===================== HES POSTING ===================== As a former national/regional planner, I'm puzzled by the disappearance of national planning from the Economics and International Development Studies agenda since 1980. In the 1970s, I avidly read and quoted the writing on planning by such great economists as W. Arthur Lewis, Jan Tinbergen, Raul Prebisch, Albert Waterston, and Keith Griffin (and also the work of such Public Administration Profs. as Aaron Wildavsky, Luther Gulick, and Bertram Gross). Around 1980 I disappeared from the world of national/regional planning, and I have spent most of the last 16 years doing local-level land-use planning, urban design, and employment promotion, and also exploring urban planning history. Recently I have been looking at the works of such New Deal proponents of national planning as Rexford Tugwell, Stuart Chase, Lewis Lorwin, and Lauchlin Currie. What happened to national planning? W. Arthur Lewis, Tinbergen, Prebisch, and many other great crusaders have passed away, many national planning institutions have shrunk or disappeared, and the whole field seems to have "faded quietly." Symbolically, on February 1st this year, after 62 years with its old name, the National Planning Association in Washington DC changed its name to the National Policy Association. Rather naively, I would like to ask "HOW DO YOU INTERPRET THIS?" * Has national planning really faded in most parts of the world? * If so, why did it rise and why has it fallen? * What are the best writings by economists and historians of economics which might help me to interpret the fate of national planning? * Is the fate of broad-scale regional planning somehow tied to that of national economic and social planning? As you might guess, I can think of some possible explanations (Hayek, Thatcher, Reagan, the fall of the Soviet Union etc.), but none seem to counter the common-sense (and clearly anti-Soviet) logic of W. Arthur Lewis, Tinbergen etc. What did I miss? Who stuck the knife in so deep and so effectively? I'd greatly welcome the chance to dialog with others on this topic. Ray Bromley Dept. of Geography & Planning The University at Albany - SUNY ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]