residential areas will assure a good environment for family life, the
idea that strip commercial development is uneconomical, the idea that con¬
centration of economic activities is beneficial to the community—these all
should be “confessed," in my opinion, in some thoughtful way in the official
general-plan document. Every underlying idea that has a significant influence
on the physical plan, even if it has been observed and described and is
considered to be in reality a “law” of social behavior, should be stated in
the official plan document.

If the general plan is not conceived and presented in such a way as to
invite the conscious making of its final key physical-design proposals by the
elected representatives of the community and the citizen members of the city¬
planning commission, the members of the city-planning staff will find them¬
selves making these proposals as a matter of practical necessity. That this is
wrong when done consciously is plain if the political philosophy of representa¬
tive self-government is accepted. When done unconsciously by the profes¬
sional staff, it is not only an expression of the immaturity of the city-planning
profession, it inevitably will create situations that will be damaging to both
the profession and the community.

i Another important reason for requiring the general plan to present a
clear statement relating the basic policies of the plan to its major physical-
design proposals is primarily technical. A large proportion of city planners
will always tend to think of their work in technical terms. This is natural since
only a relatively few members of each city-planning staff will be concerned
continuously at the level of the commission and council with questions of
basic policy. It is extremely important, therefore, for the city-planning com¬
mission and the director of city planning to maintain effective control over
the work of the city-planning staff and over all aspects of the city-planning
program. Unless this is done it is possible that the physical-design proposals
of the plan as developed by the staff may give too much weight to problems
that are obviously important, but that are, relatively, of lesser importance

117

Characteristics of the General Plan

than problems that are not so easily seen and identified. For example, a gen¬
eral plan for the central city of a large metropolitan area that gives primary
emphasis to freeway and off-street parking problems as compared with the
need for radical improvements in the rapid-transit system may entirely over-
look basic objectives and basic policies. Generally speaking, if the role of the
central city has been carefully considered and if the broad social and eco¬
nomic objectives of the metropolitan community as a whole have been de¬
fined, the general plan normally would give priority to those elements of the
circulation system most needed to enable the economic and cultural elements
in the central district to prosper—or, in other; words, priority would be given
to the daily transportation needs of the mass of the people, rather than to
improvements concerned mainly with the circulation needs of persons using
private automobiles. If no effective metropolitan rapid-transit system exists
at the time the general plan is initially prepared, and if agencies do exist for
building freeways, the apparently important problems posed by automobile
congestion are likely to get far more attention than they deserve and far more
than they would receive if the policy-design relationships suggested here were
consciously stated and understood.

^Jhe general-plan characteristic that the relationships between the basic
policies of the plan and its major physical-design proposals should be clearly
stated provides a device that tends, almost automatically if properly used, to
keep the physical-design proposals of the plan focused on the major social
and economic needs and objectives of the community. [Viewed in this light,
the statement embodying this plan characteristic is a technical city-planning
instrument of primary importance in the task of preparing and maintaining a
general plan.

A third reason for focusing attention on the social and economic impli-
cations of the general physical-design proposals in the general plan is the posi¬
tive one of making possible maximum community support for the planjj Only
a small number of the general plans published since the war have the quality
of openness that has been suggested in this discussion. Far too few profes¬
sional city planners realize how quickly most legislators and civic leaders dis¬
cover for themselves the important ways in which the life of the community
will be affected by the proposed scheme of physical organization called for
in the general plan. If these community leaders learn that the city-planning
commission and its staff are also alive to the central objectives of community
life, they will become much more interested than they had been in the past
in the work of the city-planning commission and in the policies and physical-
design proposals of the general plan. They will look upon the general plan as

118

Characteristics Relating to Governmental Procedures

an immediately useful guide for decisions and action on issues that are of
fundamental importance. Things will start to happen much more rapidly than
might have been expected. This is more likely to be true if a careful pro¬
cedure, involving a broad cross-section of the governing groups of the com¬
munity, is followed with regard to the formulation and annual reconsidera¬
tion of the community objectives and basic policies as expressed in the major
physical-design proposals of the general plan.

CHARACTERISTICS RELATING TO
GOVERNMENTAL PROCEDURES

(6) The General Plan Should Be in a Form Suitable for Public Debate

This requirement is dictated by the fact that the two primary general-
plan uses—policy determination and policy effectuation—are performed by
an elected legislative body. Such bodies, according to tradition and political
philosophy, are supposed to act on important questions of policy only after
a thorough and public debate. In carrying out such debates, experience has
demonstrated that under a democratic form of government it is essential to
have formulated as soon as possible a clear official statement of the propo¬
sition under consideration that is recognized as such by all groups and indi¬
viduals participating in the debate. Prior to its initial adoption, the general
plan as prepared in preliminary form by the city-planning commission should
serve as such a statement.^ It should, therefore, be designed to serve both as
a means of focusing the initial public debate on the basic policies and physi¬
cal-design proposals for community development. recommended in the pre¬
liminary plan and as the basis for the official legislative document that will
finally be adopted. Once the plan is adopted, it should be maintained in a
form that will enable it to serve as the official statement of legislative policy
that will be used by the council and citizens as they debate and make judg¬
ments concerning all subsequent issues affecting the physical development of
the community.

The requirement that the general plan be presented in a form that will
serve the needs of public debate imposes some very definite limitations on
the method of plan presentation. It affects the content and organization of the
official general-plan document. It also is the basic ‘‘procedural” requirement
upon which depends the validity of the remaining four suggested general-plan
characteristics.

If the general plan is to serve as an effective aid to the kind of continu¬
ous public debate we are considering, I believe that it must be presented to

119

Characteristics of the General Plan

the council and the citizens in its entirety—as a unified and complete state¬
ment—and that the plan document must also include a presentation of the
context of facts and judgments from which the plan itself was developed and
without which the logic of the plan cannot be understood. It also means that
the plan document must include a unified summary that focuses the debate
on the basic policies, the major physical-design proposals, and the schematic
drawing picturing the citywide physical-design proposals of the plan.

A significant number of the major city-planning programs established
since 1940 still do not recognize these requirements. Whether or not these
programs will continue to receive the support they have been given thus far
if their professional leaders do not submit to the legislative body for approval
a unified statement of the basic policies and major physical-design proposals
that are embodied in the technically sound general plans that they have pre¬
pared, together with the background information and interpretations that ex¬
plain the plan, only time will tell. But if the ideas defined in this book prove
to be correct, eventually they will be required to do so.

The requirement that the general plan must be organized in a form suit¬
able for public debate means that it must be submitted to the council and the
community as a single document that can be reproduced and made widely
available. In other words, it must be treated in the same manner as all other
important and controversial legislation. This means that the essential draw-
ings and maps must be designed as integral parts of a written report. It also
means that for reasons of expense, as well as of relevancy, much of the data
obtained from surveys, together with other kinds of detailed background in¬
formation, must be separated from the general-plan document itself and made
available in the form of supplementary reports. This does not mean, however,
that only the conclusions and recommendations should be presented in the
final document.

The questions that must be asked repeatedly in preparing and maintain¬
ing the general plan in a form suitable for meaningful public debate are:
What account of our reasoning, what basic factual data, what amount of his¬
torical background information, and what description of current problems
and of major alternatives considered and rejected are essential for an accurate
understanding of the proposed general physical design recommended in the
plan and of the community objectives and basic policies that are expressed
in the design? Some of the answers to these questions have already been in¬
dicated. Others are suggested in the following pages. In Chapter V these ques¬
tions are considered in detail in the discussion of the contents and organiza-

120

Characteristics Relating to Governmental Procedures

tion of the plan document that are required by the general-plan uses and

characteristics outlined in this book.

It is customary for city councils to have important policy statements
upon which they intend to act referred to the city attorney for review as to
form prior to final action. Once the general policy nature of the actions the
council wishes to take is clear, and once the role of the general-plan docu¬
ment as the basis for public debates preceding council actions is clear, most
city attorneys will become very interested in the contents and organization
of the general-plan document.

(7) The General Plan Should Be Identified as the City Council's Plan

After the general plan is adopted by the council, it will be used by many
individuals in many different capacities. Officers and committee members of
civic groups and business firms will study it and their subsequent decisions
will be influenced by it; local, state, special-district, and federal officials and
their staffs will be guided by it in planning and carrying out their respective
programs in the community; and individual citize'ns—as home owners, in¬
vestors, owners and operators of small businesses, and in many other capaci¬
ties—will consider it before making final decisions on plans of their own. It
is extremely important, therefore, that the general-plan document express
clearly the fact that the basic policies and major proposals for community
development described in the document represent the views of the legislative
body, rather than of the city-planning commission or the professional city¬
planning staff. If the general-plan document fails to do this, if it is phrased
in unnecessarily technical terms and has only a brief note of transmittal in¬
dicating, at most, perfunctory approval by the council, it is bound to foster a
misconception of the basic legislative uses of the plan in the minds of most
readers. It will also imply incorrect relationships between the professional
staff, the city-planning commission, and the city council that inevitably will
suggest methods of altering the plan that will result in a weakening of the
position of the council on the more controversial proposals that were worked
out and agreed upon at the time the plan was initially formulated and
adopted.

Undoubtedly the successful development of a general plan that is identi¬
fied in the minds of the citizens as “the council’s general plan” is primarily
a result of the procedure followed in the plan-preparation stages, of the
manner in which the debate prior to the initial adoption of the plan was con¬
ducted by the council, and the way in which the plan is used by the council

121

Characteristics of the General Plan

after adoption. If the councilmen themselves were directly involved in the task
of plan formulation, in the consideration of alternative proposals, and in the
making of the final compromises and adjustments that represent the key
proposals of every general plan, the community will know this and will know
that the plan as finally adopted will have a major influence on future com¬
munity development. The community will understand that the plan can be
changed only by legislative action. The form of the official document, how¬
ever, can help or hinder expression of the fact that it represents legislative
policy.

Most of the official general-plan documents published since the war illus¬
trate principally what not to do. The publication of the general plan in book
form, with elaborate color plates and an unusual typographic layout, although
expressive of the seriousness with which the municipal government views its
responsibility for guiding the future development of the community, cannot
help but suggest that a general plan is something that is highly technical and
complex, is very costly to prepare, and requires a major, concerted effort that
can be undertaken only once every generation. Likewise, an oversimplified,
popularized presentation with slick drawings and eye-catching cartoons is also
inappropriate. What is needed is a relatively simple, straightforward docu¬
ment—one that is plainly a working instrument designed to be used in the
normal operations of municipal government. If it is to be used by individual
councilmen during the regular meetings of the council, it must not be large
and cumbersome, it must not include unnecessary, detailed survey data, and
it must contain, as an integral part of the text, the exact, sometimes awkward,
language that was drafted by the council itself to define the policies finally
agreed upon when the plan was adopted.

Once the council learns from experience how to use the plan effectively,
the official resolution of adoption should be reshaped gradually to express
accurately why the plan is needed by the council, how the council uses it,
and where in the document the citizen reader will find the key decisions of
policy and design summarized in language for which the council members
assume direct responsibility. Although other features of the document, such
as the title page and the letter of transmittal, can be helpful in identifying the
council as the author of the plan, the resolution of adoption has great ad¬
vantages for this purpose. It is a familiar way for councils to act, and it is an
action that requires direct participation by every member of the council. Its
value should be appreciated and its advantages should be fully exploited.

The dominant position of the council in local government, its direct
responsibility to the citizens, and its tremendous influence in community de-

122

Characteristics Relating to Governmental Procedures

velopment require that the plan be the council’s plan. These realities sooner
or later make themselves felt and continually press us to improve the general-
plan document as an accurate expression of the thinking of the council that
leaves no one in doubt as to council’s role as its principal author.

(8) The General Plan Should Be Available and Understandable to the Public

This characteristic is required by each of the five legislative uses of the
general plan, but especially by the communication and education uses. It
means that copies of the complete plan document must be readily available
to every interested citizen free of charge, and that the organization, language,
and drawings used to present and describe the plan must be colloquial—they
must make full use of local, familiar terms and ways of thinking and seeing.^

If citizens cannot obtain copies of the official plan during the quiet
periods between public controversies, the work of the council will be un¬
necessarily complicated and slowed down. If the document itself, even though
available, is uninteresting, incomplete, or unclear, support for the council’s
policies will be lacking when needed and debate on the major alternatives,
which will be required if the adopted policies must be abandoned because of
lack of understanding, will not be as constructive as it could be. These lessons
of experience dictate the general-plan characteristics of availability and un-
derstandability.

The qualities that the official general-plan document must have if it is
to meet the requirements of availability and understandability are similar to
those imposed by the requirement that the plan be presented in a form suit¬
able for public debate. It has seemed important, however, to give special em¬
phasis to the tremendous advantages that the council will enjoy if the plan,
by a conscious and continuing effort, can find its way into the homes and into
the minds of the citizens when public debates and controversies do not re¬
quire that full attention focus on particular questions. Of all the general-plan
characteristics, (6) and (8) are the most obvious and, at the same time, the
most frequently ignored.

(9) The General Plan Should Be Designed to Capitalize on its Educational
Potential

Every year a new group of young people become voters, changes take
place in the membership of the council and the city-planning commission,
and new leaders in business, civic, and governmental affairs emerge. Most
communities, however, are governed by a coalition of formal and informal
leadership groups that usually remains in power for a generation or so. There

123

Characteristics of the General Plan

is a tendency on the part of such leaders and their advisors to ignore the
need for continuous educational efforts aimed at introducing the newcomers
to the basic policies and methods of municipal government. The general-
plan characteristic considered here is intended to check this tendency. Prop¬
erly understood and supported, it encourages stability in government, facili¬
tates sustained progress, and changes fundamentally the methods previously
used to govern physical development in a way that will not be opposed by
or give unfair advantage to either the incumbent political leaders or their
challengers.

If the general plan is to capitalize on its educational potential it must
attempt for each new reader to place the basic policies and design proposals
of the plan in the context that made the council judge them to be necessary
and good; it must anticipate the fact that a large proportion of the citizens
tend to be confused by the relationship of the general plan to other related
but distinctly different activities of the city-planning commission and the
municipal government; and it must, in particular, attempt to inspire and raise
the aspirations of everyone, including the members of the council, in matters
of civic design and city planning.

Many readers of the general-plan document will not have basic factual
knowledge of the geographic setting or of the main stages of historical de¬
velopment of the community. Without such knowledge the plan cannot be
understood. It must also be assumed that a large proportion of plan-document
readers will be unaware of the judgments made by the council defining the
critical major problems which the plan attempts to solve, or of the major
alternatives to the policies and proposals of the plan that were considered
and rejected. Since widespread critical understanding is required to make
the plan useful, the official general-plan document should attempt to inform
and educate on these points, and it should continue to do so, year after year.
The need to re-educate constantly tends to be forgotten by busy political and
professional leaders. No official document of any sort will solve this kind of
educational problem by itself; but it seems unwise to remove the plan from
its context if it is not necessary to do so. Experience gained in recent years in¬
dicates that we can ' summarize and present such background information
effectively in the general-plan document, hnd that in those communities where
this has been done on a continuing basis such summaries have been factors
in the gradual development of citywide improvement programs that have
received sustained and effective public support.

A special and continuous effort is also necessary to clarify the relation¬
ship of the general plan to the other activities of the municipal government

124

Characteristics Relating to Governmental Procedures

that are identified in the minds of the citizens with the work of the city¬
planning commission. The major effort to re-educate a community to bring
about a full comprehension of the major duties of the city-planning commis¬
sion must precede the development and use of a general plan. No city coun¬
cil will appropriate the funds needed to strengthen the professional staff,
without which a really useful general plan cannot be prepared, until its
members are convinced that something besides the policies and regulations
embodied in zoning and subdivision-control ordinances are needed to enable
them to bring about the high quality of over-all urban development that
every community desires.

After the councilmen and civic leaders of the community have formed
for themselves a clear idea of the essential uses of the general plan, and after
the city-planning commission has completed the first draft of the general-
plan document describing the basic policies and general physical-design
proposals, it will be as necessary as before to clarify the role of the city¬
planning commission and the uses of the general plan. Regardless of the
normal continuing educational efforts of the city-planning commission, many
citizens will confuse the proposed general plan with the zoning ordinance
and will study the general plan carefully in an attempt to discover specific
proposals that will affect them and their properties: It is necessary, therefore,
to include in the general-plan document itself a description of the relationship
of the general plan to the other major activities for which the city-planning
commission is responsible! .

It is necessary to recognize and educate others concerning the need for
defining a workable relationship to the new scope of the city-planning com¬
mission’s program that will develop naturally as a result of the adoption and
effective use of the general plan. Every city-planning commission that has
successfully completed a general plan has seen the major proposals outlined
in the plan receive serious consideration, and usually has been assigned new
tasks requiring, among other things, the preparation of what are referred to
throughout this book as detailed development plans. Studies for such plans,
whether they are concerned with large areas of the city or with citywide
functional elements, such as the park and recreation system or the public-
transit system, lead inevitably to the formulation of specific, detailed project
proposals. Proposals of this nature do not belong in the general plan. Indeed
such proposals, generally speaking, in most instances should be developed
by the operating agency directly concerned. But the fact that the general plan
will frequently require adjustments in the final designs of specific projects
prepared by the different agencies carrying out projects that are located in

125

Characteristics of the General Plan

the same area of the city seems to call for the active participation of the city-
planning commission and its staff in the coordination of the detailed design
work that must be done if the area as a whole is to be developed in a way
that will make the most of the several separate projects.

As yet we have had relatively little experience with this level of co¬
ordination of city-planning work. It marks a new stage in the development
of the profession. It may require the formation of a new staff agency closely
linked with the chief executive of the city government so that the degree of
detailed design and construction coordination required can be carried out
effectively. However, for several years city-planning commissions probably
will be expected to conduct the detailed design studies needed, and to pre¬
pare the nongeneral development plans called for. This will be especially true
in the case of areas and citywide facility systems whose emerging problems
have been identified primarily as a result of the work of the city-planning
commission, such as blighted areas for which redevelopment has been recom¬
mended and the need for integration of transit and freeway projects.

It seems apparent, therefore, that if the general plan is to remain a broad
policy instrument, and if the city-planning commission is to help rather than
hinder the powerful community desire to translate the general plan into the
reality of a more beautiful and a more functional city, a continuing effort
must be made to define the relationship between the general plan and the
detailed development studies and plans for specific areas, special features,
and functional elements that will also be needed. To achieve this the city¬
planning commission must clarify the basis upon which it intends to establish
a line of demarcation between what properly should and should not be in¬
cluded in the general plan. Then every opportunity must be taken to explain
the reasons for the distinction and the city-planning commission’s positive
interest in each of the two levels of city-planning work that are involved. As
to the effect of this requirement on the organization of the general-plan docu¬
ment itself, little can be said other than that a description of the definition
of relationships worked out should be included in the document, and that
in the document great caution should be exercised in the use of examples
and illustrations to avoid any suggestion that the major physical-design pro¬
posals in the general plan are of a detailed, specific nature.

The need for the general plan to capitalize on its educational potential
grows out of the confusion of the past and the already visible needs of the
future. This plan characteristic must be understood and expressed in the
official general-plan document and in the daily activities of the city-planning
co mmis sion and its staff if the city-planning profession is to help bring

126

Characteristics Relating to Governmental Procedures

into being the new range of civic design work that is so essential and that,
sooner or later, will parallel the work of general city planning.

One of the most difficult educational uses of the general plan by
the council involves the setting of goals and standards. Everyone agrees
that the plan should point toward a better, a more desirable physical en¬
vironment. But in moving to the center of the municipal-government stage,
in becoming an instrument of policy that the council actually uses, the
plan cannot avoid entering the real world of compromise. In the early
stages of acceptance and use, there is a danger that high standards may
be cut down in order to overcome practical arguments. For example, in
Berkeley it gradually has become clear to practically every thoughtful civic
leader that, even on the basis of very modest standards, the city must at¬
tempt during the next decade to double the amount of land devoted to
parks and playgrounds. As this policy is implemented, new leaders will
emerge and new judgments will be made as to what is desirable; the stand¬
ards in today’s plan inevitably will be raised. The plan, therefore, must be
presented in a manner that will encourage the council to raise its standards,
to reset its sights, to improve the quality both of the goals it has in mind
and the programs intended to move toward the goals.

If the members of the city-planning commission and the council are
educated by the director of city planning to understand the educational
uses of the plan, ways will be found to achieve this general-plan charac¬
teristic. Idealists as well as realists will always be present among the mem¬
bers of the legislative bodies of democratic city governments. The general
plan should be an instrument that will be fair and useful to both points
of view.

(10) The General Plan Should Be Amendable

This requirement is of paramount importance to the general-plan
concept presented in this book.)If the legislative body is presented with a
general plan in a form that makes it difficult to change, the plan will not
be kept up to date and, as a consequence, it will not be used. It is essential,
for both technical and political reasons, that the plan be maintained as
an expression of the best current judgment of the city council. A general
plan that is not amendable should not be adopted by the council?)

The policy-determination use of the general plan calls for a plan
that recognizes the significant physical-development problems and oppor¬
tunities facing the community and that enables the city council to frame
reasonable policies with regard to these problems and opportunities. Effec-

127

Characteristics of the General Plan

tive policy determination requires that such policies must be firm and definite,
but not frozen. It specifies, accordingly, that the general plan must be re¬
viewed once a year, prior to action on the financial policy of the com¬
munity as expressed in the annual budget. It also calls for a complete review
and reconsideration of the entire plan at least once every ten years so that
the implications of the accumulated annual revisions can be seen in per¬
spective and major adjustments can be made.

The policy-effectuation use of the general plan also requires a plan
that can be kept up to date. If the plan as expressed in the official docu¬
ment is one that cannot be readily amended whenever necessary to take
into account the current, changing forces that are affecting the physical
development of the community, it will not and should not be used as a guide.

Acceptance of the annual review and amendment procedure prior to
initial adoption of the plan enables the council to concentrate its first efforts
on the fundamental issues and decisions that must be faced. Knowing that
the plan will be regularly reviewed, the council is able to postpone action
on less important matters—to sidestep decisions on controversies that are
not initially of basic significance to the plan and concerning which addi¬
tional information and study would be helpful. On the other hand, knowing
that the plan will be regularly reviewed, the council will be willing to act
on the fundamental questions that must be answered if there is to be any
plan at all. In doing so, it invariably will be necessary to act in the face
of arguments calling for more study, more information, more debate. Such
arguments are no longer valid once a council has decided it must have
a publicly stated plan and has understood and committed itself to the annual
review and amendment procedure.

The requirement that the plan be amendable enables the council, over
a period of time, to constantly broaden the area of community agreement
on basic development policy. This requirement invites open reconsidera¬
tion of alternatives to major decisions and encourages the exploration of
side issues and secondary questions that, without agreements of the sort
embodied in the adopted general plan, tend to be put off endlessly.

The Berkeley Master Plan has been reviewed every year since it was
initially adopted in 1955, and several important amendments have been
made. Major decisions concerning the location of rapid-transit and free¬
way routes have been modified, urban-renewal policies and proposals have
been added, and the basic objectives, policies, and physical-design pro¬
posals of the Plan have been reaffirmed. As a result, the Plan is familiar to
both new and incumbent council members, and it has proven a solid foun-

128

Characteristics Relating to Governmental Procedures

dation for action programs and for constructive consideration of important
controversial issues. It is an imperfect plan, and some of its most important
policies and proposals were, in effect, ignored by the council for several
years after it was initially adopted. The annual amendment procedure has
made it a better plan and it also has, slowly but surely, enabled the council
to face up to the implications of its most important and most controversial
policies and proposals.

The general-plan attributes that are indicated by the requirement of
amendability are similar to those suggested by the previously considered
requirements that the general plan be in a form suitable for public debate
and that it express the thinking of the city council. It must be simply
and clearly organized, described, and indexed, and it must bring into focus
the basic policies and design proposals that form the core of the plan. It
must be designed to facilitate the annual review and amendment procedure
—to invite the making of every change that the council considers, in its
judgment, to be necessary.

Strong arguments have been made to support the view that it is not
realistic to expect the city council, for one reason or another, to keep the
general plan up to date. These arguments emphasize the technical com¬
plexity of the general plan and the need for “flexibility.” In effect, these
arguments lead to the conclusion that the top policy-making body of a muni¬
cipal government must be excluded from all policy-making activities in
one of its most important areas of responsibility.

The general-plan concept presented in this book accepts the suprem¬
acy of the city council on all key questions of public policy and attempts
to define a general plan that will enhance this supremacy and still provide
an effective instrument consistent with the technical requirements of general
physical planning for community development. The arguments that this is
impossible to accomplish must simply be set aside until a creative, sympa¬
thetic, and sustained effort has been made to develop the general plan in
a form that is expressly suited to the needs of the city council.

129

THE GENERAL-PLAN
DOCUMENT

p=Tj=>|HE suggestions presented in the following pages are necessarily on a
different plane than the ideas described in chapters III and IV. They are
suggestive rather than definitive. It will require many more years of
widespread local experience before we discover whether the needs of city
councils throughout the country will result in a common definition of the
contents and organization of the general-plan document. I believe that a
common definition of the uses and characteristics of the general plan will
emerge and will be beneficial. I am not aware of any significant agreement
within the city-planning profession, as yet, on the contents and organiza¬
tion of the general-plan document that is expressive of the uses and charac¬
teristics of the general plan, either as I have defined them or as defined
by others.

However, certain definite ideas concerning the contents and organi¬
zation of the general-plan document are suggested by the ten general-plan
characteristics based on my conviction that the city council is the primary
client of the plan. If these ideas are not recognized and emphasized, the
requirements of the federal government may encourage city councilmen
to undertake the preparation of general plans that will not be useful to
them as local legislators.

Experience in England since the passage of the 1947 Town and
Country Planning Act, and in the United States since 1949 when Congress

130

The General-Plan Document

imposed the requirement of a general physical-development plan as a con¬
dition for federal financial aid for city planning, provides convincing
evidence that we are once again in the midst of a period when higher levels
of government will attempt to specify, for their own purposes, what they
consider to be the essential uses and characteristics of the general plan
and the contents of the official general-plan document. Federal and state
governments cannot plan and govern our cities, except during limited
periods of extreme emergency. It is physically impossible for them to do so.
If they mislead themselves and local governments (or if local governments
permit themselves to be misled) into thinking that they can do so, we can
anticipate an era of good intentions and disappointing results such as we
had during the first period of the New Deal in the 1930’s. Because the
contents and characteristics of the urban general plan are now actually
being defined by federal regulations, everything possible should be done
—for the sake of the state and federal programs as well as for the success
of local programs—to encourage municipal governments to do their own
thinking and make their own decisions on general-plan questions, and to do
so, always, on the basis of their own technical and political needs.

The decision of the Town Planning Committee of the City Council
of Cambridge, England, in 1956 to publish a booklet entitled “A Guide
to the Cambridge Plan” several years after the completion of their de¬
velopment plan illustrates this point. The Cambridge Council found it
necessary to have the booklet prepared because the official plan document
adopted by the Council, which had to comply with national regulations,
was simply not useful locally. On page 1 of the booklet, the author, Mr.
Derek Senior, wrote:

... if you are interested in the Plan as a citizen, as a member of the Univer¬
sity, or as one of thousands of people all over the world who know and love
Cambridge, then you will find . . . [the official] documents by themselves of little
use. They will not tell you what the Plan is all about, or explain how one proposal
is related to the rest. . . . even if you had time to . . . [read] all these publica¬
tions you might well, in the end, find it hard to see the wood for the trees.

In this booklet I have tried to show you the wood as a wood. Since it is not a
statutory document it can concentrate on essentials , both in text and in diagrams.
When you read it you will, I hope, be able to see the Plan in the round, to
appreciate the problems which its authors had to solve, and so to reach your own
informal and independent judgment as to how well they have discharged their
task. [Emphasis added.]

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The General-Plan Document

The needs of state and federal governments to understand municipal
and metropolitan general plans are legitimate and important. After city
councils fully comprehend, for themselves, their own plans, they will see
to it that plan documents that make sense are prepared and made available.

IMPLICATIONS OF THE USES AND CHARACTERISTICS
OF THE GENERAL PLAN

The implications of the ideas that have been described thus far for
the contents and organization of the general-plan document may be sum¬
marized as follows: The general plan must be presented in the form of a
single document; the document must be designed and written so that it can
be published, made available to, and understood by, every interested citizen;
the document must be in a form that is amendable. The contents of the
document must include a summary of the plan, a description of the plan,
and a statement of the context of the plan. The plan itself must focus on
physical development; it must be long-range, comprehensive, and general;
and it must distinguish between basic policies and major physical-design
proposals. Finally, the urban general plan must be the council’s plan.

Every city-planning director, staff member, and consultant who has
been involved in the preparation and use of a general plan is aware that
the implications of the uses and characteristics of the general plan for the
contents and organization of the plan document so briefly stated above con¬
tinue to be the subject of disagreement and debate among the members
of the profession who are working in cities where the need for a plan has
been recognized. To others, the implications may appear to be questions that
are of minor importance. However, if they are not considered seriously
and are, in effect, ignored, decisions will be made concerning the contents
and organization of the plan document that will adversely affect the use¬
fulness of the plan. As a consequence, the work of the city council as it
strives to do a better job of guiding the physical development of the com¬
munity will be needlessly complicated.

In the following discussion certain of the points I try to make are il¬
lustrated particularly well by the general-plan documents published by the
cities of Cleveland (1950), Berkeley (1955), and Philadelphia (1960).
I mention these specific documents because they are available for compara¬
tive study, because they are familiar to students of general-plan theory, and
because they are expressions of successful city-planning progr ams that
have become accepted within the municipal government of each city. Each
of the documents was prepared with a different client in mind, and each

132

Contents and Organization

one, consequently, takes a very different form. The Cleveland document is
a popular report on the general plan from the city-planning commission
to the citizens of Cleveland. The Berkeley document is the official state¬
ment of the city council setting forth its long-range physical-development
policies. The Philadelphia document is a very thorough, very complete
description of the comprehensive physical-development plan for the city,
it is officially addressed to the mayor and city council, although I believe
its authors have addressed themselves primarily to their professional col¬
leagues in Philadelphia and throughout the country.

Since 1945 hundreds of general-plan documents have been published
by municipal governments throughout the United States. In the cities where
general plans have been put to use, there no longer is any uncertainty
concerning the reasons for and the reasonableness of the physical-develop¬
ment focus of the plan. Nor are there today any serious questions in these
cities concerning the essential elements of the physical environment that
must be dealt with in the general plan for physical development. There
continue to be, however, strong differences of opinion expressed concern¬
ing most of the other general-plan characteristics discussed in this book,
and, as a consequence, there are important differences as to the desirable
contents and organization of the general-plan document.

CONTENTS AND ORGANIZATION
OF THE GENERAL-PLAN DOCUMENT

The discussion of the official general-plan document that follows deals
with what I believe should be the five principal components of the document:

(1) Introductory Material

(2) Summary of the General Plan

(3) Social Objectives and Urban Physical-Structure Concepts

(4) Description of the General Plan

(a) Basic Policies and Major Physical-Design Proposals

(b) The Working-and-Living-Areas Section

(c) The Community-Facilities Section

(d) The Civic-Design Section

(e) The Circulation Section

(f) The Utilities Section

(5) Conclusion and Appendices

For the purpose of this discussion it is assumed that the public debate
preceding the initial adoption of the plan has been completed and that the

133

The General-Plan Document

plan has been adopted, as a legislative document, by the city council.

(1) Introductory Material

Three groups of ideas should be communicated to the reader in the
opening pages of the official general-plan document. First, the principal
authors, major purposes, and organization of the document must be made
clear. Second, the reasons why the municipal government is involved in
guiding the physical development of the community and the methods to
be used by the city council in carrying out its program must be stated.
And third, the existing major physical-development issues and problems
that the plan attempts to deal with must be described and presented in
their full context, including information on trends, forecasts, and assump¬
tions concerning the social, economic, and physical factors with which the
plan deals.

Anyone familiar with the importance and difficulty of establishing a
receptive frame of mind on the part of the citizen reader will agree that
the way in which the introductory sections of the official general-plan
document are handled—both as to content and design—can greatly affect
the degree of interest and respect with which the ideas and policies pre¬
sented in the document are subsequently studied and used.

The cover, title page, and official resolution of adoption, viewed
together, should provide the citizen reader and the government official with
a clear picture of the key role of the city council as the responsible author
of the plan. Most of the general-plan documents completed in the United
States since 1945 are represented as being the work of the city-planning
commission and its professional staff or consultant. Even in the relatively
few instances where general plans have been adopted by the municipal
legislative body, the council is not usually clearly identified as being re¬
sponsible for the plan. If the general-plan uses as defined in this study are
accepted, it will be necessary in reality to subordinate the role of the city¬
planning commission and its staff to the primary role of the council, and
to express this relationship in the opening pages of the general-plan docu¬
ment so that the citizen reader, in formulating and expressing his critical
judgments of the plan, will address himself directly to the members of the
city council, as well as to the members of the city-planning commission and
the professional staff.

The major purposes of the general plan and the specific ways in which
it will be used by the council can be summarized effectively. This should

134

Contents and Organization

be done in the opening pages of the document. The experiences of an in-,
creasing number of California cities suggest, as I have already indicated,
that the official council resolution of adoption is one practical means of
doing this. It not only is an authoritative statement, but the fact that it
must be formally acted upon by the council enables the director of city
planning, with the help of the city-planning commission and the chief
executive, to restate and clarify the legislative uses of the plan in the minds
of the council members at least once each year when the plan is formally
reviewed, as illustrated by the Berkeley resolutions of adoption and review.

BERKELEY CITY COUNCIL
MASTER PLAN ADOPTION RESOLUTION
April 12, 1955

RESOLUTION NO. 35,073 N.S. ADOPTING THE BERKELEY MASTER
PLAN, PROVIDING FOR THE ANNUAL REVIEW THEREOF, AND
PROVIDING FOR THE INTEGRATION OF THE CAPITAL IMPROVE¬
MENT PROGRAM AND THE PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE
CITY THEREWITH.

BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the City of Berkeley as follows:

WHEREAS, the Planning Commission of the City of Berkeley after
careful study and after two public hearings has recommended to this council
a master plan for the City of Berkeley; and

WHEREAS, this Council has carefully considered the master plan and
has held a public hearing thereon and finds that said plan constitutes a
suitable, logical, and timely plan for the future development of the City of
Berkeley over the ensuing twenty-five years.

NOW, THEREFORE, Be it Resolved, that the document consisting of
text, maps, and charts, entitled “Berkeley Master Plan” and dated 1955, is
hereby adopted as the Master Plan of the City of Berkeley in accordance
with Section 1 [of] Ordinance No. 3403 N.S.

RESOLVED, FURTHER, that in order that the Master Plan shall at
all times be current with the needs of the City of Berkeley, and shall represent
the best thinking of the Council, Planning Commission, and boards, commis¬
sions, and departments of the City in the light of changing conditions, the
Planning Commission shall annually review the Master Plan and recommend
to the Council extensions, changes, or additions to the Plan which the
Commission considers necessary. Should the Commission find that no changes

135

The General-Plan Document

are necessary, this finding shall be reported to the Council. This review pro¬
cedure should be timed so that any necessary amendments to the Master Plan
may be adopted by the Council prior to the commencement of the formula¬
tion of the Capital Improvement Program.

RESOLVED, FURTHER, that the Master Plan shall be the guide for
the Capital Improvement Program insofar as said Capital Improvement
Program affects the physical development of the City. The Planning Com¬
mission shall submit an annual report to the Council regarding the Capital
Improvement Program, which shall review each project for its conformity to
the Master Plan; review the program as a whole in order to suggest any
improvement in economy or efficiency which might be affected through the
combining of various projects; and suggest any needed improvements which
do not appear in the program.

RESOLVED, FURTHER, that all matters affecting the physical de¬
velopment of the City shall be submitted to the Planning Commission for a
report to the City Council as to conformity to the Master Plan. Such report
shall be made to the Council within thirty (30) days after presentation of
the matter to the Planning Commission, provided that said time may be ex¬
tended by the Council. If said report is not submitted to the Council within
said thirty (30) day period, or any extension thereof, the matter shall
be deemed approved by said Planning Commission.

Dated April 12, 1955

Adopted by the Council of the City of Berkeley by the following vote:

Ayes: Councilmen Beckley, Harris, Hinton, Martin, Parce, Pettitt,
Richards, Thomas and President Cross

Noes: None

Absent: None

Laurance L. Cross
Mayor and President of the Council

Attest: Ruth C. Kemp

City Clerk and Clerk of the Council

BERKELEY CITY COUNCIL
MASTER PLAN 6TH YEAR REVIEW RESOLUTION
January 2, 1962

RESOLUTION NO. 38,705 N.S. REAFFIRMING THE OBJECTIVES,
POLICIES, AND PROPOSALS OF THE BERKELEY MASTER PLAN

136

Contents and Organization

AND INSTRUCTING THE CITY PLANNING COMMISSION TO CON¬
TINUE TO STUDY AND RECOMMEND IMPROVEMENTS.

BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the City of Berkeley as follows:

WHEREAS, the Berkeley Master Plan was adopted by the City Council
in 1955 as a suitable, logical, and timely plan for the future development
of the City of Berkeley; and

WHEREAS, the Planning Commission and the City Council have
reviewed the Master Plan on an annual basis and have attempted to keep
the Master Plan current with the best thinking on the future needs of
the City; and

WHEREAS, the Planning Commission has completed the Sixth Annual
Review of the Master Plan in consultation with citizens of the City, and the
City Council has restudied the basic objectives, policies, and proposals of the
Master Plan as well as progress made toward achieving these objectives; and

WHEREAS, several Master Plan amendments are being considered
by the Planning Commission and the City Council and the Sixth Annual
Review resulted in identification of additional areas for study leading to
further amendments.

NOW, THEREFORE, Be it Resolved that the basic objectives, policies,
and principles of the Berkeley Master Plan are hereby reaffirmed; and that
the Master Plan constitutes a suitable, logical, and timely plan for future
development of the City of Berkeley.

FURTHER RESOLVED, that the amendments now under considera¬
tion and the additional areas for study, as indicated in the Sixth Annual
Review, will be reviewed and recommendations for improvements and
modifications to the Master Plan will be made as necessary.

Dated January 2, 1962

Adopted by the Council of the City of Berkeley by the following vote:

Ayes: Councilmen Brown, Debonis, Harris, Kent, May, Sweeney,
Thomas and President Hutchison

Noes: None

Absent: Councilman Beckley

Claude B. Hutchison
Mayor and President of the Council

Attest: Naomi E. Hess

City Clerk and Clerk of the Council

137

The General-Plan Document

If a community and its city council have reached the stage of political
maturity at which the actual majority leader of the council is identified
as such, it would be beneficial to augment the resolution of adoption with
a personal letter of transmittal to the citizens from the leader of the council.
One of the principal aims of such a letter should be to inspire the citizen
reader so that he will appreciate both the opportunities for improving his
community as set forth in the plan and the vital necessity of developing a
personal sense of responsibility on his own part for judging the plan and
acting to see that it is implemented. The introductory statement in the 1943
general plan for the metropolitan county of London by Lord Latham, the
parliamentary leader of the council majority, on behalf of the entire legis¬
lative body, is a superb example of what should be an essential feature of
the official general-plan document. Lord Latham’s statement follows below:

This is a plan for London. A plan for one of the greatest cities the world
has ever known; for the capital of an Empire; for the meeting place of a common¬
wealth of Nations. Those who study the Plan may be critical, they cannot be
indifferent.

Our London has much that is lovely and gracious. I do not know that any
city can rival its parks and gardens, its squares and terraces. But year by year
as the nineteenth and twentieth centuries grew more and more absorbed in first
gaining and then holding material prosperity, these graces were over-laid, and a
tide of mean, ugly, unplanned building rose in every London borough and
flooded outward over the fields of Middlesex, Surrey, Essex, Kent.

Athens was the glory of Greece, Rome the great capital of a great Empire,
a magnet to all travellers. Paris holds the hearts of civilised people all over the
world. Russia is passionately proud of Moscow and Leningrad; but the name
we have for London is the Great Wen.

It need not have been so. Had our seventeenth century forefathers had
the faith to follow Wren, not just the history of London, but perhaps the history
of the world might have been different. For the effect of their surroundings on a
people is incalculable. It is a part of their education.

Faith, however, was wanting. It must not be wanting again—no more in
our civic, than in our national, life. We can have the London we want; the London
that people will come from the four corners of the world to see; if only we deter¬
mine that we will have it; and that no weakness or indifference shall prevent it.

We shall need, and I am sure we shall have, the cordial co-operation of
other authorities, including the City of London Corporation, who are preparing
a plan for the area under their control; we shall need greatly enlarged statutory
powers; we shall need labour, materials and finance, but above all we shall need
faith and firmness of purpose. This is the challenge.

138

Contents and Organization

There are great technical difficulties in the planning and replanning of London;
but they are surmountable. I believe that the authors of this Plan have shown us
the way to surmount many of them. Nor have they set us an impossible task.
They have not forgotten that a town is a living growth; they have not forgotten
that people must continue to live and work in London, and that as soon as the
war is over there will be urgent housing and other problems which will rank
high in the order of priorities. They have shown themselves practical visionaries.
Their proposals are bold and far-reaching, but also flexible, because in their
humility they are acutely aware of the limits of human foresight. The Plan pro¬
vides for short-term needs and long-term possibilities, in order that urgent things
may be so done that they form part of the whole conception, even if it may have to
be modified as the future unfolds. In this most difficult field of period planning
the authors have, I think, successfully found a balance between the known and
the unknown. We owe them a deep debt of gratitude. They have done their best
to ease our task—the task of faith. But it remains a task. Sir William Beveridge
has talked of giants in the path of social security. There are giants too in the
path of city planning. There are conflicting interests, private rights, an outworn
and different scale of values, and lack of vision.

But just as we can move mountains when our liberties are threatened and we
have to fight for our lives, so can we when the future of our London is at stake.
If only we will. The economics are difficult, the timing is difficult, the moral,
intellectual and physical effort is difficult. I do not believe, I do not think that
any one of us really believes, that any of these difficulties is unsurmountable.
But let there be no mistake. A new London cannot be built out of mere wishing.
No bold plan can be carried out unless Parliament clothes us with ample powers
and resources. As the opportunity is inspiring, so is the task immense.

The war has given us a great opportunity, and by the bitter destruction of
many acres of buildings it has made easier the realisation of some of our dreams.
The authors of the London Plan have, I believe, taken every advantage of the
destruction which the enemies of freedom have wrought.

The fate of London in the post-war years will be one of the signs by which
posterity will judge us, and by which it is right that they should judge us. We need
and seek the constructive thought and criticism of all who have a contribution to
make, for they can help greatly in the final formulation of policy. As I write, the
Plan has not yet been submitted to the Council, and only when we have before
us the considered views of all concerned will the Council be able to decide on
the principles and projects of the Plan.

I do, therefore, most earnestly commend this Plan to the people of London
and, indeed, to all people of goodwill everywhere, for their thought, for their
criticism, but, above all, for their enthusiasm, not necessarily for the particular
projects in the Plan, but for the faith it embodies and the hope it inspires. There
is a long road to travel before London can become the city she ought to be. Most

139

The General-Plan Document

of us cannot expect to see more than the beginnings. But if we do not make these
beginnings, if we do not set our feet on the right road, we shall have missed one of
the great moments of history, and we shall have shown ourselves unworthy of
our victory.

Therefore, let us begin now.

If the fact that the council actually has a leader—as every legislative
body must and does—is not acknowledged as yet by the formal govern¬
ing habits of the community, the document should not include a letter of
transmittal. Personal statements by the chairman of the city-planning com¬
mission, or by the mayor or city manager, will confuse the reader as to
who the responsible authors of the plan really are, and can be expected
to cause the council as a whole, and its dominant members in particular,
to become less directly involved than they should and otherwise would
become.

The table of contents, if properly designed, can provide a clear picture
of the scheme of organization used and can emphasize to the reader the
importance of giving careful attention to the essential introductory and
background material before the summary and description of the plan are
considered. This is obvious to those members of the city-planning pro¬
fession who have had sustained, successful experience in the preparation,
presentation, and use of a general plan. But if one were to judge the pro¬
fession as a whole on the basis of the general-plan documents that have
been published, it would be evident that the value of a carefully designed
table of contents has not been widely appreciated. Some of the best general
plans prepared in recent years have been presented initially in documents
that contained no tables of contents at all.

Examples of actual tables of contents are shown on pages 144 and
145. The headings of the first six sections of the Philadelphia plan docu¬
ment illustrate particularly well the importance of preceding the descrip¬
tion of the plan with a presentation of the context within which the plan
has been developed. The Chico document also illustrates an excellent solu¬
tion. The Berkeley example is pedantic, but it is complete; the Philadelphia
and Cleveland documents, it will be observed, contain no summaries of the
major policies and proposals of their plans.

The second major group of ideas that must be presented in the intro¬
ductory pages of the official general-plan document is concerned with the
reasons for the city-planning program of the municipal government and
the methods used by the council in carrying out this continuing program.

140

Contents and Organization

This section of the document should sketch the historical background of
the need for community control over the physical growth and development
of the community and should enable the reader to appreciate the signifi¬
cance of the efforts of earlier generations to provide for the needs of the
future. It should present a simple and accurate description of the official,
formal duties of the city-planning commission, of the relationship of the
city-planning commission to the council, and of the uses and characteristics
of the general plan. Finally, it should include a description of the ways
in which citizens can participate in the community task of policy formula¬
tion and in the continuing work of building the city in accordance with
the policies finally agreed upon and defined in the general plan.

No brief statement of general-plan uses, such as that presented in
the resolution of adoption, will provide a sufficiently clear understanding
of the major purposes and uses of the plan. Nor will it enable the reader
to appreciate fully the practical utility of the plan. The legislative uses of the
plan must be spelled out in detail in the general-plan document, and the dif¬
ferent roles of the city council, the city-planning commission, and the inde¬
pendent citizen and civic and business groups in making use of the plan
must be clearly described. Once this has been done, the nature of the plan
that has been developed to serve these uses should be defined. Our society is
predominantly pragmatic and problem-solving, and it is never safe to as¬
sume that citizens will readily agree that long-range, comprehensive, and
general policies are actually needed or of practical value.

The way in which the presentation of the plan itself has been organized
also should be described in the introductory pages. Every community will
have its own unique combination of local conditions, attitudes, and de¬
velopment problems that will require special attention and emphasis. The
relationship of the sections of the plan dealing with these matters to the
more or less standard sections should be explained so that those proposals
which are noncontroversial and which may be taken for granted, but which
are of fundamental importance to the basic scheme, are recognized and
given proper consideration when the more controversial features of the
plan are being studied.

The third and last group of ideas that should be presented in the in¬
troductory section of the document in order to set the stage for considera¬
tion of the basic policies and major design proposals of the plan is concerned
with the substantive context of the plan. The introduction of the Philadel¬
phia document, on page ix, contains the following explanation of the im¬
portance of the context:

141

The General-Plan Document

Clear understanding of the Plan’s objectives calls first for a careful analysis
of the conditions under which it must operate. To make this possible through a
presentation of matters in their logical order, the chapters that follow deal first
with the historical developments which brought about present conditions; the
nature of the City’s people, and estimates of the size and composition of the
population of the City and Region in the future.

The strategy which this Plan proposes to carry out in meeting these problems
. . . [is] followed by a discussion of the technical concepts of planning which
serve as a framework for the entire program. What occupies the balance of the
report is a chapter-by-chapter demonstration of the way it will be applied to the
different segments of Philadelphia’s community activity.

The ideas and information needed so that the plan can be seen in its
proper context include (a) History: An outline of the main stages of the
historical development of the city and region; (b) Geography : A descrip¬
tion of the geographic setting of the city, its environs, and the larger region
of which it is a part, including a discussion of the natural resources and
other geographic factors that are of significance to the city; (c) Population
and Economic Base: A statement of current facts and conditions and of
future trends, forecasts, and assumptions concerning the population and
economy of the city and region; (d) Physical Factors: A statement of
current facts and conditions and of future trends, forecasts, and assumptions
concerning the use of land and the physical environment and facilities of
the city and region; and (e) Major Physical-Development Issues: A sum¬
mary statement of what are judged to be the critical physical-development
problems and opportunities facing the community. The judgments expressed
concerning these issues will explain the special attention given later in the
document to the most controversial proposals of the plan. The fact that
the physical-development plan about to be described is an expression of
value judgments concerning many nonphysical factors, and that, of neces¬
sity, this will always be true, should be emphasized. The Philadelphia plan
document makes this point on page ix:

Any plan such as this is prepared by fallible people in a fallible society.
It is important to be explicit at the outset about the terms within which this Plan
has been prepared.

Major parts of it are based upon careful statistical analyses and projections.
Other parts, of necessity, are the product of judgments made in the field of human
values—values which cannot be measured statistically, but which, as factors in¬
fluencing final decisions, are just as important as the measurable ones. The value
judgments employed here are set forth as explicitly as possible, but public officials

142

Contents and Organization

and citizens who study this Plan should be aware that explicitness is not always
possible.

Although many of the successful general plans developed in the post¬
war period have been presented in documents that included, in one form or
another, the introductory material outlined here, the leaders of some of
the most outstanding programs have recently been suggesting that the plan
document now should be stripped of everything but the summary and a
brief description of the main sections of the plan. I believe this would
be a mistake. As explained in the discussions of general-plan uses and
characteristics, the need to educate and re-educate is a continuing one.
Policies dealing with controversial issues cannot be understood out of con¬
text. What one generation of leaders has learned to take for granted should
not have to be rediscovered by accident by the next generation.

(2) Summary of the General Plan

From a technical point of view, the process of plan preparation is not
complete until the basic policies and major physical-design proposals as
finally integrated in the plan have been identified and evaluated as a unified,
interrelated group of ideas. Likewise, from a political point of view, the
task of presenting the plan in a suitable document is not complete until
the ways in which the plan should be used are fully understood and until
this understanding is expressed in a manner that will satisfy the govern¬
mental-procedures characteristics required by the general-plan uses. These
requirements, as described in chapters III and IV, specify the need for a
summary of the plan and for the presentation of this summary in a written
and graphic form that is nontechnical and readily understandable.

In organizing an effective summary of the plan that will meet the needs
of the council, it is necessary, first, after distinguishing the policies and
proposals of primary importance from those of secondary importance, to
reduce the relatively large number of significant proposals and new ideas
embodied in every general plan to a group that is of manageable size.
Second, there is the problem of integrating the written and graphic presen¬
tation of the major policies and proposals of the plan into a single summary.
And third, there is the organizational problem of placing and identifying
the summary in the general-plan document in such a way that it will be
seen and judged in its proper context.

Inevitably, every proposed general plan for the physical development
of a community will contain a fairly large number of important new ideas
and recommendations. Only after the technical work of plan preparation

143

BERKELEY MASTER PLAN

TABLE OF CONTENTS

AMENDMENTS. i

Chapter I INTRODUCTION. 1

Chapter II BACKGROUND. 5

Chapter III ASSUMPTIONS.15

Chapter IV OBJECTIVES.17

Chapter V SUMMARY.19

Chapter VI POPULATION SECTION.23

Chapter VII LAND USE SECTION. 25

Residential Areas Division.26

Commercial Areas Division . 37

Industrial Areas Division . • 49

University of California Division • • • • 55

Chapter VIII CIRCULATION SECTION.61

Trafficways Division •«•••••• 63

Transit Division. 81

Chapter K PUBLIC FACILITIES AND SERVICES SECTION . . 85

Schools Division ..87

Recreation Division. 91

Fire Station Division «••••••• 96a

Chapter X THE WATERFRONT SECTION . 97

Chapter XI REALIZATION OF THE PUN.103

Appendix A SCHEDULE OF MAP CHANGES.108

CHICO GENERAL PLAN

22 Map: General Plan

Airports

Blight

27 THE CHICO GENERAL PLAN

CONTENTS

1 CHICO AND THE GENERAL PLAN
How the General Plan Was Made
3 HOW THE GENERAL PLAN WILL BE USED
5 CURRENT CONDITIONS: FUTURE TRENDS
Population

6 Table: Butte County Population Projections, State Department
of Water Resources

7 Table: California, Butte County and Chico Urban Area
Population 1940-1960 and Projection to 1985

Employment
Residential Expansion
Agriculture
Industry

10 Map: Existing Land Use

Retail Trade
Chico State College
Schools
Junior College
Recreation
Civic Center
Flood Control
Utilities
Trafficways

Major Policies
Residential Areas
Commercial Areas
Industrial Areas
Chico State College
Schools

Recreation Parks

Public Buildings and Other Public Facilities
Trafficways

38 Map: 1985 Trafficways
39 FROM PLAN TO BEAUTY
Annexation

Keeping the Plan Current

Coordination of Governmental Activities

Zoning

Subdivision Regulations
Precise Street Plans
Urban Renewal
The Role of Citizen Groups

44 APPENDIXES

1 Existing Urban Area Land Use, 1960, City of Chico and Vicinity
Proposed Urban Land Uses, City of Chico and Vicinity

2 Population Holding Capacity and Projected Elementary

School Enrollments, by Residential Area

3 Chico Schools: Existing Facilities and Future Needs

4 Recreation Park Standards

5 Traffic Projections Method

6 Street Cross Sections, Minimum Standards

CONTENTS OF THE

GENERAL-PLAN

DOCUMENT

Introduction ix

The City and Its History 11

Costs and Strategy 14

The City’s People 18

The Economy 27

General Concepts opp.32

The Plan for Industry 33

The Plan for Commerce 44

The Plan for Recreation
and Community Facilities 57

The Plan for Residence 70

The Plan for Transportation 92

Map of Comprehensive Plan 105

Map of Existing Land Use 107

CLEVELAND GENERAL PLAN

contents

introduction 4

land use 6

business areas 1

industrial land use 10

residential land use 14

neighborhood improvement 18

lakefront development 22

recreation 26

major thorofares 30

transit 34

public services 38

local planning areas 40

from plan to reality 44

acknowledgments 46

facts and figures 47

145

The General-Plan Document

has been completed will it be possible to identify these proposals in their
final context and to determine their importance in relation to one another.
When this has been done, the principal ideas of the plan will become clear
—whether they are logically classified (a) as policies, which express as¬
sumptions, goals, principles, and standards, or (b) as major physical-
design proposals, upon which most of the remaining features of the plan
are dependent. The final step that must be taken is to judge which of
these ideas and recommendations constitute, as a group, the ten to fifteen
most important policies and proposals of the plan, and then to restate
them in written and graphic terms that will be understood locally.

The London and Berkeley plans provide good examples of the written
portion of the summary that is required. The main ideas of the 1951 official
physical-development plan for London prepared by the London County
Council are presented in a summary entitled “London: The Next Twenty
Years.” The first fourteen points are grouped under the heading, “The
Main Principles of the Plan.” The principles describe the primary social
and economic activities that the physical plan provides for, and the key
decisions concerning reconstruction and decentralization, the main ideas
embodied in the sections of the plan dealing with commercial, industrial,
and residential elements, and the controls placed on population growth
as a result of the adoption of higher standards for housing and community
facilities, particularly schools and playgrounds. The second section of the
summary is entitled “The Main Proposals in the Plan.” It contains, under
seven headings, brief descriptions of the most important physical-design
proposals and translates them into quantitative terms, such as acres, miles of
roadway, number of schools, and the like.

The Berkeley plan summary, as restated in the preceding chapter on
pages 114 and 115, also illustrates the practicality and value of trying to
to make the most of the general-plan summary. Neither the Cleveland nor
the Philadelphia plan documents include summaries of the London and
Berkeley type. The omission of this clarifying effort in each of these other¬
wise outstanding plans is probably explained by the lack of a demanding
client. The city councils in London and Berkeley had to understand and
take final action on their respective plans, which was not the case in either
Cleveland or Philadelphia.

Any attempt to summarize all of the ideas and proposals that seem
to be “significant”—any attempt, in other words, that is aimed at complete¬
ness in a literal sense—is bound to result in a statement that is too complex
and too lengthy to serve as a summary. If the general plan is to be used

146

Contents and Organization

effectively, it is essential in organizing the summary to exercise great re¬
straint in order to limit the number of ideas and recommendations to be
included, and to avoid the use of too many classifying terms. In doing
this, however, care must be taken not to misrepresent by oversimplification.
This is admittedly an extremely difficult task. The only alternative method
of dealing with this problem that has been used requires the preparation
of several summaries of relatively equal importance, one for each major
classification of ideas or for each physical element dealt with m the plan.
Such alternatives will not meet the needs of' the council members or the
average citizen reader. It is essential to prepare a single unified summary
of the principal policies and proposals embodied in the plan, and to do
so without the use of complex groupings and terms. As will be made clear,
this does not mean that the dependence of the design proposals on the
underlying assumptions, objectives, principles, and standards, and on the
basic policies that result from the combination of these factors to provide
the basis for the general physical design, should not be plainly spelled out
elsewhere in the general-plan document. It does mean that the summary
must actually be a summary, and must, therefore, deal in an uncomplicated
manner with the major policies and proposals that define the essence of
the plan.

Another good example of the value and feasibility of the kind of >
rough summary being suggested is the ten-point memorandum summarizing
the general plan for the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region issued by the
late President Kennedy in 1962. The statement, and a schematic drawing of
the physical plan it describes, are reproduced on pages 148-149. This
written and graphic summary of the plan, when studied in the context of
the plan document, The Nation’s Capital: A Plan for the Year 2000, enables
any interested citizen to grasp readily the main ideas of the plan.

As indicated in the preceding chapter, my experience suggests that
the ways in which the plan has to be used require a single summary that
is composed of three closely related parts: policies, physical-design pro¬
posals, and a simple schematic drawing. Authors of city plans have made
very little progress in the successful development of this vitally important
feature of the general-plan document in the form suggested. Most general
plans do include a carefully prepared written summary of their major
physical-design proposals, and every year more plan documents are published
in which attempts are made to summarize the basic policies that are ex¬
pressed in the physical design, but almost all published plans still rely on
the large-scale general physical-design drawing to serve as the graphic

147

SUMMARY OF THE GENERAL PLAN
FOR WASHINGTON

TEXT OF MEMORANDUM BY JFK ON PLANNING *

Text of 1962 Memorandum by the late President Kennedy summarizing the basic
development policies approved by him for the Washington , D.C., metropolitan region.

Because of the importance of the Federal interest in the National Capital Region, I
want the greatest possible coordination of planning and action among the Federal
agencies in developing plans or making decisions which affect the Region.

Decisions of the Federal Government affect directly and indirectly the location of
employment centers, highways, parks, airports, dams, rapid transit, utilities, and public
and private housing. These decisions all have a crucial bearing on the future develop-
ment of the metropolitan area outside as well as within the District of Columbia.

In order that the effect of the Federal Government’s activities on the Region will
be consistent and directed in a manner which will foster the implementation of modern
planning concepts, the following development policies are established as guidelines for
the agencies of the executive branch, subject to periodic review.

1. Planning for the Region shall be based on the prospect that regional population
will approximate 5 million by the year 2000.

2. The corridor cities concept recommended by the Year 2000 Plan, prepared by the
National Capital Planning Commission and the National Capital Regional Planning
Council in 1961, shall be supported by agencies of the executive branch as the basic
development scheme for the National Capital Region.

3. The success of the corridor cities concept depends on the reservation of substan-
tial areas of open countryside from urban development. It shall be the policy of the execu¬
tive branch to seek to preserve for the benefit of the National Capital Region strategic
open spaces, including existing park, woodland, and scenic resources.

4. It shall be the policy of the executive branch to limit the concentration of Federal
employes within Metro-Center, as defined in the Year 2000 Plan, over the next four
decades to an increase of approximately 75,000.

5. It shall be the policy of the executive branch that new facilities housing Federal
agencies outside Metro-Center shall, to the maximum extent possible, be planned, lo¬
cated, and designed to promote the development of the suburban business districts
which will be required to serve the new corridor cities.

6. Planning to meet future transportation requirements for the Region shall assume
the need for a coordinated system including both efficient highway and mass transit
facilities, and making full use of the advantages of each mode of transportation.

7. It shall be the policy of the executive branch to complete and enhance the Mall
complex as a unique monumental setting.

8. It shall be the policy of the executive branch to house new public offices of an
operational nature in non-monumental buildings which, through the use of the highest
quality of design and strategic siting, will have a dignity and strength to establish their
public identity. Within Metro-Center, this policy shall be carried out by locating new
nonmonumental Federal buildings in relatively small but strategically situated groups
in and adjacent to the Central Business District.

9. It shall be the policy of the executive branch to encourage the development of
a system of small urban open spaces throughout the District of Columbia as adjuncts

* Washington Post , November 28, 1962.

148

THE WASHINGTON RADIAL CORRIDOR PLAN

New Town Centers Source; I he Notions Capital A Plan

4 for the Year 2000. National Capital

r 1 Controlled Open Space Planning Commission and Regional

L - J Planning Council, 1961.

<•' Baltimore and Annapolis
• Metro-Center

0 10 ?() Miles

^ Main Communication Lines L ■ 1

to the development of new Government, institutional, commercial and high-density
residential facilities. In addition, a system of important streets and avenues shall be
designated for special design coordination and treatment.

10. The executive branch will participate with local governments in the formulation
of complementary policies essential to the coordinated development of the cgion.

I am requesting each department and agency head concerned to give full con¬
sideration to these policies in all activities relating to the planning ant tcvcopmen
of the National Capital Region, and to work closely with the plannmg bod.es wh.ch
have responsibilities for the sound and orderly development of the entire area.

The General-Plan Document

portion of the summary. The general-plan concept as defined here calls for
a much simpler and much more schematic summary drawing, and for a
conscious integration of this drawing with the written portion of the sum¬
mary. The professional staff members engaged in the preparation of the
general plan for Oakland, California, found it useful to prepare a schematic
drawing of the plan as an integral feature of the summary. The unified
summary of the Oakland general plan is shown on pages 152-153. In
Oakland, the city council is the general-plan client, and they adopted the
plan in 1959.

The fact that there are very few good examples as yet of the kind of
schematic general-plan summary drawing that I am suggesting is under¬
standable. The task of preparing technically sound general plans absorbed
most of our time and attention during the initial postwar decade. This led
first, inevitably, to widespread recognition on the part of city-planning
commissioners and professional staff members of their own need for the
unified, large-scale general-plan reference drawing, an excellent example
of which is the 34% -by-24% -inch drawing which is folded and enclosed
in an envelope at the back of the Cleveland plan document. During the
following period, bringing us up to the present day, we have been concen¬
trating on the description, presentation, and use of general plans that were
not designed to serve as legislative policy instruments. Hence, we have seen
a continued reliance on the comprehensive and complete general-plan
drawing as the focal graphic feature of technically sound but overly com-
p!ex general-plan documents. The general-plan drawing in the Philadelphia
document is an excellent illustration of this. In the years ahead, the need
for a simplified schematic summary drawing should become clear. If the
legislative uses of the general plan as discussed in this book have been
correctly understood and defined, ways will be found to solve the graphic-
design and communication problems that are involved in the preparation
of an effective unified summary, and the summary drawing will become one
of the principal features of every general-plan document.

The placing of the summary in the official document requires special
attention. The document as a whole must be organized in such a way that
the summary can be found easily. At the same time, the dependence of
the summary on the introductory material must be made unmistakably
clear. One way of meeting these practical requirements is to place the sum¬
mary at the end of the introductory sections of the document, and to use
some simple device, such as pages of a different color from those used
in the remainder of the document, so that the reader’s attention will be
150

Contents and Organization

attracted to it and so that he will be able to locate it easily. The special
needs of the general-plan document seem to suggest a variation from the
rules of common practice with regard to report writing which normally
would call for placing the summary either at the end or at the beginning
of the document.

(3) Social Objectives and Urban Physical-Structure Concepts

The success of every significant sustained city-planning effort in the
past has resulted primarily from the fact that the major physical-design
proposals of the general plan used to direct the effort were a reasonably
accurate expression of a set of basic policies that recognized the most im¬
portant needs and desires of the community, regardless of whether or not
the policies were explicitly stated in the plan. There are countless examples
of proposed plans that have been rejected or ignored because they were
not in accord with the social objectives of the community.

The fact that the major physical-design proposals of every general plan
are the direct expression of a single, abstract urban physical-structure con¬
cept is brought out clearly by the Philadelphia plan. This plan also at¬
tempts to clarify the relationships between the dominant physical elements
of the environment and social objectives by explaining that the urban
physical-structure concept consciously selected for Philadelphia was chosen
because it was judged that it would best facilitate the achievement of one
assumed major social objective. The Philadelphia document is exceptional
because of the open manner in which it has related major physical-design
proposals, social objectives, and an urban physical-structure concept to
one another. I have no doubt that the qualities of intellectual confidence
and professional clarity that the plan expresses explain in no small measure
the strong support that has been given to the city-planning program in
Philadelphia since the early 1940’s by the governmental and civic leaders
of this city.

The Philadelphia example illustrates particularly well the value of
concentrating the main discussion of these subjects in a separate section of
the document. One cannot study the Philadelphia plan even casually with¬
out becoming aware, as a result of the distinctive treatment given to it, of
the importance of the chapter entitled, “General Concepts,” and of the funda¬
mental importance of the objectives and concepts described in the chapter
to the actual plan itself. Many of the difficulties caused by discussing such
abstract ideas separately, in a single chapter, somewhat apart from the
familiar physical features of the city with which the actual general physical-

151

UNIFIED SUMMARY OF

THE OAKLAND GENERAL PLAN

SUMMARY

The drawing to the left represents in schematic fashion the pattern of future develop¬
ment proposed in the Oakland General Plan. It illustrates the basic requirements for
Oakland’s growth as a regional center: a well-developed central business district, an
extensive industrial area, and an efficient transportation system for movement by air,
water, rail and highway. The schematic plan shows the way in which these functions
should be related to the future pattern of residential areas and major recreation facilities.

Because of its size and geographic location, and the historical pattern of relationships
to the region that has developed, Oakland performs important regional as well as
local functions. These include retail and wholesale distribution, administrative and
manufacturing activities—some shared with San Francisco, some Oakland s unique con¬
tribution to the region. Just as transcontinental rail and deep-water port and storage
facilities are crucial to industrial growth, so too are the regional freeway and rapid
transit systems essential for transporting shoppers and workers to the Central Business
District and industrial areas. Oakland’s growth as a regional center will require maxi¬
mum exploitation of the city’s unique competitive advantages in the region and the
Pacific area.

The schematic plan illustrates an important principle of city development: the sepa¬
ration of living areas from working areas. More than two-thirds of the area of the city
is planned as living area: neighborhoods of homes together with their schools, parks,
churches, shopping centers and other facilities. As the primary areas for the develop¬
ment of wholesome family life and the education of youth, these living areas must
be designed for beauty, safety and quiet, and protected against the noise, traffic and
confusion found in working areas.

Working areas occupy the remaining third of Oakland’s land. These commercial and
industrial areas function best if not hampered by residential development in their midst
For this reason, the General Plan delineates major living areas and working areas and
draws a boundary between them.

The Central Business District is the commercial, administrative and cultural heart of
Oakland. Because its successful functioning depends on a concentration of activities
in a limited area, its actual size understates its local and regional significance. Indus¬
trial activities—manufacturing, wholesaling and warehousing occupy the balance of
the working area. They are situated on level lands along the Estuary and Bay and are
well served by rail, highway, ocean and air transportation. Planning for the expansion
of much of the industrial area is the responsibility of the Port of Oakland. Port plans
are incorporated in the General Plan and integrated with plans for the rest of the city.

The schematic plan illustrates Oakland’s enviable setting: a growing urban area with
San Francisco Bay on one side and regional parks and watershed hill lands on the
other. Fingers of open land reach into the city from the hills while the Bay has reached
into the heart of the city to form Lake Merritt. Preservation of this natural beauty is
one of the four goals of the General Plan.

Land allocations for working areas and residential densities in living areas have been
based on an expected population of one half million by 1980. With the explosive
growth of the Bay Area, it is possible that such an increase—one quarter again Oak¬
land’s present population—may be reached before this date. If Oakland wishes to en¬
courage a more rapid population growth, the Plan will be adjusted accordingly.

153

The General-Plan Document

design proposals deal, will be overcome as more experience is gained. The
advantages, as illustrated by the Philadelphia example, are clear.

In the first paragraph of the “General Concepts” chapter of the Phila¬
delphia plan, the major assumed social objective of the plan is stated and
what is judged to be the main problem to be solved by the urban physical-
structure concept is defined.

Formerly, cities were built for the protection and enjoyment of a fortunate
few—others were left to find what advantages they could in city life and, doubtless,
even for these the advantages were considerable. In the present democratic era,
however, the only allowable objective is that ALL men be helped to avail them¬
selves of ALL of the opportunities which the city offers and, if possible, to avoid
the more harmful effects of city life. For City Planning, which must serve the
instinct of the age, this means planning the city in such a way that all people have
good access to facilities of all kinds. Here is one of the great technical objectives
of contemporary planning and perhaps it will play the same role in giving cities
form, which the requirements of military defense, trade and industry have each
played at various times in the past.

The remainder of the “General Concepts” chapter in the Philadelphia
plan is devoted to an explanation and justification of the urban physical-
structure concept that was consciously adopted as the basis of the general
plan, and of which the general physical-design proposals of the plan are
simply an elaboration. The physical-structure concept chosen is the familiar
and controversial one that has been adopted by practically every large Euro¬
pean city and by a steadily increasing number of America’s major cities—the
concept of a main center as the dominant point, surrounded by constellations
of lesser centers, with residential communities throughout the entire area
accessible to the centers and industrial concentrations at daily peak hours
mainly by means of a fixed regional rail rapid-transit system. There is,
unfortunately, no simplified, diagrammatic summary drawing of the con¬
cept, although the drawing shown on page 155, which appears in the
Philadelphia plan document in a subsequent chapter, does this very well except
for the omission of the circulation element.

The decision in the Berkeley plan, which recommended support for
a regional rapid-transit system for the metropolitan San Francisco Bay Area
several years before the system now being built was planned, was based
on a similar set of objectives and a similar physical-structure concept, as
explained in Chapter IV in the discussion of general-plan characteristics.
However, neither the Berkeley nor the Cleveland general-plan documents
contain discussions of the sort being suggested here.

154

PHYSICAL-STRUCTURE CONCEPT

OF THE PHILADELPHIA COMPREHENSIVE PLAN

SCHEMATIC FORM OF CITY

This drawing, which appears in the official 1960 Philadelphia Comprehensive Plan
document in the chapter describing the plan element concerned with business and com¬
mercial activities, illustrates superbly the effectiveness of a schematic drawing in simpli¬
fying and clarifying the proposed basic structure of a general plan for physical de¬
velopment. Such drawings are used frequently in plan documents for small cities; they
are even more necessary, and just as feasible, for very large cities. In the above draw¬
ing, the rectangle symbolizes the central business district, and the dots and circles in¬
dicate the relationships between this district and locations for commercial activities of
a regional, intermediate, local, and convenience nature.

155

The General-Plan Document

The need to acknowledge and clarify the relationships between the
social objectives, the urban physical-structure concept, and the general
physical-design proposals of every plan will inevitably be recognized. Major
alternatives exist at each of the three levels of ideas. As a result, major
controversies also exist at each level. The leaders of the city-planning pro¬
fession should take the initiative in bringing about open consideration of
these issues; if they do not, other professionals surely will. The suggestion
that every general-plan document should feature a discussion of these matters
is intended to enable the political leaders of our cities to become aware of
the far-reaching social and economic implications of general plans for
physical development, and to enable them to take control of their city¬
planning programs, regardless of questions of professional jurisdiction.

(4) Description of the General Plan

For the purpose of technical study as well as for the purpose of public
presentation and explanation, the chapter containing the description of the
plan should group the sections comprising this portion of the document
in accordance with some logical sequence of presentation. Many plan docu¬
ments still fail to do this. I suggest six sections in the following order:

(a) Basic Policies and Major Physical-Design Proposals

(b) The Working-and-Living-Areas Section

(c) The Community-Facilities Section

(d) The Civic-Design Section

(e) The Circulation Section

(f) The Utilities Section

It should be remembered that in an actual general-plan document the
chapter in which the general physical-design proposals are presented in full
will constitute the main body of the document. Each physical element dealt
with in the plan should be described in whatever detail is necessary, in
words and drawings, and the proposals in each section should be presented
against a background that includes a statement of existing conditions, sum¬
maries of significant trends and forecasts, a discussion of the- pertinent
policies and value judgments, descriptions of the city-planning standards
and principles used, and a review of the major alternatives considered be¬
fore the final policy and design decisions were reached.

Each of the five sections dealing with the physical elements covered
by the general physical design, when seen in the plan document, will pre-

156

Contents and Organization

sent explanations of proposals that already have been presented in the
unified summary of the plan. Hence, the principal relationships of each
major design proposal to the other design proposals, to the site, and
to the major policies already have been indicated. However, before they
are isolated so that they can be studied and understood more fully, the
basic simplicity and unity of the scheme should be emphasized in the manner
described in section (a) below.

(a) Basic Policies and Major Physical-Design Proposals. Preceding the
description of the physical-design proposals of the plan, those basic policies
that have had the most obvious and direct influence on the design as a
whole should be restated and the most important and controversial policies
should be reiterated. This reiteration should not be a detailed exposition, and
it should not be abstract. Statements on the full implications of the policies
expressed in the plan will be included in the appropriate sections of the
chapter, and the most important social objectives and physical-structure
concepts already have been highlighted earlier. But the major physical-
design proposals of the plan will be better understood if at the very outset
of their full presentation the reader is required to recognize the funda¬
mentally intuitive, nonscientific foundations of social and professional value
judgments—the most important of which are termed basic policies —upon
which the entire plan has had to be worked out. By the time the reader
has reached this point in his study of the document he will be aware of
the main ideas of the plan; he will be ready to focus his attention on the
most important controversial policy issues dealt with by the council in
making the plan.

In the Berkeley Master Plan, for example, the description of the tra¬
ditional physical elements of the community that are dealt with in general
physical-design proposals is preceded by a one and one-half page state¬
ment that emphasizes the fact that the Plan is based to a very large extent
on the judgment that the predominantly low-density residential character
of Berkeley should be maintained throughout the city, if Berkeley is to
continue to play its specialized role as a university-residential community
in the metropolitan Bay Area, and that this policy leads to density and pop¬
ulation-distribution proposals that will limit the number of people who
can be permitted to live in Berkeley. Elsewhere in the document it is made
plain that the validity of the physical plan, in a practical sense, is com¬
pletely dependent on the political will of the community, as exercised by

157

The General-Plan Document

the city council, to carry out this policy by a drastic revision of the exist¬
ing zoning ordinance. The text of the Berkeley Master Plan presents these
ideas in the following way:

The question of the future population of the City is a problem basic to all four
sections of the Master Plan. One of the objectives of the Plan is to “reach a
balance between the number of families in Berkeley and the space we have to live
in.” The number of families which a given area of land will support depends
upon the standards the people set for themselves regarding the character and
density of residential development, the size and distribution of parks, schools,
libraries, and other public facilities, and the amount of land devoted to commerce
and industry.

Standards for density and distribution of population set forth in the residential
portion of the Master Plan are based on a belief that the great majority of
Berkeley citizens wish to retain the generally open and uncrowded character
which the City has today. These standards establish an ultimate population for
Berkeley (exclusive of the waterfront lands) of 180,000 persons. It should be
emphasized that 180,000 is not necessarily the goal toward which the City is
aiming, but that this population is the maximum which the area of Berkeley can
accommodate with the standards established by the Plan. The ultimate population
of Berkeley could become larger than 180,000, but only by accepting more
crowding in the residential areas . . . Implementation of the Plan by means of
sound zoning regulation will permit the people of Berkeley to control this most
important single element affecting the future character of their City.

The general plan for metropolitan Copenhagen affords another ex¬
ample of how to attract attention to the fact that a plan for any urban com¬
munity, regardless of size, is the expression of a relatively few really basic
value judgments and design decisions. In the description of the 1960 plan,
published by the Greater Copenhagen Regional Planning Office, the basic
policies expressed in the plan are described under the heading “Main Ob¬
jectives”:

The advantages of the large city are, for the individual, the many and varied
employment opportunities, wide choice of consumption goods and access to a
wide range of cultural, social and entertainment facilities. For commerce and
industry the advantages are the presence of a large and highly diversified labour
supply, and a large consumer market, together with excellent opportunities for
industrial linkage and mutual cooperation.

However, these advantages are only achieved where the various parts of the urban
region are in close physical contact, and form an effectively integrated whole . . .

158

Contents and Organization

Despite technical improvements in their transport systems, there is in most metro¬
politan regions at the present day a steady increase in the average length of the
“joumey-to-work.” The proportion of the national product accounted for by trans¬
port costs also shows a steady increase, despite a considerable rise in the general
level of production. One of the essential aims of planning should be to counteract
these tendencies, since they curtail leisure time and restrict the rise in the standard
of living. This aim can be achieved in two ways, partly by increasing the speed
of the transport services, and partly by limiting the length of the journeys. In the
[1950] Finger Plan, this aim was realized by means of consistently concentrating
all new developments along the suburban railways. Thus, travelling time was
limited by making the fullest possible use of transport services with comparatively
high speeds.

\

Up to the present [support for] the Finger Plan has ensured that the urban region
could function as an integrated whole. Wherever one lives in the Finger Plan
region, once can reach most of the places of employment within reasonable travel¬
ling time. The offices and commercial establishments of the central area, and most
of the region’s industrial areas, can be reached within 45 minutes. Similarly,
there is a wide choice of residential areas within reasonable travelling time of the
city center and of the other main centers of employment.

However, if the population of the capital rises to million [from the present
IV 2 ] and the built-up area becomes three times greater than at present, then the
urban region will become so large in extent that it will no longer be possible to
find a place to live within a reasonable distance of the centers of employment.
There will be an unduly long journey to work and unreasonably high travelling
expenses.

It should, therefore, be one of the essential aims of planning not only to increase
the speed of the transport services, but also to restrict the actual length of the
journey to work.

Reduction in travelling distance can only be achieved by making it easier for the
individual to find employment, and to satisfy other everyday needs, in that part of
the urban region where he lives. If this is to be achieved, there must be decentrali¬
zation . . . [and] new “city sections” [must be created], which will accommodate
entirely new as well as relocated enterprises . . . [They] must be sufficiently large
to support . . . [industry, commerce, and cultural and entertainment facilities],
and . . . must be so placed as to be easily accessible to all the inhabitants . . .

While this decentralization is taking place, the new “city sections” should be linked
up with the existing metropolitan area in such a way that the region functions as
an integrated whole, and so that one can reach the city center and the other centers
of employment from the new “city sections” as quickly as possible.

159

MAIN IDEAS OF THE COPENHAGEN GENERAL PLAN

Source: Greater Copenhagen Planning: Status, Steen Eiler Rasmussen, Copenhagen,
1952. (Published by Ejnar Munksgaard, under the auspices of the the Copenhagen
Regional Planning Committee.)

Alternatives and Recommended 1948 General Plan: The first five drawings show the
major alternative metropolitan physical-structure concepts considered. The sixth draw¬
ing clarifies and emphasizes the main ideas embodied in the recommended Plan, num¬
ber 5. The Plan, which provides for a population of 1,700,000, has been known
popularly as the “Finger Plan.”

160

Proposed 1960 Revision of the 1948 General Plan: This simplified drawing shows
graphically the main ideas of the revised Plan. It compliments the written summary
of the “Main Objectives” of the Plan. The documents presenting the 1960 General
Plan and an English translation of the official report contain a number of remarkably
effective drawings, both of the general physical design as related to specific features
of the site and of the main ideas expressed in the form of diagrams adapted to the
site. The area shown above is approximately 30 miles by 50 miles. The revised Plan
provides for a population of 2.5 million; the population in 1960 was 1.5 million.

161

The General-Plan Document

Increasing distances ought therefore to be accompanied by an increase in the
speed of travel, so that the time spent in travelling between the new “city
sections,” and the existing metropolis is kept within reasonable limits. Rapid
means of transport—motorways, and railways with widely separated stations—
must link together the important points, i.e., they must bring into close contact the
centers of the new “city sections” and the center of Copenhagen itself.

The section of the Copenhagen plan document from which the above para¬
graphs have been excerpted obviously is intended to focus attention on
the major metropolitanwide development policies that were judged to be
necessary if the assumed social and economic objectives so clearly stated
in the first paragraph are to be achieved. Combined with the schematic
general-plan drawings shown on pages 160 and 161, this statement leaves
the reader in no doubt as to the main ideas of the plan, and illustrates su¬
perbly well the kind of discussion that should serve as the final prelude to
the full presentation of the physical elements of the community as expressed
in major physical-design proposals.

It is also necessary at some point prior to the discussion of the in¬
dividual physical elements dealt with in the plan to call attention to and
to explain the importance of the large-scale general-plan drawing, regardless
of its location in the document. The manner in which the different sections
of the plan have been integrated into a unified scheme will become more
and more apparent to the reader as he considers each set of proposals in
sequence. But it will be helpful to him if he realizes at the outset of the
chapter that the large-scale general-plan drawing has been prepared especially
to show in relatively realistic terms the relationships between the different
physical elements and to emphasize both the unity of the citywide general
physical-design proposals and the necessary compromises and adjustments
that have had to be made in arriving at a workable plan.

Many postwar general-plan documents contain in the chapter describ¬
ing the plan an opening statement which refers to the large-scale general-
plan drawing and emphasizes the unity of the physical elements of the com¬
munity described in the plan. Very few, however, ever attempt to state
openly the most important value judgments and intuitive hunches that have
been made concerning what is “desirable” and upon which the most impor¬
tant physical-design proposals are based.

(b) The Working-and-Living-Areas Section. This section deals with the
proposed general location, character, and extent of the central business

162

Contents and Organization

district and the industrial, residential, and secondary commerical areas of
the city. Other uses of land that require significantly large areas or concen¬
trations of activity, such as major parks and universities, must also be dealt
with in this section. Residential-area design proposals must indicate the popu¬
lation densities called for, and the local and district residential-area bound¬
aries used in the determination of the density and holding-capacity proposals.
The proposals for the industrial areas should be sufficiently described in
the explanatory text and on the plan drawings to indicate plainly the charac¬
ter and intensity of industrial development intended. The business- and
commercial-district proposals must be described, and whatever special pro¬
posals have been decided upon with regard to the central business district
should be set forth here. The general location, character, and extent of the
primary and secondary shopping centers must be described and related
to the residential population-density proposals. Proposals dealing with com¬
mercial districts serving special purposes that require relatively large amounts
of land, such as automobile sales and service districts, should also be
included in this section.

The spatial relationships of the basic economic and social activities
indicated here and the land areas and physical facilities proposed to accom¬
modate them should be dealt with first in the presentation of the physical-
design proposals of the plan because, taken together, they form the founda¬
tion upon which all of the remaining sections of this plan chapter are based.
After the special conditions and qualities of the site have been surveyed
and analyzed, and after the first tentative conclusions have been formed
concerning the degree of permanence of the existing major features of the
city, regardless of which design section they will later be assigned to, first-
stage decisions must be made concerning the most desirable and feasible
future locations of the central business district, the principal industrial districts,
and the residential and outlying commercial areas. The major physical systems
of community facilities and circulation routes that will be needed to serve the
activities located in these areas can then be studied and planned. Experience
gained in technical general-plan physical-design work since 1945 in widely
different locations and types of cities, and involving professional staff groups
representing more than one school of thought on other matters, indicates the
validity of the judgment expressed above concerning plan-preparation pro¬
cedure and sequence of presentation. Indeed, it seems that the judgment is
self-evident. But it was not self-evident less than fifteen years ago, and it cer¬
tainly is not universally accepted within the profession today.

The Cleveland plan document offers the best example of presenting

163

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The General-Plan Document

first, with the help of a unified, simplified drawing, all of the physical ele¬
ments dealt with in the working-and-living-areas section. As shown on pages
164-165, the initial six subsections of the main body of the Cleveland docu¬
ment illustrate the sequence of plan presentation I have suggested, and
the drawing, which is the first plan drawing in the document, is an excellent
example of a straightforward simplification of a very complex set of pro¬
posals. Each separate physical element dealt with in this plan chapter also
requires a plan drawing in order to clarify the relationships among the
proposals concerning the subject matter of each physical element. The use
of such separate drawings for each physical element considered is now
widespread. Very few plan documents, however, make use of a simplified
drawing for the basic physical elements dealt with in the working-and-living-
areas section of the plan in the manner done so successfully by the authors
of the Cleveland plan. The Berkeley and Philadelphia plans are less effec¬
tive than they might have been because they did not follow the Cleveland
example.

The subject matter of the general-plan sections dealing with commer¬
cial and industrial activities is superbly handled in the Philadelphia plan
document. The actual presentation of the plan proposals, however, is too
complex and detailed to fit the general-plan concept advocated in this book.
These sections of the Philadelphia plan should be familiar to every student
of contemporary planning, however, because of their outstanding technical
quality and because they are of such basic importance to the general plan.

In recent years as a result of widespread urban-redevelopment activities
and the preparation of what are called “community renewal programs,” it
has been suggested that such programs should receive special attention in
the general-plan document. They obviously will influence the nature of the
plan proposals and the rate of plan effectuation. But, as illustrated by the
Cleveland and Berkeley documents and, in particular, the Philadelphia doc¬
ument, I believe it best to deal with such new activities and programs within
the context of the essential physical elements dealt with in the plan. The four
drawings from the Philadelphia plan shown on pages 167-170 indicate
plainly that citywide urban-renewal policies were carefully considered in the
preparation of the residential-element portion of the plan. Renewal policies
for the other physical elements dealt with in the working-and-living-areas
section of the plan are treated in the Philadelphia plan document in the same
manner as in the residential-element subsection of the plan.

The Cleveland plan, as shown on pages 172-173, illustrates a different
method of acknowledging the importance of what is known in today’s pro-
(Text continued on pagelll.)

166

RESIDENTIAL-AREAS ELEMENT OF THE GENERAL PLAN

(From Philadelphia Comprehensive Plan , I960, page 87.)

PROPOSED DISTRICTS AND COMMUNITIES

The Plan proposes the organization of residential areas into a system of neighborhoods,
communities, and districts in order to enhance the local civic identity which now ex¬
ists in many parts of the City. Physical elements which can be used to promote a
feeling of local identity are arterial streets, expressways, and large parks, all of which
provide boundaries, and clusters of shopping and community facilities, which provide
places where residents of an area come in contact with one another. Fifty-six com¬
munities are proposed, having a population range of 25,000 to 50,000 people. These
communities form ten districts, in which population ranges from 150,000 to 300,000
people.

RESIDENTIAL-AREAS ELEMENT OF THE GENERAL PLAN

(From Philadelphia Comprehensive Plan, 1960, pages 82, 83.)

RESIDENTIAL DENSITY 1950 (BY CENSUS TRACT)

In 1950, dwelling unit density by Census Tract varied from less than one to over 100
units per net acre. Average density in the City was 29 units per acre. The dense de¬
velopment of inner areas dates from the pre-automobile era. Today, detached houses
are built at 6 to the acre, twin houses at 12. Row houses and two-story “garden apart¬
ments’’ average 25 per acre, while “C-l” rows are developed at 15 to the acre. Three-
story walk-up apartments” may reach 55 per acre. Elevator apartments can be built
at densities as low as those of single houses or as high as 500 units per acre; when
converted to apartments, these structures may have densities as high as 150 dwelling
units per acre.

RESIDENTIAL DENSITY PLAN

The Plan allows for a total of 660,000 dwelling units at an average density of 25 per
acre. High density (60 and over) is planned for most of Center City, along subway
lines, and other areas of special transportation advantage; high-medium density (40—
59) within an area three miles from Center City and adjacent to commuter rail lines
farther out; low-medium density (20-39) in an area three to six miles from Center
City and adjacent to rail transit stops farther out; low density (under 20) in other
areas of the City. Exceptions occur where existing development is good although at
higher or lower density than optimum, where an institutional facility creates a special
demand for housing, or where transportation facilities are not equivalent to those
of comparable locations.

IS

RESIDENTIAL-AREAS ELEMENT OF THE GENERAL PLAN

(From Philadelphia Comprehensive Plan, 1960, page 88.)

RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT PLAN

About 65,000 units of the 1950 housing stock must be cleared and 130,000 units re¬
habilitated to eliminate substandard housing conditions. Changes in land use will take
23,000 of the units to be cleared and 60,000 of the units needing rehabilitation, leav-
mg 42,000 substandard units to be cleared and 70,000 to be rehabilitated. Major re¬
construction (clearance of one-third or more of the dwelling units) is proposed for
5/2 square miles; limited reconstruction (clearance of one-tenth to one-third of the
units) for 15 square miles; and conservation for 11 square miles.

Contents and Organization

fessional terminology as “the community-renewal program.” It is a signifi¬
cant example because the technical work on the Cleveland plan was carried
out between 1942 and 1949, several years prior to the enactment of the
federal urban-renewal legislation that has been so influential recently. The
Cleveland general-plan proposals shown on pages 172—173 are placed in
the document at the end of what I refer to as the working-and-living-areas
section. In this location they serve as an excellent summary of some of the
most important proposals affecting all of the physical elements dealt with
in this plan chapter and set the stage for consideration of the subsequent
sections of the chapter.

(c) The Community-Facilities Section. This section of the plan chapter
should describe the general location, character, and extent of the citywide
systems of community facilities proposed to serve the spatial organization
of primary economic and social activities delineated by the proposals in
the preceding section. It should include all public and private facilities of
a community-service nature, such as public parks and private hospitals, that
require relatively large amounts of land or significant concentrations of
activities that have not been covered in the preceding section. Although
the facilities systems dealt with in this section will be determined primarily
by the requirements of the working-and-living-areas proposals, physical-
design proposals in the remaining three sections of this plan chapter will
impose limitations and requirements that will influence the final location
and the general character and treatment of some of the community facili¬
ties proposed. The decisions made in the civic-design section, for example,
usually will determine to a very large extent the location and orientation of
the civic center, certain key features of the park system, and the ways in
which some of the larger school and recreation activities are combined
and situated.

Citywide plans for parks and recreation facilities have been prepared
and used by a large number of city governments. The necessity for treating
these physical elements in the general-plan document is well accepted
and many good examples exist. On page 175 is a redrawing of the plan
for parks and recreation areas for San Francisco which was completed by
the professional city-planning staff in 1954. It is a particularly good ex¬
ample because the drawing shows the parks and recreation areas in rela¬
tionship to the most important proposals of the working-and-living-areas
section of the San Francisco Master Plan. The Cleveland general-plan
document contains a fully developed section on parks and recreation areas,

171

The General-Plan Document

the importance of which is indicated by proposals for land acquisition
which call for adding 1,500 acres to the existing system of 3,030 acres,
an increase of almost 50 per cent. The Philadelphia plan illustrates particu-
larly well one of the reasons for dealing with those physical elements that
are concerned with community facilities in one section of the plan document.
As shown on page 155, the Philadelphia plan proposes to concentrate a
number of community facilities at 10 district and 56 community centers
located throughout the city.

The phrase community facilities as used in this book is meant to be
interpreted broadly. It should include not only the kinds of public com¬
munity facilities that our society takes for granted, such as schools, parks,
playgrounds, libraries, police stations, hospitals, health centers, art galleries,
and fire stations. It should also include private facilities of a community-
service nature, such as churches, stadiums, schools, golf courses, and ceme¬
teries, and should relate these facilities to the major physical-design proposals
made in the working-and-living-areas section of this plan chapter. Every
community has traditions and values that will determine the relative im¬
portance to be assigned to the different physical elements of the community
dealt with in this section of the plan.

(d) The Civic-Design Section. I believe that one of the most important
but least-recognized reasons for the rapid development of city planning in
the United States, once it gained a foothold in local government after
World War II, is the basic human need for visual beauty. Every city dweller
provides silent but powerful support for civic work aimed at the creation
of a more beautiful city. A city-planning profession whose efforts result
in the gradual reorganization -of our cities so that they are simply more
efficient, more obviously better organized only for the practical social and
economic necessities of urban life, will not be accepted for long. If city
planners restrict themselves to these limited objectives, they will sooner or
later be removed from the key role they now occupy and will be replaced
by men capable of creating beautiful as well as functional cities. Because
there seems to be a danger that this may happen if the design quality of
contemporary city-planning and civic-development work is not raised, the
organization of the general-plan document calls for a separate section de¬
voted solely to the civic-design policies and features of the plan.

The civic-design section of the general-plan document has been placed
fourth in the sequence of the six sections of this plan chapter because it is
dependent primarily on the features of the plan dealt with in sections (b)

174

PARK-AND-RECREATION-AREAS
ELEMENT OF THE GENERAL PLAN

PARK AND RECREATION AREAS POPULATION DISTRIBUTION

O

Existing Area
Proposed Area
General Location

Moderately Populated
Densely Populated
Very Densely Populated

In 1954 the San Francisco Department of City Planning published a document en¬
titled “A Report on a Plan for the Location of Parks and Recreation Areas in San
Francisco.” The above drawing is based on Plate G in this Report. It illustrates clearly
the particular importance of the relationships between the working-and-living-areas
element of the general plan and the park-and-recreation-areas element. Official docu¬
ments describing and summarizing the main ideas in the Report were subsequently
adopted by the San Francisco City Planning Commission.

175

The General-Plan Document

and (c), although, of course, the circulation-elements section of the chapter
must also be considered in determining civic-design policies and features.
Working with the proposed general layout of the major commercial, indus¬
trial, and residential districts, with the related community facilities and public
open-space system, and with the visually ever-present circulation elements,
the city planner creates a synthesis that will assume a three-dimensional form.
This community form is perceived, consciously or unconsciously, by every
citizen. As a whole, it gives him a sense of the way in which his city is or¬
ganized in relation to its site; he is made aware of the fact that his city exalts
its natural geographic setting, simply accommodates itself to it, or debases it.

The over-all structure and form of the city create in the mind and
emotions of the citizen a sense of individual dignity and well-being, or they
create a sense of dullness, confusion, or degradation. As he moves about
the city daily, he also experiences the more generally understood reactions
to an immediately perceived surrounding. He is aware of the parts of the
city—its main streets, its hivelike “downtown” central district, its civic center,
its shopping districts, its industrial districts, its parks. The civic-design sec¬
tion of this general-plan chapter is concerned with these two kinds of aesthetic
experiences. It should attempt to bring out the major physical-design pro¬
posals that have been made concerning the form of the city as a whole con¬
sidered in relation to its site and the key features and parts of the city that
are individually of special significance to the over-all design.

The creative effort involved in the work done during the general-plan
design stage which produces a synthesis that satisfies the city’s functional
requirements and also results in a significant form, aesthetically, is not an
effort that can be made methodically, step by step. It is an effort that depends
on inspiration, a highly developed sense of fitness and beauty, and an un¬
usual identification with both the social community—its values, its aspira¬
tions, its historical traditions and associations—and with the distinctive,
special qualities of the natural geographic setting of the community. But once
the creative synthesis has taken place, the dominant qualities and features
of the resulting design for the physical organization of the city can be identi¬
fied and judged. The roles played by the key features of the design in creat¬
ing a city that will have unity, variety, order, and balance can be described
and talked about, and the functional and symbolic importance of these fea¬
tures can be consciously linked with their importance as elements of the over¬
all design. Unless this synthesis is achieved, in as direct and natural a way
as it has been achieved for centuries by the governing groups in the more
self-confident urban communities elsewhere in the world, we will fail to tap

176

Contents and Organization

the great reservoir of community pride and support that exists in every Ameri¬
can city for carrying out necessary public and private projects in ways that
will enable them to fit into the over-all design for the city as defined m the
civic-design section.

Although some of the outstanding postwar city-planning programs were
led by men whose professional abilities and motivations compelled and en¬
abled them to accord civic design the highest level of concern, no contempo¬
rary general-plan documents that I am aware of offer good examples of how
to deal with this aspect of city planning. The works of Frederick Law
Olmsted and Daniel Burnham are still unequalled. I have no doubt, how¬
ever, that the present upsurge of interest in the civic-design aspect of general-
plan work, and in this aspect of city planning and architectural practice in
general, will once again enable us to focus our attention openly and con¬
fidently on general-plan proposals aimed at aesthetic objectives.

(e) The Circulation Section. The subject matter of this section includes
all of the physical circulation systems needed to enable people and goods to
move about freely within the city and its regional environs. It is placed fifth
in the sequence of the six sections that together contain the general physical-
design proposals of the plan because it is, in my judgment, a secondary
section. It is dependent on the preceding, more important sections. The major
circulation requirements of the community are determined basically by the
spatial relationships between the primary urban-activity centers, and these
are determined by the proposals expressed in the working-and-living-areas,
community-facilities, and civic-design sections of this plan chapter. There
will always be exceptions to this general rule. Topographic features will limit
the number of possible routes and locations for transit lines, subways, and
freeways, for harbors and railroads, and for other physical elements of the
over-all system of circulation facilities. But within such limitations there
usually are a number of significant choices that can be made. The point I
wish to emphasize here is that, as a general principle, circulation facilities
should be designed to accommodate the fixed activity centers and civic-
design features of the general plan, rather than the reverse.

The circulation section of the general plan consists of the primary and
secondary street systems, the regional freeway and parkway systems, major
off-street parking facilities, and air, rail, and water terminals and routes. It
also includes the local and metropolitan public-transportation systems, truck
terminals and routes, and the systems of pedestrian ways that are of such
vital importance especially to the central district of the city, to high- and

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The General-Plan Document

low-density residential districts, and to certain park and recreation features.
The city-planning profession is only beginning to give proper attention to
the latter group of circulation facilities. Viewed and planned in their proper
subordinate relationship to the primary requirements of urban life, as sug¬
gested here, carefully coordinated circulation systems offer tremendous pos¬
sibilities for increasing the economic and cultural productivity of our cities
and metropolitan regions.

The amount of land needed to enable the convenient movement of
people at peak hours during the regular work week, and to and from enter¬
tainment centers and outdoor recreation areas in the evenings and on week¬
ends, is relatively very large. Usually more than one-fourth of the total land
area of the community is required. Because of the close functional inter¬
relationships between the several kinds of transportation systems needed, the
large scale and high cost of these facilities, and the secondary relationships
they have in common to the subject matter of sections (b), (c), and (d)
of this chapter of the plan document, it is advantageous to present the circu¬
lation elements in a separate section.

. The , C ! eVeIand ’ Berkeley ’ and Philadelphia plan documents all deal with
he circulation elements in the manner suggested. The public-transportation
element as dealt with in the Cleveland plan, however, is exceptional be¬
cause, as shown on pages 178-179, it illustrates so well the vital importance
of the metropolitanwide system of local public-transportation routes. Very
ew published general-plan documents show by means of a unified drawing
the relationship of local public-transportation routes to the proposed rapid-
transit and express-bus routes.

(f) The Utilities Section. Every modern community is dependent on an
extensive, costly, fixed, underground network of utilities. This section is in¬
tended to simplify the community-facilities section, where essential public
und private utilities are usually considered, by providing a separate place in
which to deal with utilities. The utilities section includes primarily those
community services that are, or should be, provided for in pipelines, conduits,
or wires that are underground. It includes the water-distribution, storm-
drainage, and sewage-disposal systems and the gas, electricity, and telephone
Pipeline and conduit systems. TTmre is an overlapping with the community-
acilities section of the plan with regard to the features of these systems that
require relatively large land areas, such as sewage-disposal plants, refuse
clumps, pumping and generator stations, and water-storage reservoirs.

Planning for these utilities in an economical manner frequently imposes

180

Contents and Organization

what may seem to be and sometimes are hard and fast limitations on the way
in which a city can be organized physically. Financial and technical feasi¬
bility factors must be taken into account in every case where it seems neces¬
sary, for other reasons, to plan for development in ways that will require
complicated, special utility-system designs, such as those made necessary by
tidelands development and hilltop concentrations. The functional require¬
ments of the essential utility systems are obviously important. But these re¬
quirements must not dominate the other more important requirements of
the over-all design. For this reason, and because they are, after all, under¬
ground, they should be grouped together and placed last in the sequence of
the six sections that make up the chapter of the general plan that deals with
general physical-design proposals for the community.

As indicated earlier, the special conditions existing in a particular com¬
munity may suggest the regrouping of certain physical elements dealt with
in that community’s plan into one or two additional sections. For example,
a community having an unusual concentration of public or specialized private
institutions, such as a university town, a community with a very large medi¬
cal center, or a state capital, may find it helpful to present the proposals of
the plan concerned with such a major physical element in a separate section.
Similarly, a community owning large tidelands areas might consider it neces¬
sary, in order to focus attention effectively, to present the tidelands physical-
design proposals of the plan in a separate additional section.

The main point of the basic six-section scheme for organizing this
chapter of the general plan is simply that the key physical elements dealt
with in the major physical-design proposals—elements that must be provided
for in every general plan—should be identified and described in such a way
that the citizen reader will be able to understand the logical relationships be¬
tween them. This requires discussion of the large number of individual
physical elements in a way that will clearly indicate their dependence on
one another.

(5) Conclusion and Appendices

Many general plans published during the past twenty years include a
final chapter in the main body of the document restating the uses of the plan.
Having reached this point, the reader will be familiar with the plan, and he
will understand its practical utility in a way that was not possible before.
Examples usually are given that illustrate how the plan will be used by pri¬
vate builders and investors, by federal, state, and special-district govern-

181

The General-Plan Document

mental agencies, and by the departments of the municipal government itself.
This is an obvious thing to do. I think it is more important than it may seem
to be simply because it is so obvious. Such examples are particularly helpful
to incumbent councilmen and city-planning commissioners in the educational

bo^es 7 ^ Can d ° WiA Ae freShman memberS ° f 111611 res P ective

The following quotations from the 1962 Chico and 1950 Cleveland
general plans are drawn from the final chapters of these documents, each of
which is titled “From Plan to Reality.” The Chico document, in emphasiz¬
ing the responsibility of the city council for the plan and the need for “keep¬
ing the plan current,” states: F

Now that the General Plan has been adopted by the City, it is the official
policy guide for the development of Chico. But membership on the City Planning
Commissmn and the City Council will change and so may public policies and
physical conditions. A plan that is not periodically re-examined by the Commission

nl* Tf S ° 0nWl11 b6C0me obsolete - An y major proposal in conflict with the
p n calls for review of the reasons for the pertinent features of the plan If the

new proposal is found to be superior, the plan should be amended. The procedure
or amending the plan prescribed by state law requires at least one public hearing

review nf th“T® CommiSSi ° n and ° ne before the C % Council. Regular annual
e plan m connection with the annual consideration of the capital

improvement budget is a good way to keep the plan current. At least once every
ve years and possibly more often if the community is growing rapidly, the
plan should be thoroughly restudied. P y

, . , Th6 Cleveland document concludes with an explanation of the ways in
which the proposals of the plan can be carried out:

p, ^ ere are many ways • • • to help bring about the improvements that the
Plan recommends.

i. A ° SKp is 1115 maldn » of detailed community plans for each section,

working with l„al groups. Another is changing the anting map to carry the land-

use plan into effect. J

Mmiy parts of the General Plan can become reality only by spending public
money. Some parts affect Cleveland alone, like playgrounds and local main streets
These can come just as quickly as Cleveland voters decide they want them by
approving bond issues and tax levies. Other parts of the Plan, like freeways and

re eve opment of slums, need additional funds from County, State, and Federal
sources.

Public improvements, of course, should be scheduled in the order of their im¬
portance to the community. We must also be careful that our public spending
year by year, leads steadily toward the accomplishing of the Plan. These two’
182

Contents and Organization

goals are the aim of the Capital Improvement Program which, as called for by
the Charter, the Planning Commission submits to the Mayor each year. The
Program presents recommendations for public construction an an uymg or
the next six years. It has been of more and more influence on the City govern-
ment and the people in recent years.

The General Plan can be just as useful to private individuals an companies.

A prospective home buyer can make a better choice among sites by knowing their
nearness to future playfields, freeways, transit, etc. Business and industry can
a like advantage of the City’s plans in shaping their own future^

The thoroughness and the speed with which the Genera an 1
depend upon all of us as citizens and property owners of Cleveland. If we agree
that our city must be a better place for people to live, and if we agree that the
design for better living presented in the General Plan is the goa towar w 1
should work-then the Plan will become a reality. We can reach it through the
democratic workings of our City government, and the will of the community.

There is a need, finally, to include in the official document, m the form
of appendices, certain kinds of background information that cannot be fitted
into the necessarily simplified description of the plan given in the mam o y
of the document. This need has become more and more evident as a result
of our experiences since World War II. Earlier practice was characterized by
the publication of separate reports containing detailed background informa¬
tion on the plan. Some, but not all, of the information in these reports was
usually needed if the plan itself was to be understood. Every active city¬
planning program will always find it necessary to publish reports supp ement-
ing the official general-plan document. The general-plan document itseffi
however, should contain whatever detailed information is actually nee e
enable the plan to be properly understood. If this essential information can¬
not be presented in the main body of the document, it should be included
in the form of appendices. No fixed list of the types of information that^shouW
be included in this way can be made. But general practice indicates that there
is a need for a carefully selected bibliography, and for tables and summaries
of factual information dealing with such basic subjects as land-use acreages
and percentages, economic growth and decline indices, and population figures

and forecasts. . „

I also believe there should be an appendix presenting city-planning

enabling legislation, in the form of specific charter provisions, city-counci
ordinances, and state and federal legislation, together with a brief historical
account of the reasons for the development of the local, state, and federa
governmental policies and procedures defined by these legislative and cons 1 -

tutional provisions.

1 R3

The General-Plan Document

Finally, I believe there is a need at this stage in the development of
city planning as a governmental and professional activity to include in the
plan document a discussion of city-planning methods and techniques. Dur¬
ing the next twenty to thirty years, while the city-planning profession com¬
pletes the final, awkward stages of its initial general-plan preparation work,
there is bound to be a certain amount of mystery surrounding the work of
the professional staff. The way in which the basic policies are translated into
general physical-design proposals should be described just as clearly as it is
possible to do so. If additional discussion of the policies themselves, espe¬
cially those that deal with nonphysical factors, seems to be needed, it should
be included here. The more definite technical procedures used in working
out the adjustments between the different physical elements dealt with in the
design proposals, particularly between the living-and-working-areas, com¬
munity-facilities, and circulation sections, should be described and explained.
A general knowledge of these procedures, and of the meaning of concepts
such as population-holding capacity” should be sought, even though it is
unlikely that many readers will want to know about them. Some readers,
however, will have unnecessary doubts about the plan and the work of the
professional staff if the most important steps in the plan-making procedure
are not explained. Their critical attitude must be respected; it is indispensable
in gaining the kind of self-reliant understanding of the plan that will be
needed if the plan’s crucial, tough proposals are to be supported and carried
out.

184

CONCLUSION

ttcompleted the first draft of this book in 1955 while on sabbatical leave,
but I was not satisfied with my work. In the intervening years the subject
of the general plan has continued to hold my attention. During this period
I have been able to participate in the work of governing the physical
growth and development of an American community at the legislative level.
This sustained experience as a municipal legislator has enabled me to test
my previously developed concept of the general plan and to work out and
experiment with new ideas designed to improve the concept.

As a result of a second opportunity, in the spring of 1962, to con¬
centrate and reflect on the subject, I found that my convictions concerning
the importance of what I had written about the primary legislative uses of
the general plan, in particular, had become stronger. In bringing this state¬
ment to a close, therefore, I wish to express the hope that what I think I have
learned concerning the great practical value of a general plan for individual
city council members, who want to govern well the physical development
of their community, as set forth in Chapter III, “The Legislative Uses of
the General Plan,” will be carefully considered by my colleagues in the
city-planning profession, and by the political, civic, and governmental leaders
of the cities of the United States.

I believe that every city council in the United States today has among
its members men and women who are perfectly capable of understanding
what a general plan is. I believe that when they see how reasonable and
practical and valuable the basic concept of the general plan is, they will
never again govern in quite the same way.

Conclusion

Once the simplicity of the general-plan concept is appreciated, the
practical benefits will become apparent very quickly. Major conflicts involv¬
ing community-development policies will be resolved. Major capital-improve¬
ment programs will be agreed upon, financed, and carried out. A great new
era of civic design will be fostered and sustained. I believe that all of these
things will occur sooner or later, since I believe in social progress. But in
our society, with our philosophy of democratic self-government, these things
will happen sooner if we will trust our elected representatives and assist them,
by helping them to develop an urban general plan that they can use, to do
well what they must do in any case.

186

jr . . . . ......

A BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY
ON THE URBAN GENERAL PLAN

By HOLWAY R. JONES

INTRODUCTION

pn'i— n|he general plan, as T. J. Kent, Jr., defines it, is “the official state¬
ment of a municipal legislative body which sets forth its major policies
J concerning desirable future physical development; the published gen¬
eral-plan document must include a single, unified general physical design
for the community, and it must attempt to clarify the relationships between
physical-development policies and social and economic goals.” Keeping this
definition in mind, the compiler has attempted to link together, in the form
of a bibliographic essay, some of the major evolutionary steps in the forma¬
tion of an urban general-plan theory. The academician will immediately
recognize the difficulties in attempting to “pull out” the significant writings
on this subject. City planning’s early leaders viewed the city essentially as
“mechanistic.” Their backgrounds being in architecture and engineering, it
is not surprising that this should be so. What is surprising, perhaps, is that
these professions should so long have dominated the field. Only in recent
years have social scientists’ analytical techniques found universal application
in city planning and come to be essential tools in the professional planner’s
equipment, with the result that the “mechanistic” view has been “humanized”
and social values placed in better balance. . . .

Because the compiler is treating the evolution of an idea, the subject
is approached in the traditional manner of the historian—chronologically.
It is realized, of course, that this method has certain limitations in that no
idea simply “pops out,” whole and new born, without a long period of gesta¬
tion and that often it is difficult to say when, in the time scale, an idea be¬
comes influential. In most instances, however, date of publication can be

189

A Bibliographic Essay on the Urban General Plan

assumed to be the effective date of transmission, and this date is used through¬
out the bibliography.

Another important limitation is that this bibliographic essay deals only
with the United States. Obviously, as any historian will be quick to criticize,
the germ of the “city plan” as a concept goes back in Western thought to Hip-
podamus of Miletus (born c. 480 B.C.) and actually may be traced back
much earlier to the civilizations lying along the Tigris-Euphrates, Nile, and
Indus rivers.

The compiler is indebted to T. J. Kent, Jr., who not only made a num¬
ber of helpful suggestions for the original edition of this essay,* but desired
that it be included with the present book. Melvin Webber also helped to
clarify a number of points.

* “A Bibliographic Essay on the Evolution of an Idea,” Part III, The General Plan
in the Urban Planning Process, Exchange Bibliography No. 21 (Oakland: Council of
Planning Librarians, July, 1962), pp 22-40. Minor changes have been made, by the
author and Mr. Kent, in the version of the bibliographic essay appearing here to assure
its appropriateness and currency in relation to the present book.

190

GENERAL REFERENCES

j=Sjo appreciate the significance of the general-plan concept one must
first become acquainted with the broad sweep of town and city devel¬
opment in the United States and, more specifically, early American
attempts to plan the urban environment. The first 26 references set the stage.

1. Adams, Thomas. Outline of Town and City Planning: A Review of Past
Efforts and Modern Aims. New York, Russell Sage Foundation, 1935.
368 pp.

This is an excellent summary of the evolution of city planning in
the United States. See particularly pp. 118-129 and 161-251 for de¬
velopments before and after 1900.

2. Bridenbaugh, Carl. Cities in the Wilderness: The First Century of Urban
Life in America, 1625—1742. Second edition. New York, Alfred Knopf,
1955. 500 pp.

3. -. Cities in Revolt: Urban Life in America, 1743—1776. New

York, Alfred Knopf, 1955. 434 pp.

The first of these two thoroughly documented studies emphasizes
the evolution of democratic urban life in the five largest towns on the
North A m erican continent, while the second recognizes two persistent
themes: “The astonishing expansion of all the activities of urban ex¬
istence” and the revolt of urban citizens against the “old” ways of doing
things.

4. Comey, Arthur C., and Max S. Wehrly, “Planned Communities,” in
Urban Planning and Land Policies, Vol. II of the Supplementary Re-

191

A Bibliographic Essay on the Urban General Plan

port of the Urbanism Committee to the National Resources Committee.
Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1939, pp. 1—161.

Case studies of 144 communities which “have actually been con¬
structed from the start according to a more or less comprehensive physi¬
cal plan.” Selected bibliography, pp. 153-161.

5. Conklin, Paul K. Tomorrow a New World: The New Deal Community
Program. Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press, 1959. 350 pp.

A history of the New Deal community program with background
material on the influence of the garden-city movement.

6. Gallion, Arthur B., and Simon Eisner. The Urban Pattern: City Plan¬
ning and Design. Princeton, N.J., Van Nostrand, 1963. 435 pp.

An interesting resume of the history of the development of city
planning, primarily from the point of view of an architect.

7. Green, Constance M. American Cities in the Growth of the Nation.
New York, John de Graff, 1957. 258 pp.

Brief historical sketches of the rise of certain characteristic Ameri¬
can cities: New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, Boston, Cin¬
cinnati, St. Louis, New Orleans, Holyoke, Naugatuck, Chicago, Denver,
Wichita, Seattle, Detroit, and Washington, D.C. Author has recently
completed a much more detailed study of the nation’s capitol.

8. McKelvey, Blake. The Urbanization of America, 1860—1915. New
Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press, 1963. 370 pp.

Urban growth, its character and causes, are analyzed by the author,
who places special stress on the relations between this growth and other
aspects of American history.

9. Schlesinger, Arthur Meier. The Rise of the City, 1878-1898 (A History
of American Life, Vol. 10). New York, Macmillan, 1933. 494 pp.

The author contends that these two decades mark the era of de¬
cision between an essentially urban world and a rural world.

10. Tunnard, Christopher, and Henry Hope Reed. American Skyline: The
Growth and Form of Our Cities and Towns. Boston, Houghton Mifflin,
1955. 302 pp.

The thesis of this book is that the American city is very much the
product of definite forces which have given it a unique form and pat¬
tern. These forces and their consequences are traced from the colonial
mercantile town of the 1600-1700’s to the regional city of the mid¬
twentieth century.

11. Wade, Richard C. The Urban Frontier: The Rise of Western Cities,

192

General References

1790—1830 (Harvard Historical Monograph No. 41). Cambridge,
Mass., Harvard University Press, 1959. 360 pp.

An account of the rise and development of Ohio Valley cities—
Pittsburgh to St. Louis.

12. Weber, Adna Ferrin. The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century:
A Study in Statistics (Cornell Reprints in Urban Studies). Ithaca, N.Y.,
Cornell University Press, 1963. 495 pp.

Considered a classic on the statistical history of worldwide urbani¬
zation, the second half of the book, on “causes of the concentration of
population, urban growth and internal migration, the structure of city
populations, the natural movement of population in city and in country,
and general effects of the concentration of population,” is exceptionally
useful although originally published in 1899.

13. Wissink, Gerardus Antonius. American Cities in Perspective: With Spe¬
cial Reference to the Development of Their Fringe Areas. New York,
Humanities Press, 1963. 320 pp.

A study of the development of American cities through the eyes of
an unusually perceptive European visitor.

REFERENCES ON CITY-PLANNING PROGRESS IN THE

UNITED STATES

14. Meyer, H. H. B., editor, “Check List of References on City Planning,”
Special Libraries, Vol. 3 (May, 1912), pp. 61—123.

General references and listings by localities. Section on periodical
articles with the first entry dated 1861.

15. American Institute of Architects. Committee on Town Planning. City
Planning Progress in the United States, 1917, edited by George B. Ford.
Washington, D.C., Journal of the American Institute of Architects, 1917.
207 pp.

The first comprehensive view of city-planning progress.

16. Kimball, Theodore, editor. Municipal Accomplishment in City Planning
and Published City Plan Reports in the United States. Published under
the auspices of the National Conference on City Planning, 1920. 79 pp.

Compiled largely from data assembled by the Detroit City Plan
Commission.

17. Nolen, John, “Twenty Years of City Planning Progress in the United
States: President’s Address,” Proceedings of the 19th National Confer¬
ence on City Planning, 1927, pp. 1—44.

193

A Bibliographic Essay on the Urban General Plan

18. Chamber of Commerce of the United States. Civic Development De¬
partment. City Planning and Zoning Accomplishments. Washington,
D.C., 1928. 102 pp. mimeo.

19. Hubbard, Theodore K., and Henry Vincent Hubbard. Our Cities Today
and Tomorrow: A Survey of Planning and Zoning Progress in the United
States. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1929. 389 pp.

Based on field surveys made by Howard K. Menhinick, who visited
about 120 cities and 15 counties and regions in all parts of the United
States.

20. “Short List of Typical American City Plan Reports,” in Manual of In¬
formation on City Planning and Zoning, by Theodore Kimball (Cam¬
bridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1923), pp. 43-46; and in
Planning Information Up-to-Date, by Theodore K. Hubbard and Kath¬
erine McNamara (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1928),
pp. 12-14.

An excellent selected list of representative plan reports “notable as
exemplifying general principles of city planning or as a collection of
highly specialized illustrations or statistics . . .”

21. “How Cities Are Preparing for the Post-War Period,” Planning: Pro¬
ceedings of the Annual Meeting Held in Chicago, May 1-3, 1944. Chi¬
cago, American Society of Planning Officials, 1944, pp. 31-117.

A review of planning progress and future programs in 16 cities
over 300,000, 4 cities under 50,000, and 4 cities between 50,000-
300,000 population.

ANNUAL REVIEW OF CITY-PLANNING PROGRESS

IN PERIODICALS

22. Landscape Architecture: April, 1912; April, 1913; January, 1915; Janu¬
ary, 1918; January, 1920; January, 1921; January, 1922; January,
1923; and January, 1924.

23. National Municipal Review: January, 1913; July, 1914; July, 1915;
July and October, 1916; September, 1917; November, 1918; January,
1920; January, 1921; January, 1922; February, 1923.

24. City Planning: April, 1925; April, 1926; April, 1927; April, 1928; April,
1929; July, 1930; April, 1931; April, 1932; April, 1933; April, 1934.

The above references represent a selective listing designed to give the

city planner an appreciation of the historical roots of today’s modern Ameri-

194

General References

can metropolis. For those who wish to delve more deeply into this subject
and city planning generally, the following sources are recommended:

25. Bestor, George C., and Holway R. Jones. City Planning: A Basic Bibli¬
ography of Sources and Trends . Sacramento, California Council of Civil
Engineers and Land Surveyors, 1962. 195 pp.

An annotated bibliography of 1,215 items.

26. Mackesey, Thomas W. History of City Planning (Exchange Bibliography
No. 19). Oakland, Calif., Council of Planning Librarians, 1961. 65 pp.

For references on American city planning, see pp. 35—49.

195

EVOLUTION OF AN IDEA

rom the day the first colonist stepped ashore in the New World, town
planning became a necessary part of survival. Between 1630 and 1650
seven New England villages were laid out and many others soon fol¬
lowed. Although in some cases we do not know who these early planners
were, it is apparent from the original plan drawings still extant that a con¬
cept of “town plan” as a vehicle for decisions about private and public uses
of land must have existed. Certainly these plans were not general, long-
range, or comprehensive in the modern sense, but they were plans that estab¬
lished patterns—and in some cases these patterns are still predominant in
the twentieth-century city. L’Enfant’s plan for Washington, D.C., is an out¬
standing example of this, as is James Oglethorpe’s layout of Savannah,
Georgia.

With the many examples of early plans in colonial America, it seems
all the more incredible that it should have remained until the latter part of
the nineteenth century for a planner to state, “When a man or company wish
to begin a new or valuable business, they can adapt their wants to the city
plan.” Yet, according to Thomas Adams (Outline . . . , p. 171), Robert
Morris Copeland was “probably” the first to use the phrase, “city plan,” in
this way. We, therefore, cite his “general plan”—so the drawing is marked—
as one of the early statements of the use of a plan. To Copeland, it was “fal¬
lacious” that one could not “foresee sufficiently the future requirements of
business to wisely provide for them.”

27. Copeland, Robert Morris. The Most Beautiful City in America: Essay

196

Evolution of an Idea

and. Plan for the Improvement of the City of Boston. Boston, Lee and
Shepard, 1872. 46 pp.

Certainly other early plans for American cities could be cited, but in
the period prior to the modem concept of the general plan, perhaps only one
other need be mentioned. Following the classic World’s Columbian Exposi¬
tion of 1893, business leaders in Chicago became convinced that their city
needed a plan. They turned to Daniel Burnham, who had been the leading
spirit behind the fair and whose experience subsequently had included the
preparation of plans for Manila and San Francisco. The happy result was the
first comprehensive plan for the orderly development of a great American
city”—a plan destined to have an impact far and wide on city planning in
this country.

28. Burn ham, Daniel H., and Edward H. Bennett. Plan of Chicago Pre¬
pared During the Years MCMVI, MCMVII, and MCMVI1I, edited by
Charles Moore. Chicago, Commercial Club, 1909. 164 pp.

See also the interesting article by Robert L. Wrigley, Jr., ‘ The Plan
of Chicago: Its Fiftieth Anniversary,” Journal of the American Institute
of Planners, Vol. 26 (February, 1960), pp. 31-38; and the special issue
of Architectural Forum, Vol. 116 (May, 1962), which is entirely de¬
voted to Chicago and its shaping by Burnham.

But although Burnham’s Chicago plan was comprehensive, it was not
in any sense a general plan by modem definition. For the genesis of the
modern concept we must turn to a famous name in landscape design and city
planning—Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., son of the man who first proposed
preservation principles for Yosemite Valley. The father s best known work
is Central Park in New York City. The son, whose training at the hands of
his father must have been exemplary, expressed his ideas in two addresses
before the National Conference on City Planning: The city plan is a docu¬
ment intended to assist in making possible the “intelligent control and guid¬
ance of the entire physical growth and alteration of cities. It should embrace
“all the problems of relieving and avoiding congestion” as well as providing
a forecast of “the probable future requirements of land for collective uses,’
and, finally, it is “a device or piece of administrative machinery for preparing
and keeping constantly up to date, a unified forecast and definition of all the
important changes, additions, and extensions of the physical equipment and
arrangement of the city which a sound judgment holds likely to become de¬
sirable and practicable in the course of time . .

197

A Bibliographic Essay on the Urban General Plan

29. Olmsted, Frederick Law, Jr., “Reply in Behalf of the City Planning Con¬
ference,” Proceedings of the Third National Conference on City Plan¬
ning, Philadelphia, May 15-17, 1911. Boston, 1911, pp. 3-13.

30. -, “A City Planning Program,” Proceedings of the Fifth National

Conference on City Planning, Chicago, May 5—7, 1913, pp. 1-16.

31. -, “Introduction,” in John Nolen, editor, City Planning: A Series

of Papers Presenting the Essential Elements of a City Plan. New York,
D. Appleton & Co., 1916. (See also revision published in 1929.)

Two contemporaries of Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., shared in the de¬
velopment of the general-plan concept. One of these was Edward M. Bassett,
seven years his senior, who, as Chairman of the New York City Heights of
Buildings Commission and the related Commission on Building Districts and
Restrictions (1913—1916) as well as the Zoning Commission (1916-1917),
was very influential in establishing the nation’s first comprehensive zoning
ordinance. Although reports of these Commissions and his own speeches be¬
fore the various sessions of the National Conference on City Planning reveal
a lawyer’s analytical approach to zoning problems, he apparently was also
developing his concept of the master plan during this early period. This is
first clearly stated in a small publication of the Regional Plan of New York
and Its Environs in which he introduces his notion of the master plan as a
guide for comprehensive planning to be more fully explored in his book pub¬
lished twelve years later.

32. Bassett, Edward M. Recent New York Legislation for the Planning of
Unbuilt Areas, Comprising the Text of the City and Village Planning
Laws of the State of New York, a Description of Their Origin and Pur¬
poses, and Suggestions as to How They Should Be Administered (Bul¬
letin No. 11). New York, Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs,
1926. 30 pp.

The second contemporary of Olmsted was Alfred Bettman, three years
his junior. As a leader in Cincinnati civic and political life, he became con¬
vinced of the need for city planning and brought to the task his broad under¬
standing of civic affairs and specialized knowledge of the law. Thus, although
Bettman’s training and experience was very different from Olmsted’s, the
two men developed very similar thoughts about the master plan, and, as
Kent has pointed out, undoubtedly were influenced and stimulated by one
another. Bettman’s chief contribution, at this period, was his clear under¬
standing of the essential technical elements of the plan.

198

Evolution of an Idea

33. Bettman, Alfred, “The Relationship of the Functions and Powers of the
City Planning Commission, to the Legislative, Executive, and Admin¬
istrative Departments of City Government,” Planning Problems of Town,
City, and Region: Papers and Discussions at the Twentieth National Con¬
ference on City Planning Held at Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, May 7
to 10, 1928, pp. 142-159.

The next step in the evolutionary process was the appointment by U.S.
Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of a nine-man Advisory Committee
on City Planning and Zoning. Olmsted, Bassett, and Bettman were members
of this Committee and share, in large part, responsibility for key statements
in this influential document. The significance of the Standard Act is recog¬
nized by [a number of] later writers on city planning legislation and admin¬
istration. . . .

34. U.S. Department of Commerce. Advisory Committee on City Planning
and Zoning. A Standard City Planning Enabling Act. Washington, D.C.,
Government Printing Office, 1928. 54 pp.

The immediate effect of the Standard Act was to encourage a number
of state enabling acts and revisions, patterned in large part after it. Never¬
theless, progress toward refinement of the general-plan concept continued to
be made. Bettman sharpened his own ideas of the master plan and, in 1931,
clearly distinguished between the master plan and official map:

The master plan and official map are therefore two different concepts, with different
purposes and results. They are different in time, the master plan necessarily pre¬
ceding the official map, which is of greater degree of definiteness and involves a
greater degree of surveying and engineering detail which, as a practical matter,
becomes justified only as the means of the carrying out of the master plan and
therefore necessarily made subsequent to the master plan and at a time nearer to
the actual time intended for the accomplishment of the planned improvement.

35. Bettman, Alfred, “City Planning Legislation,” in John Nolen, editor.
City Planning: A Series of Papers Presenting the Essential Elements of
a City Plan. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1929, pp. 431-47L

36. _, “Master Plans and Official Maps,” Planning Problems of Town,

City, and Region: Papers and Discussions at the Twenty-Third National
Conference on City Planning Held at Rochester, N. Y., June 22 to 24,
1931, pp. 50-71. Reprinted in City and Regional Planning Papers, edited
by Arthur C. Comey. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press,
1946, pp. 37-41.

199

A Bibliographic Essay on the Urban General Plan

In 1935, four planning-minded lawyers published a definitive set of
model laws for planning cities, counties, and states. Bettman re-emphasized
the contrast between master plan and official map, calling the former a
“plastic” document, the latter a “rigid” one. The term “master plan” was
defined (p. 40), but perhaps the most valuable contribution to an understand¬
ing of the concept was Bettman’s discussion, pp. 57-62, 77-78, 95-96, and
115-117.

37. Bassett, Edward M., Frank B. Williams, Alfred Bettman, and Robert
Whitten. Model Laws for Planning Cities, Counties, and States Including
Zoning, Subdivision Regulation, and Protection of Official Map. Cam¬
bridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1935. 137 pp.

By the latter half of the depression decade, the master-plan concept as
a “guide for comprehensive [physical] planning” had advanced far enough
so that one of its first advocates felt he could devote an entire volume to the
subject. Bassett’s study is basic to an understanding of the evolution of the
master-plan concept, particularly pp. 61-143. The author discusses the needs
and purpose of the master plan, what it should contain, and the development
of the term. Cincinnati, says Bassett, was the first city to appoint a planning
commission with power to establish a master plan and was the first large city
officially to adopt its plan (1925); however, widespread use of the term
“master plan” did not come until after the publication of the Standard Act
(1928), which set the pattern of state enabling legislation for several years
to follow. Bassett discusses the Standard Act and confusions arising from it;
this is followed by a discussion of several state and local acts which intro¬
duced modifications (the Pennsylvania, California, Massachusetts, New York
enabling legislation for counties and the New York City Charter effective on
November 3, 1936).

38. Bassett, Edward M. The Master Plan; With a Discussion of the Theory
of Community Land Planning Legislation. New York, Russell Sage
Foundation, 1938. 151 pp.

Just prior to America’s entry into the war. Professor Robert A. Walker,
then an Associate Administrative Analyst, Office of Budget and Finance,
U.S. Department of Agriculture, published his influential book in which he
undertook the task of analyzing the composition of city-planning boards in
an attempt to determine why they had not met with greater success. His book
adds very little to general-plan theory (see pp. 119-122), but his indictment
of the lay commission in planning and his preoccupation with city p lannin g

200

Evolution of an Idea

as a staff department in municipal government has influenced a whole new
generation of professional city planners. In 1950 Walker reissued his book
with two new chapters, one on “Developments During World War II and Its
Aftermath” and another reappraising the nature of the planning function.

The second edition brought forward a number of critical comments.
Rexford Tug well, former Governor of Puerto Rico and an influential figure
in the New Deal days of the Resettlement Administration, and a political
scientist, Edward C. Banfield, suggested that there may be another concep¬
tion of the planning profession, if not its practice,” called developmental
planning.” John T. Howard, Chairman of the Department of City and Re¬
gional Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, disagreed with both
Walker and his reviewers in his “In Defense of Planning Commissions.

39. Walker, Robert Averill. The Planning Function in Urban Government
(Social Science Studies No. 39). Chicago, University of Chicago Press,
1941. 376 pp. Second edition, 1950.

40. Tugwell, R. G., and E. C. Banfield, “The Planning Function Reap¬
praised,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners, Vol. 17 (Winter,
1951), pp. 46-49.

41. Howard, John T., “In Defense of Planning Commissions,” Journal of
the American Institute of Planners, Vol. 17 (Spring, 1951), pp. 89—94.

Also to make its appearance just as war engulfed the United States was
Ladislas Segoe’s Local Planning Administration, published by the Interna¬
tional City Managers’ Association. This book, now in its third edition, edited
by Mary McLean and considerably changed from the original 1941 printing,
strengthened the Walker thesis during the important expansion decade of the
fifties following the war.

42. Institute for Training in Municipal Administration, Chicago. Local
Planning A dministration, by Ladislas Segoe with the collaboration of
Walter F. Blucher, F. P. Best, and others. Chicago, 1941. 684 pp. Third
edition edited by Mary McLean, Chicago, 1959. 467 pp.

After several years of experience with the Standard Act and its conse¬
quences, Bettman reversed a position he had held earlier and wrote into his
draft of a model urban redevelopment act, prepared as Chairman of the
American Society of Planning Officials’ Committee on Urban Redevelopment,
a definition of the essential physical elements that should be dealt with in the
general plan. Two years later the model act was issued in revised form.

201

A Bibliographic Essay on the Urban General Plan

43. “Report of the Committee on Urban Redevelopment” at the annual Busi¬
ness Meeting, American Society of Planning Officials, Planning, 1943:
Proceedings of the Annual Meeting Held in New York City, May 17-19,
1943. Chicago, American Society of Planning Officials, 1943, pp. 93-
103.

44. Bettman, Alfred. Draft of an Act for Urban Development and Rede¬
velopment. Chicago, American Society of Planning Officials, 1943. 14
pp. mimeo.

45. . “Revised Draft of an Act for Urban Development and Rede¬
velopment,” in Arthur C. Comey, editor, City and Regional Planning
Papers. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1946, pp. 259-
275.

202

u mi. iiilllinviM ■»WIUl«l lUliMllwmuiluuuilll.- .. ....I.—. . . . . .. ^

" ’ ^ |

POSTWAR EXPERIENCE

W ith the end of World War II in 1945 and the subsequent national
readjustment of this country’s economic and social life, cities faced
a sudden upsurge in the need for city planning and construction of
public works of all kinds. Professional city planners and educators began
to take a hard look at city planning’s newfound status; they began to ques¬
tion old concepts and, at the same time, to evolve new procedures and meth¬
ods. The influence, too, of the federal government in making funds available
for redevelopment and urban planning stimulated thinking significantly. It
is no wonder, then, that the . . . fifties and early sixties produced a number
of excellent contributions to urban-general-plan theory and practice, perhaps
one of the most significant being Cincinnati’s new general plan of 1948, the
first general plan for a large city to be adopted by a city council.

46. Cincinnati (Ohio) City Planning Commission. The Cincinnati Metro¬
politan Master Plan and the Official City Plan of the City of Cincinnati,
adopted November 22, 1948. Cincinnati, 1948. 175 pp.

After five years of debate, Congress passed the Housing Act of 1949
on July 15. Although subsequent legislation, particularly that of 1954, con¬
siderably modified provisions relating to urban renewal and planning, this
Act contained the first federal approach to the idea of the general plan.
Section 105, Title I, required that the redevelopment plan conform “to a
general plan for the development of the locality as a whole.” However, no
definition of a general plan was included in the Act. As the Division of
Slum Clearance and Urban Redevelopment began to put Title I into opera-

203

A Bibliographic Essay on the Urban General Plan

tion, the Housing and Home Finance Agency found it necessary to call in
S. B. Zisman and others to define the elements necessary for a general plan.
The result of this work was published first as a departmental memorandum
and more formally stated in the Division’s manual.

47. U.S. Housing and Home Finance Agency. Division of Slum Clearance
and Urban Redevelopment. The General Community Plan—A Prelimi¬
nary Statement. Washington, D.C., 1950.

48. U.S. Housing and Home Finance Agency. Office of the Administrator.
Slum Clearance and Urban Redevelopment Program: Manual of Policies
and Requirements for Local Public Agencies. Book I, Part 2, Chapter 2,
“Community Planning,” Section 2, “The General Plan.” Washington,
D.C., n.d. 3 pp. loose-leaf.

While federal personnel labored over the application of the general-
plan concept to redevelopment plans and procedures, a practical city
planner with many years’ experience and a professional society publicly
stated their views. Bartholomew urged that the planner not lose sight of
his major task—the production of a good city plan. He discusses his con-
cept of what the “good” city plan should contain and has a number of
things to say about the timing and production of planning documents. The
following year the Board of Governors of the American Institute of Planners
officially endorsed the draft of a booklet on city planning which was sub¬
sequently published by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States.

49. Bartholomew, Harland, “The Plan—Its Preparation, Composition, and
Form,” American Planning and Civic Annual, 1951. Washington, D.C.,
1951, pp. 97-102.

Reprinted in Herbert L. Marx, Jr., Community Planning (New
York, Wilson, 1956), as Vol. 28, No. 4, of the Reference Shelf, pp.
72-79.

50. Chamber of Commerce of the United States. Construction and Civic
Development Department. City Planning and Urban Development.
Washington, D.C., 1952. 47 pp.

A concise statement of the nature and purpose of the general
plan in contrast to the “official map” appears on pp. 23—24.

Zisman’s contribution has already been referred to. ... In 1954 Kent
addressed the California Biennial Institute of Mayors and Councilmen, and
for the first time outlined his ideas on the legislative uses of the general plan.

51. Zisman, S. B., The General Plan in the Redevelopment Program (Re-

204

Postwar Experience

development Information Service Publication No. 5). Chicago, National
Association of Housing Officials, November, 1952. 8 pp.

Mr.Zisman stresses “the fact that ultimately the best redevelopment
grows out of, and is in fact part of, the general plan.”

52. Kent, T. J., Jr., “Guiding City Development: A Major Responsibility
of the City Council,” Proceedings, 4th Biennial Institute of Mayors and
Councilmen. Berkeley, League of California Cities, 1954. 17 pp.

The legislative break from the Standard Act in California came in 1955
with the adoption of an amendment to the City and County Planning
Enabling Act which explicitly defined the essential physical elements to be
dealt with in the general plan (Article 7). Citizen awareness of the new
California concept was enhanced with a colorful and well-illustrated bro¬
chure on city planning published by the state legislature.

53. California. Laws, Statutes, etc. Laws Relating to Conservation, Plan¬
ning, and Zoning . . . Sacramento, Printing Division, 1955. 146 pp.

See particularly pp. 9—11.

54. California. Assembly. Interim Committee on Conservation, Planning
and Public Works. Planning for Growth: A Report on the Status of
City and Regional Planning in California. Sacramento, Legislative Bill
Room, 1955. 84 pp.

See particularly pp. 22—23 (“Nature and Function of the Master
Plan”), pp. 24-25 (“Steps in Preparing the Master Plan” and “Ele¬
ments of the Master Plan”), and pp. 26-31 for examples of experience
in Berkeley, Richmond, and Los Altos, California.

The history of the general-plan concept indicates that the lawyer is in
a peculiarly advantageous position to contribute to the theory of city planning.
Bassett, Bettman, Frank B. Williams, and, more recently, Charles M. Haar
have made major contributions. Among these, the latter has been most
influential in his writings on the general plan. Haar emphasizes that the
content of the master plan has changed from strict adherence to seven
activities as proposed by Bassett to broader concepts including classifications
which are co-extensive with the responsibilities of the local planning agency.
The influence of federal agencies in setting up standards as a prerequisite
for financial aid, says Haar, is exerting pressures “from the top” and is
going to have an increasing effect on the content. The author discusses these
tendencies and concludes that they are the result of a growing realization of
interdependence of modern society on all activities affecting land use. In
a second article, published the same year, Haar discusses the concepts of

205

A Bibliographic Essay on the Urban General Plan

the master plan, what the master plan means to the city planner, what it
means to property interests, the criteria for a statutory checklist, and the
written master plan.

55. Haar, Charles M., “The Content of the Master Plan: A Glance at
History,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners, Vol. 21 (Spring-
Summer, 1955), pp. 66-70.

56. -, “The Master Plan: An Impermanent Constitution,” Law and

Contemporary Problems, Vol. 20 (Summer, 1955), pp. 353-418.

Contains a valuable appendix summarizing information on plan¬
ning commissions, preparation of master plans, content, and analyzing
the acts in terms of how they translate plans into action. A fifth chart
deals with the legal impact of the master plan.

In 1956 the Cambridge city-planning consulting firm of Adams,
Howard, and Greeley was commissioned to survey the work program,
functions, and organization of the Los Angeles Department of City Planning
and to recommend ways of improving the effectiveness of the Department
and its program. Although the city had had an active planning program
for many years, its failure to produce a general plan led to confusion and
uncertainty, said the consultants. It is not surprising, therefore, that this
analysis—especially in light of the background and experience of the three
members of the firm—strongly recommended the preparation and adoption
of “a single master plan” and emphasized this by adding, “and cease the

misleading practice of identifying each component plan as itself a master
plan.”

57. Adams, Howard, and Greeley. Report to the Board of City Planning
Commissioners, City of Los Angeles, on the Los Angeles City Plan¬
ning Department, 1956. Cambridge, Mass., November, 1956. 175 pp.

Two other lawyers who examine the content of the general plan and
whose analyses are especially revealing are J. B. Milner and Allison Dunham.
Milner critically discusses the legal and administrative problems of the
master plan, stressing its importance as a significant legal document distinct
from and equal to zoning law and subdivision control; he reviews Canadian
practice and shows how confusion has arisen regarding the role of the
master plan. Dunham’s analysis attempts to reconstruct a theory of the
master plan in order to make clear the separation of the responsibilities
of a “central planner” from those of a departmental official and of a private
landowner. He criticizes Bassett’s concept as “too narrow- because it ex-

206

Postwar Experience

eludes from city planning all development plans . . . (other than loca¬
tion) of public and private users of land resources; too physical because it
emphasizes location and thereby ignores numerous socioeconomic forces;
too rigid because a city is a dynamic place; and too detailed because a
master plan ought to be confined more to general principles.” While the
author claims that recent city-planning literature shows a marked tendency
to depart from the Bassett view (in part due to the planner’s confusion over
the terms “plan,” “forecast,” and “proposal”), he also feels that there is a
theory which supports Bassett. The key to Bassett’s concept, writes Dunham,
is the factor of external impact of one public work upon another, although
he also stresses the zoning plan as a device which determines “where various
types of private development should not be located.” Dunham develops
this thesis to show that “what is needed is a philosophy delineating the reasons
for interference by central planners with the decisions of others.”

58. Milner, J. B., “Introduction to Master Plan Legislation,” Canadian
Bar Review, Vol. 35 (December, 1957), pp. 1125-1175.

59. Dunham, Allison, “City Planning: An Analysis of the Content of the
Master Plan,” Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 1 (October, 1958),
pp. 170-186.

Like his partner, Harland Bartholomew, Eldridge Lovelace believes
the fundamental job of the city planner is to prepare a city plan; indeed,
he believes so strongly in this central concept that he urges the title, “Direc¬
tor of the City Plan,” for the chief planning officer. On the other hand,
Dennis O’Harrow, Executive Director, American Society of Planning Offi¬
cials, takes quite a different view.

60. Lovelace, Eldridge, “1. You Can’t Have Planning Without a Plan.
2. Needed: One-Dimensional City Plans. 3. The Flexible City Plan is
No City Plan at All,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners,
Vol. 24, No. 1 (1958), pp. 7-10.

61. O’Harrow, Dennis, “Magic and Master Plans,” American Society of
Planning Officials Newsletter, Vol. 25 (February, 1959), p. 9.

See also the April, 1959, issue for reactions.

Hugh Pomeroy, Director of Planning for Westchester County, New
York, at the time of his death, shares with T. J. Kent, Jr., the idea that the
master plan is an essential guide for its chief client, the city council. Kent’s
teaching colleagues, Francis Violich and Corwin Mocine, also share his
concepts about objectives, organization, and procedures; but the former, of

207

A Bibliographic Essay on the Urban General Plan

course, applies them to very different local-government situations in Latin
America.

62. Pomeroy, Hugh R., “The Master Plan—Its Importance and Its Imple¬
mentation.” Address given before the Pennsylvania Planning Associa¬
tion Annual Meeting and the Local Government Conference on Plan¬
ning, Philadelphia, November 14, 1958. 20 pp. mimeo.

63. Violich, Francis, “The Urban General Plan as an Instrument for Guid¬
ing Urban Development: a Working Outline for the Seminar on Urban
Planning,” Inter-American Housing and Planning Center, Bogota,
Colombia, October 5 to 30, 1958. Berkeley, Department of City and
Regional Planning, University of California, May 1, 1958. 27 pp.
mimeo.

64. Mocine, Corwin R., “The Master Plan—Its Form and Function,”
Arizona Review of Business and Public Administration, Vol. 10 (July,
1961), pp. 13-14.

Perhaps the most significant book of an epochal decade for city plan¬
ning is Charles M. Haar’s Land-Use Planning. His theme is much broader
than city planning; he deals with the whole subject of property law in its
contemporary setting with emphasis on urban land in metropolitan areas.
But he reviews the history of the assumptions and goals of city pl annin g,
utilizing material which he developed earlier in various law journals, relat¬
ing his discussion to important law cases and including a “br illian tly argued
debate” in which “an attorney and a city planner discuss some fundamental
issues concerned with the role of the city council, the role of the professional
city planner, and the role of the master plan” in the city-planning process.

65. Haar, Charles M., “The Master Plan: An Inquiry in Dialogue Form,”
in his Land-Use Planning: A Casebook on the Use, Misuse, and Re-Use
of Urban Land. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1959, pp. 730-
744.

Reprinted in Journal of the American Institute of Planners, Vol.
25 (August, 1959), pp. 133-142.

With his election to the Berkeley City Council in 1957, T. J. Kent, Jr.,
was in a position to develop his ideas concerning the role and function of
the general plan in a practical way, giving his statements a cast of political
pragmatism often lacking in a purely scholarly approach. Twelve years’
teaching experience also greatly aided this process. Among his students

208

Postwar Experience

who have contributed richly, in their own right, to the theory of the general
plan, Alan Black stands out as the'most important in recent years. ^

66. Kent, T. J., Jr., “The Legislative Functions of the General Plan, Pro¬
ceedings, 8th Biennial Institute of Mayors and Councilmen. Berkeey,

League of California Cities, 1960. 14 pp.

67 _, “The City General Plan: Its Technical Elements and Legisla-

’ tive Functions,” in California Governor’s Conference on California’s
Urban Areas and the State Highway System, Papers. Sacramento, State

Department of Public Works, 1960, pp. 32-35. .

68. Black, Alan. The Functions of the Urban General Plan. M. . . esis.
University of California, Berkeley, i960. 136 pp.

Robert C. Hoover of Wayne State University rejects the “fourth power”
concept of Tugwell as well as Haar’s “master plan as an impermanen
constitution.” It is also certain that his proposals would not fit the defim ion
of general plan suggested by Kent. Hoover would have an elected Metro¬
politan Direction-Finding Commission” prepare a 25-year body of socio¬
physical end-directions; an executive-prepared 10-year plan for services and
physical development; a legislatively-prepared 5-year growth policy and a 5-
year socio-physical development plan, the latter to be re-enacted annually.

69. Hoover, Robert C., “On Master Plans and Constitutions,” Journal of
the American Institute of Planners, Vol. 26 (February, 1960), pp. 5-24.

The final entries in this bibliographic essay are, appropriately, official
general-plan documents that offer significant evidence of the rea i ^ an
validity of the general-plan concept. They focus on major physical
ment problems and opportunities; they deal with a common s
tial physical elements; they are long-range, comprehensive, andL generaL
and they are presented in unified, single documents available to ^ ^
These plan documents are significant also because t ey are c n . f
cities representing a wide range of sizes and located m ^rent regi
the United States. Finally, the documents are significant beca ^ e ^
the result of sustained political and professional programs: Hie^ erne a
professional leaders responsible for these urban general plans were, in
Lance, individuals who had gained the respect of their coU ^ ues a
result of many years of work in municipal government and city plan g.

70. Cleveland City Planning Commission. The General Plan of Cleveland.

Cleveland, 1950. 48 pp.

209

A Bibliographic Essay on the Urban General Plan

71. Berkeley City Planning Commission. Berkeley Master Plan. Berkeley,
California, 1955. Ill pp.

72. Philadelphia City Planning Commission. Comprehensive Plan: The
Physical Development Plan for the City of Philadelphia. Philadelphia,
1960. 105 pp.

210

INDEX

Adams, Howard, and Greeley (firm), 50, 206
Adams, Thomas, 196
American Institute of Planners, 63
American Society of Planning Officials, 62

Banfield, Edward C., 201
Bartholomew, Harland, 207
Bassett, Edward M., 13, 22, 24, 45, 198, 199,
200, 205, 206, 207

Berkeley (city), 17, 61, 62, 70, 80, 101, 105-
106,112-113,116-117,132,133,140,146,
154, 157-158, 166, 180

Berkeley Master Plan, 19, 101, 105-106, 112-
113, 116-117, 128-129, 135, 157-158
adoption resolution, 135-137
illustration, 106-111, 114-115
Bettman, Alfred, 13, 27, 29-30, 31, 32, 38, 43,
45,46,47,48,49, 51, 59, 61-62, 63, 198,
199, 200, 201, 205
Black, Alan, 84, 209
Blucher, Walter, 62
Burnham, Daniel, 177, 197

Cambridge (England), 103-104, 131
Campbell, Warren, 17
Chico (city), 140, 182
Cincinnati (city), 49, 61, 62, 100, 200, 203
Circulation, 18-19, 177-180 (illustration, 178-
179)

City council, 9-12
and municipal policy, 11

City manager, role of, 7-9
City planning
independent activity, 13-15
policy-making activity of city council, 16-18
role of, 12-18 (illustration, 14)
staff-aide concept, 15-16
City planning director, 16-18
City and County Planning Enabling Act
(California), 63, 205
Civic design, 19, 174-177
Cleveland (city), 13, 49, 61, 62, 132-133, 140,
146, 150, 154, 163-174, 180, 182-183
Commission form (of municipal govern¬
ment), 6

Community facilities, 18-19, 171-174
Community renewal, illustration, 172-173
Copeland, Robert Morris, 196
Copenhagen (city), 158-162 (illustration, 160-
161)

Council, city, 9-12

and municipal policy, 11
Council-manager form (of municipal govern¬
ment), 5, 7-9

Detroit (city), 61, 62
Dunham, Allison, 206-207

L’Enfant, 196
Fagin, Henry, 46, 48

211

Index

Government, municipal
commission form, 6
council-manager form, 5, 7-9
forms of, 5-9
illustration, xiii
strong-mayor form, 5-7
weak-mayor form, 6

Haar, Charles M., 78, 88, 205, 208, 209

Hippodamus of Miletus, 190

Hoover, Herbert, 32, 199

Hoover, Robert C., 209

Housing Act of 1949, 203-204

Housing and Home Finance Agency, 63, 204

Howard, John T., 59, 201

Kent, T. J., Jr., 80, 189, 190, 207, 208, 209

Land use, 18-19

London (England), 138-140, 146
Los Angeles (city), 62
Lovelace, Eldridge, 207

Master plan, see Urban general plan
Milner, J. B., 206
Mocine, Corwin, 207-208
Municipal government, 5-9

National Resources Planning Board, 48
New York (city), 62

Oakland (city), 150
illustration of plan, 152-153
Oglethorpe, James, 196
O’Harrow, Dennis, 207
Olmsted, Frederick Law, Jr., 1, 27, 28-29,
30, 31, 32, 38, 47, 48, 49, 51, 61, 63, 177,
197, 198, 199

Park and recreation areas, illustration, 175
Philadelphia (city), 13, 102-103,132-133,140,
141-142,146,150,151,154-155,166,174,
180

illustration of plan, 155, 167-170
Phillips, John, 17

Plan, general, see Urban general plan
Plan, zoning, 33
defined, 35

and general plan, 33-40
illustration, 36-37
and Standard Act, 33-40

212

Planning, city
independent activity, 13-14
policy-making activity of city council, 16-18
role of, 12-18 (illustration, 14)
staff-aide concept, 15-16
Pomeroy, Hugh, 207

Public transportation, illustration, 178-179

Residential areas, illustration, 167-170
Rickover, Hyman G., 85

San Francisco (city), 13, 49, 171

San Francisco Bay Area, 101, 113, 154

Savannah (city), 196

Seattle (city), 49, 61, 62

Segoe, Ladislas, 61, 201

Senior, Derek, 131

Standard City Planning Enabling Act, 13, 27,
31, 32-59, 60, 62, 199, 200, 201
and city-planning commission, 53-59
purpose, 32-33

Strong-mayor form (of municipal govern¬
ment), 5-7

Town and Country Planning Act (England),
52, 130

Transportation, public, illustration, 178-179
Tugwell, Rexford G., 13-15, 46, 47, 201, 209

Urban general plan
amendable, 127-129
basic policies, 157-162
Bettman concept, 29-31
characteristics of, 90-129
circulation section, 177-180
as city council’s plan, 121-123
civic-design section, 174-177
client of, 22-25
and communication, 77-80
community-facilities section, 171-174
comprehensive, 98-102
contents of, 133-184 (illustration, 144-145)
and conveyance of advice, 80-86
defined, 18, 189
description of, 156-184
disagreements, 2

document contents, 18-21, 130-184
and education, 86-89
and educational potential, 123-127
as guide to council action, 73-80

.SP""

Index

ideas and scope, 1-2
illustration, 92-93
implications of uses, 132-133
lack of definition of elements, 43-46
as legislative policy instrument, 23
legislative use, 65-89
long-range need, 95-98
need to be general, 102-104
Olmsted conception, 28-29
organization of, 133-184
and physical design-policy relationships,
104-119

and physical development, 91-95
piecemeal adoption of, 40-43
policies, 20

and policy determination, 66-73
and policy effectuation, 73-77
primary uses, 6
and public, 123
and public debate, 119-121
purposes of, 25-26
questions as to scope, 46-53
reconsideration of, 71

scope, 28
and the user, 4-5
utilities section, 180-181
working-and-living-areas section, 162-171
(illustration, 164-165)
and zoning plan, 33-40
Utilities, 19, 180-181

Violich, Francis, 207-208

Walker, Robert A., 15, 16, 46, 50, 200-201
Washington, D.C., 69, 147, 198
plan illustration, 148-149
Weak-mayor form (of municipal govern¬
ment), 6

Williams, Frank B., 205

Zisman, S. B., 204
Zoning plan, 33
defined, 35

and general plan, 33-40
illustration, 36-37
and Standard Act, 33-40

213