Housing and Inner City Redevelopment

Town planning is now a very important part of our national life. One hardly ever reads through a newspaper without coming across some reference to it and seldom meets anyone who has not at some time been affected directly in his personal life by town planning action, whether beneficially or otherwise. Yet it is a very little understood and a much misunderstood activity. Very few people, even intelligent and well-informed people, understand what town planning is trying or ought to be trying to achieve and how. This is surprising because, although any full understanding of town planning necessitates acquiring some technical knowledge, only quite a little is needed for a broad understanding of it, less than is needed to understand, for example, roughly how an internal combustion engine works, which most intelligent people understand.
This lack of understanding is most unfortunate; it prevents the development of a powerful mass of informed public opinion on the subject which could exert pressure on central and local government to carry out better town planning and could encourage town planners to perform better. I think the reason is, mainly, that there has seldom been any clear-cut distinction made by public authorities or the media between town planning and 'planning' as a generalised activity covering everything from preparing school building programmes to working out duty rosters. (Some town planners themselves, in recent years, have encouraged this by trying to arrogate to themselves activities which are outside their expertise.)