m n mm 

 
 i/I B RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 
 o\e>.7\\4 
 
 C73e 
 no. 2\-28 
 
 cm pi
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/generalplaninurb21jone
 
 Council of Planning Librarians EXCHANGE BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 July 19 6 2* 
 
 v^ 
 
 Z^ 
 
 THE GENERAL PLAN IN THE URBAN PLANNING PROCESS: 
 
 AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 ESSAY 
 
 Compiled by Holway R. Jones, Librarian, City and Regional Planning 
 Library, University of California, Berkeley, v/ith an Introduction by 
 T. J. Kent, Jr. , Professor of City Planning, University of California 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. Introduction, by T. J. Kent, Jr. 
 
 I I. The Nature of the General Plan and the Interim General 
 Plan, by Graduate Students, University r o^| Calif qrnia. 
 
 III. A Bibliographic Essay on the £ volution/^ Qin7ld&&b/^by 
 Holway R. Jones. 
 
 UKiVCiSlTY li? ILUiilS 
 
 I. Introduct ion 
 
 For twenty-six years, between 1929 and 1955, the practice of 
 city and county planning in California was characterized by uncertainty 
 among the members of the 'profession as to the meaning of the basic 
 general plan concept and the specific term, "the master plan. " 
 
 In 1929 the definition of the master plan in the California city plan- 
 ning enabling act was amended to permit any city or county planning 
 
 * The original manuscript for this bibliography was completed in Decem- 
 ber, 1961, but was withheld from publication until after Professor Kent 
 had released the draft of his book, The Urban General Plan . Citation 
 to this draft is made in Section HI. The subtitle of the bioliography 
 was changed to reflect more accurately the nature of the compilation. 
 Emphasis is on the evolution of the urban general plan concept as an 
 operational document. Professor Kent's graduate seminar in the fall 
 semester, 1962, will undertake to compile an annotated bibliography 
 of general plan examples, and this will be made available in a later 
 number of the Exchange Bihliographies. 

 
 L Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 : GENERAL PLAN IN THE URBAN PLANNING PROCESS: ESSAY AND 
 LIOGRAPHY Exchange Bibliography No. 21 
 
 itional copies available from: 
 
 Exchange Bibliographies 
 
 C ouncil of Planning Librarians 
 
 6318 Thornhill Drive 
 
 O akland 11, California 
 
 Price per copy: $ 1. 50
 
 13 - 
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 commission to decide for itself what constituted the essential physical 
 elements of its master plan. During the following two decades, for a 
 number of reasons, this legislative definition was interpreted to mean 
 that any single element plan or single district plan, or any combina- 
 tion of these plans, could, since the law was specifically permissive 
 on this point, be designated as the master plan of a city or county. 
 Because the California law was outstanding in other respects, its use 
 as an example throughout the nation meant that the illogical definition 
 of the master plan that it contained was spread far and wide prior to 
 World War II. 
 
 By 1945 the backlog of capital improvement projects caused by 
 the postponement of normal city building activities during the war had 
 created a demand by civic leaders for unified, logical general plans 
 throughout the United States, and this demand, in turn, led to a new 
 recognition by the leaders of the profession of the need for agreement 
 on the essential elements of the general plan. Nationally this agreement 
 was expressed as early as 1943 by the clear definition of the essential 
 elements of the general plan included in the Model Urban Redevelopment 
 Act prepared by Alfred Bettman for the American Society of Planning 
 Officials, and by the careful description of the technical nature and pur- 
 pose of the general plan included in City Planning and Urban Develop- 
 ment published in 1952 by the United States Chamber of Commerce. 
 The text of this booklet was prepared by a joint committee of the Cham- 
 ber and the American Institute of Planners, and was approved by the 
 Board of Governors of the Institute prior to publication. 
 
 In California, however, it was not until 1955 that agreement was 
 reached on the necessity of eliminating the illogical definition that had 
 caused so much confusion and uncertainty ever since it had been written 
 into the city and county planning enabling act twenty- six years earlier. 
 In 1955 the California Legislature finally amended the law, in response 
 to recommendations submitted by the Legislative Committee of the 
 California Chapter of the American Institute of Planners, and the pre- 
 sent California legislative definition of the essential physical elements 
 of the general plan is, once again, a logical and useful definition. 
 
 The two chapters from the 1951 University of California graduate 
 student study reproduced on the following pages are best understood as 
 an expression of the effort made by the students to understand the his- 
 torical background of the general plan concept in the United States and 
 California, and the controversy concerning the meaning of this concept 
 that I have briefly outlined above. Ivlr. Jones has chosen to reproduce 
 them in this bibliography because, although written in what we now can 
 see was the middle of the postwar debate on this subject within the city 
 planning profession in California, they still seem to present one of the 
 most useful written statements available on the nature and purpose of 
 the urban general plan. As the instructor responsible for the project,
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 I would like to express my admiration for the quality of the work done 
 by the students throughout the entire study, and to express the hope that the 
 ideas presented in the material reproduced here may be stimulating and 
 informative to other students, as well as to city planning professors and prac- 
 titioners. 
 
 To contemporary readers, the vital interest that we obviously had in 
 this subject in 1951 may now seem to have been academic. But when this 
 study was undertaken, the issue was an important and controversial one for 
 the American city planning profession. If the publication of this state- 
 ment on the nature and purpose of the urban general plan assists the 
 next generation to avoid the detours that some of us in the generation that 
 entered the profession in the nineteen-thirties had to travel, it will have 
 served its purpose. 
 
 In closing, I would like to express my appreciation to Mr. Holway 
 Jones for his creative work as a bibliographer in the field of city plan- 
 ning. I am conscious of the fact that practice-oriented city planning 
 faculty members do not write as much as their more academically-ori- 
 ented colleagues do, and I am grateful to Mr. Jones for his initiative 
 in discovering effective ways to document ideas and concepts that may 
 be of value even in fragmentary form to the members of the profession, 
 both in the universities and in the city halls and county court houses 
 throughout the country. 
 
 Il-a. THE NATURE OF THE GENERAL PLAN* 
 
 City planning is no longer a novel activity of municipal govern- 
 ment. Having achieved a youthful middle age, it has accumulated a 
 large body of experience; it has attracted an enthusiastic group of im- 
 aginative practitioners; and it has become a continuous advisory func- 
 tion within American city government. But, in common with many 
 other arts and sciences born of this century, it has failed to develop an 
 established general theory. The absence of an accepted theory is re- 
 flected in the profession's uncertainty with respect to its role, uncer- 
 tainty with respect to the procedures and the products which are its task. 
 The citizens who employ the planners are seldom certain of their own 
 purposes; the city officials who work with them are seldom sure of just 
 what it is that the planner is up to. 
 
 ♦ Reprinted from Interim General Plan for Berkeley, California; Part I : 
 Stu dies an d Proposa ls; Graduate Student Project, CP 213, Department 
 of City and Regional Planning and the School of Architecture, Univer- 
 sity of California, Berkeley, January, 1952, pp. 3-19.
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 But this fluidity of present planning thought and practice is not 
 to be lamented; rather, it is a quality which helps to insure the future 
 of the profession. Certainty often becomes dogma which, in turn, 
 discourages innovation; and a body of too rigidly accepted planning 
 theory might well quench imaginative thinking. By its very charac- 
 ter, planning is a species of activity which either continues to grow 
 by innovation or dies. 
 
 The contemporary planner in the modern community finds him- 
 self in a particularly fertile field, where the opportunity for imagina- 
 tive innovation is limited only by his own deficiencies. Although his 
 role in that community suffers in some degree from a lack of clear 
 definition, the need for someone of his skill and training is generally 
 recognized by all members of the society. The citizen of almost 
 every city in the United States is dissatisfied with traffic conditions. 
 In most large cities the problems of blight are of particular concern 
 to business firms, to citizen groups, and to city officials. Discon- 
 tent with the quality and the quantity of public services is not uncom- 
 mon. Property-owners and tenants alike are periodically concerned 
 with the insidious encroachment of commerce and industry into resi- 
 dential areas. There are few who are wholly pleased with the appear- 
 ance of the central portions of their cities. There is probably no 
 single person living in an American city today who has not on some 
 occasion expressed a degree of dissatisfaction with some aspect of 
 his environment and voiced the time-worn phrase, "Why don't 
 'they' do something about it?" 
 
 As indeed "they" should; for the modern city is fraught with a 
 complex of serious problems, the solutions to many of which are 
 clearly the responsibility of city government. Within the past half 
 century, American city government has attempted to meet that 
 responsibility. 
 
 The early professional planning activity, which was initiated 
 shortly after the 1893 Chicago Fair, was largely an effort to beautify 
 the city. The plans which were drawn for many American cities 
 captured the imagination and enthusiasm of their citizens and en- 
 couraged the civic pride which made possible the erection of large 
 scale public works in remarkably short periods of time. Monumental 
 civic centers, large public parks, waterfront developments, grand 
 avenues sprang into being. There is ample reason to believe that 
 almost everyone was well satisfied with the results; nevertheless 
 the splurge in civic construction soon waned. But not before city plan- 
 ning had become a familiar term to the man in the street; not before 
 city planning had become synonymous with civic beautification. 
 
 On the heels of the beautification works arose an increasing in- 
 terest in housing reform, sanitation enforcement, transit system 
 development, and notably, for the control of activities which were
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 deemed to be nuisances. Based upon the contention that factories 
 caused a deterioration in living conditions v/hen located in or near 
 residential areas, that property values were endangered by the migra- 
 tion of non-residential land uses into neighborhood communities, most 
 cities in the nation enacted zoning ordinances within a relatively brief 
 period of time. Supplemented by controls over the subdivision of new 
 lands, most cities employed the ordinances as the major device for the 
 guidance of the city's growth. 
 
 In the 1930's public housing was projected as one solution to the 
 problem of decay in the older portions of the cities, and large numbers 
 of municipalities, eager to improve themselves, launched public housing 
 programs. 
 
 But neither zoning ordinances, subdivision controls, public housing, 
 nor civic beautification separately or jointly have fulfilled the promises 
 that they were once believed to hold. After a generation of experience 
 in the administration of these devices, the physical form of the city is 
 still a source of great concern to its inhabitants, although certainly the 
 problems which provoke that concern have been very greatly amelior- 
 ated by those devices. 
 
 In large degree, too, that amelioration has been the result of a 
 different species of activity in which some city governments have been 
 engaged. That activity is, of course, cr.ty planning. 
 
 Although most cities did appoint planning commissions in the period 
 1925 to 1950, most of the commissions devoted the largest portion of 
 their energies and time to the administration of zoning ordinances and 
 to the design of the new subdivision developments which were taking 
 place on their fringes. The more venturesome of them attempted at 
 the same time to design long-range plans for various aspects of the 
 city's physical plant. Thus, in an attempt to schedule the expenditure 
 of capital funds, plans for parks, for schools, for highways, for sewer- 
 age- and water-works and the like, were drawn. These plans represented 
 conscientious attempts at the estimation of the needs of the citizens of 
 the community at some time in the future and were necessarily drawn 
 within the framework of the entire community area for that date. Thus, 
 for example, the construction of a sewerage system in a community in 
 1940 was based upon designs which attempted to forecast the demand 
 for sewerage facilities some 50 years hence, say 1990. The engineers, 
 in all probability, attempted to predict the density of populations in the 
 various portions of the city, the demands of industrial firms, of commer- 
 cial and of other activities. In effect, the engineers were placed in the 
 position of attempting to predict the entire pattern of land uses a genera- 
 tion and more ahead. They were attempting to predict the pattern of 
 city streets and highways along which their pipes would be laid. They 
 were attempting to predict the location and scales of the various public 
 and private institutional facilities which would be developed during
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 their design period. But in the absence of plans for the future devel- 
 opment of some of these other components of the city, they were 
 forced to make, at best, enlightened guesses with respect to their pat- 
 terns of development. 
 
 The same kind of problem was faced by those who made plans 
 for other facilities in the city -- streets and highways, schools, parks, 
 waterworks, etc. Wherever the city had previously prepared plans 
 for schools, parks, streets, etc. , it is assumed that the sanitary en- 
 gineer used these as the basis for his computations. But, in turn, 
 those who drew the plans for schools, parks, and streets before him 
 could only have made considered guesses with respect to the future 
 physical patterns of the sewerage system. Each attempted to visu- 
 alize a city v/hich did not yet exist, and the visualization of one may 
 have been quite different from that of the next. Few ever drew this 
 picture on paper and displayed it for all to see. And in one sense this 
 was perhaps prudent; for the city, as visualized by the sanitary engin- 
 eer may be in no sense the city desired by the citizens. Nor should 
 one expect that it should be; the sanitary engineer is trained to design 
 sewerage-works and not cities. But in the absence of a community- 
 approved plan to guide him, however, and employed to design an ex- 
 ceedingly expensive city-wide public work as best he could, the engi- 
 neer all too often did in fact set the basic design of the city. The com- 
 munity which came after him may have had little financial choice but 
 to follow his basic design. The same is true of the basic highway de- 
 sign, the basic park design, the distribution of schools, rail lines, 
 rail-transit routes, etc. 
 
 These basic designs are, in fact, in most cities to some degree 
 an expression of community policy, however. One of the basic guides 
 employed by the designer of functional plans is the zoning ordinance 
 which maps the distribution and patterns of land uses in the city. But 
 the zoning ordinance is, of course, not the kind of guide which the de- 
 signers need in order adequately to perform their task. The ordi- 
 nance is largely a picture of existing land uses, the legal instrument 
 of control for the present and for the immediate future. It should 
 make no pretenses in this matter. Enacted to control the kinds of 
 development which take place in the various districts of the city in the 
 short period which lies ahead, the zoning ordinance is usually the i-nir- 
 ror reflection of past land use patterns and of day-to-day political 
 decisions. Moreover, it is usually concerned primarily with private 
 land uses. It seldom attempts to reduce the intensity of use in any 
 given area; and, for example, should an undesirable pattern of com- 
 mercial development have occurred prior to enactment, the ordinance 
 would not necessarily attempt to correct the error, but would instead 
 reinforce and expand the unfortunate pattern. In almost every case, 
 the kind of thinking and study which went into the formulation of the 
 zoning ordinance was of a kind quite different from that sought by the 
 sanitary engineer, or the builder, or the school board, or the recrea-
 
 CPL Exchange Eibliography 21 
 
 tion commission, or the highway commission, or the industrialist, or 
 the merchant. The kind of document they need is, rather, a general 
 plan for the future uses of the lard. 
 
 Many cities have initiated planning programs in an attempt to 
 create the kinds of plans which would meet the requirements of their 
 citizens, merchants, industrialists, and their governmental depart- 
 ments. It is probably fair to estimate that very few of them have been 
 wholly satisfied with the results of their efforts. Believing that mean- 
 ingful plans for the separate functional elements could be developed, and 
 faced with the immediate need to formulate formal bases for decision 
 making, city governments have drawn "master plans" for waterfronts, 
 transit, playgrounds, airports, street numbers, bridle paths, hiking 
 trails, parks, scenic drives, parking, transportation terminals, street 
 trees, utilities, historical sites, and many others. But because the 
 number of variables which influence the separate functional elements are 
 so diverse, the plans which were drawn were not capable of integration 
 one with the other. 
 
 The most common such plan being prepared today is that for streets 
 and highways; literally hundreds of such plans have already been pro- 
 duced. But in the absence of a plan for land use, which spells out the 
 areas of varying population density, areas for commercial centers of 
 varying scale, areas for industry of various needs, and areas for other 
 classes of land use, the traffic volume which the planned streets will 
 eventually be forced to carry cannot be estimated with a tolerable degree 
 of accuracy. As the result, the streets and highways plans may be of 
 negligible value. The same is of course true of similar separate plans 
 for parks and the like. 
 
 In an attempt to fill this breach, a series of plans is oftentimes 
 prepared and adopted, separate functional plans being cumulated over 
 time, but the same problem arises in each case. A street plan which 
 is completed prior to the preparation of a land use plan must assume a 
 pattern of land uses to which it is to be geared. If a comprehensive 
 plan for future land uses is made in the course of preparation, the 
 trafficways plan may be meaningful. But this is seldom the case, and 
 a set of necessarily tenuous assumptions regarding future land uses 
 is made instead. The land use plan which follows must either be forced 
 into the meld of the admittedly tentative assumptions, or, if it is de- 
 veloped independently, may require a quite different street system to 
 serve it than that proposed by the already published and adopted street 
 plan. Clearly, were it possible to develon all the plans simultaneously, 
 the interrelations among all elements of the plan could better be ad- 
 justed one to the other. 
 
 The development of a plan for a city might be likened to the de- 
 velopment of the design of an airplane. Beth are extremely complex 
 mechanisms, the city being by far the more intricate of the two. It
 
 CPL, Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 would, in the case of the airplane, be sheer folly to attempt to design 
 pistons before designing cylinders, to design the wings before design- 
 ing the fuselage. The engineers work on all parts of the plane before 
 the final design for any one part is completed; they can thus adjust 
 the design of the various elements, one to the other, as they proceed. 
 The final over -all design is not completed until all the parts have been 
 integrated into a single working entity. So too, it would seem, must 
 the design of a city proceed. 
 
 This adaptation of mechanical engineering procedure to city plan- 
 ning is of course not a new idea. It was proposed by a group of men 
 during the decade of the twenties, notably by Alfred Bettman, one of 
 the pioneers of city planning in this nation. In 1925, under Bettman's 
 leadership, the Cincinnati Planning Commission prepared such an 
 integrated, comprehensive, city plan, the first of its kind in America. 
 Since that time, a number of other large cities have also prepared 
 general, master plans of this sort* -- including San Francisco, Cleve- 
 land, Detroit, and Richmond, Virginia. Other cities, including 
 Youngstown and Berkeley, have such plans in preparation at the pre- 
 sent time. It is curious that so few comprehensive, general plans 
 have been prepared to date in California. The reasons may perhaps 
 be found in the enabling legislation under which city planning has oper- 
 ated. 
 
 "A Standard City Planning Enabling Act" was published in 1928 
 by the United States Department of Commerce under Secretary Herbert 
 Hoover. It was prepared by an Advisory Committee on City Planning 
 and Zoning and furnished the basis for most of the state enabling legis- 
 lation enacted in this country. With some modifications it was used 
 as the basis of the California Conservation and Planning Act of 1929. 
 In defining the function of the planning commission, the California Act 
 uses the following language:'' 
 
 It shall be the function and duty of each planning com- 
 mission to prepare and adopt a comprehensive, long- 
 term, general plan for the physical development of the 
 city, county, or region, and of any land outside the 
 boundaries thereof which in the commission's judg-- 
 ment bear relation to the planning thereof. Such plan 
 shall be known as the master plan and shall be so 
 
 ^The term "general plan" is used in this report to identify the 
 type of master plan which is described here. It is felt that because 
 the term "master plan" is applied to a number of different types of city 
 plans, a separate term is needed in order to facilitate discussion. 
 
 2 The State Conservation and Planning Act, California Statutes 
 1947, Chapter 807 and amendments thereto. Article 5, Sections 35-47.
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 prepared that all or portions thereof may be adopted by 
 the legislative body, ... as a basis for the development 
 of the city, county, or region for such reasonable period 
 of time next ensuing after the adoption thereof as may 
 practically be covered thereby. The master plan with the 
 accompanying maps, diagrams, charts, descriptive 
 matter and reports shall include such of the following 
 subject matter or portions thereof as are appropriate 
 to the city, county, or region, and as may be made 
 the basis for the physical development thereof. 
 
 A master plan may comprise any, all, or any combina- 
 tion of the plans specified in this article. Conservation 
 Plan . . . Land Use Plan . . . Recreation Plan . . . 
 Streets and Highway Plan . . . Transportation Plan 
 . . . Transit Plan . . . Public Services and Facili- 
 ties . . . Public Buildings . . . Community Design 
 . . . Housing . . . Other and additional plans ... 
 
 The intention of the framers of the legislation is clear. The lan- 
 guage was to be sufficiently general as to allow the maximum amount 
 of freedom on the part of the separate communities to conduct their 
 planning activities as they deemed most fit for their particular circum- 
 stances. General intentions and general recommendations are included, 
 but the legislators judiciously enacted no rigorous procedure into law. 
 
 In accordance with the original intentions, the Act has been inter- 
 preted in different ways by different communities, each of them con- 
 scientiously attempting to carry out the purposes in accordance with 
 their specialized needs. But, in general, the interpretations have been 
 of three kinds. 
 
 One group of planning agencies has felt no need for over-all, 
 comprehensive planning for the physical development of their juris- 
 dictions, and the separate master plans which they have evolved are 
 not intended to comprise a cumulative series of plans which corroborate 
 and supplement one another. Rather they have made plans for only 
 those components which are regarded as problems; and as proposed 
 solutions to specific problems, the plans are specific in their recom- 
 mendations, limited almost exclusively to the problem under study, 
 and short-range in their application. 
 
 A second group of jurisdictions is slowly working toward the time 
 when they will have a series of plans which comprise a comprehensive 
 master plan. 
 
 J The California Act was codified in the 1951 session of the Legis- 
 lature, and although the organization of the sections of the act was changed, 
 no substantive changes were made in the language. See California Govern- 
 ment Code, Chapter 334, Title 7, Chapter 1, Article 7, Paragraph 65200 ff. 
 
 10
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 The third method is that of San Francisco and Berkeley, which 
 have approached their programs by attempting to construct a single, 
 comprehensive, long-term, general plan for the physical development 
 of all elements within their respective jurisdictions. Study and design 
 of each element is carried on during the same period in which the study 
 and design of ail other elements is underway, so that upon completion 
 of the plan, proposals are made for all facets of the physical complex 
 of the city. Although allocation of staff time may require that work be 
 done on one study at a time (that after completion of one study, it be 
 temporarily dropped and that another aspect of the city be investigated), 
 no plans are considered to be completed until there has been an oppor- 
 tunity to fit and refit the various aspects of the plan one to the other. 
 San Francisco's general plan, which is now completed, and Berkeley's 
 general plan, which is presently in preparation, thus give recognition 
 to the fact of the inter-relationship of the many component functions and 
 areas of their cities and attempt, in a single concerted effort, to devise 
 a scheme which will integrate all those elements into a working unified 
 whole. 
 
 The general plan for San Francisco and those which have been pre- 
 pared recently by the cities of Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Richmond, 
 and a large number of European cities have seven major defining char- 
 acteristics in common. These may be discussed briefly in turn. 
 
 (1) All portray upon a single set of drawings the commission's 
 recommendations with respect to the approximate locations and scales 
 of the major classes of land use and circulation media. The purposes 
 of portraying all the plan's prpposals within a single set of graphic pre- 
 sentation are twofold: it greatly simplifies the relationships illustrated 
 and facilitates the study and design process; and it greatly simplifies 
 the explanation of the plan to the public and thereby facilitates discus- 
 sion between the planners and the citizens for whom the plan is prepared. 
 
 (2) The recently prepared general plans are commonly prepared 
 against a time scale of approximately 20-30 years. It would be highly 
 desirable if the recommendations could be of longer range than this, 
 but the limitations of statistical forecasting techniques impose a limita- 
 tion upon the accuracy of projections of populations, economic activity, 
 obsolescence of structures, developments in technology and the like. 
 
 A compromise must be made between the accuracy of projections and 
 hence the validity of the plan, and the desirable longer-range planning. 
 A 20-30 year plan can achieve a meaningful degree of accuracy in its 
 projection-bases; and it can also function as the required realistic 
 guide for a sufficiently long period of time as to serve the needs of pub- 
 lic and private investors who build structures which will be amortized 
 over many years. 
 
 Not all of the proposals recommended by the plan are anticipated 
 to be realized within the 20-30 year period, however. Because of their 
 great cost or because of their extensive character, some will not be 
 
 11
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 achieved for perhaps 50 or more years. But they are included within 
 the plan nonetheless, and this is necessarily so. A city, and especially 
 a built-up city, changes very slowly. As obsolete structures are demol- 
 ished and replaced, as new public works are completed, as private in- 
 vestors develop previously vacant areas, the city : s form and character 
 are gradually molded into ever-changing patterns. The plan attempts 
 to recognize these processes and in the most realistic way possible to 
 guide those processes tov/ard the goals which it sets. It is no quick, 
 dream scheme. But it is an imaginative, daring one. And it is content 
 to make its progress slowly. 
 
 Hence, for example, a proposal to change a presently mixed indus- 
 trial area into an exclusively residential area must wait until such time 
 as the existing factory structures become antiquated and may be economi-. 
 cally demolished. A proposal to create a city-wide parkway system, 
 such as that recommended for San Francisco, must wait upon the slow 
 acquisition of private lands by the city government. The San Francisco 
 greenbelts may not become a completed reality for some 50 years to 
 come; they are shown in the general plan for the city, however, because 
 they form an integral part of the entire city-wide recreation, trafficways, 
 and residential systems, and the relationships among these latter elements 
 cannot be expressed in the absence of the graphic representation of the 
 parkways. 
 
 The general plan is not a scheduled program of development; it 
 is rather a general guide for that development over as long a period of 
 time as can reasonably be predicted. And it will achieve its objectives 
 during as long a period as is necessary. 
 
 (3) The common attribute of the comprehensive character of the 
 recent general plans has been suggested elsewhere, and it is sufficient 
 here merely to note that each of the plans recognizes that all activities 
 of the modern city are highly inter -dependent; the plans propose to deal 
 with all of them and to integrate each of them into the future city's physi- 
 cal plant in such a way that the inter-relationships among these various 
 land uses are che best possible. 
 
 (4) The representations of these many plan-elements is made in ap- 
 proximate, generalized fashion only. The drawing is not intended to be a 
 precise document but rather to be the guide which indicates the working 
 relationships between kinds of activities of fairly large scale. Thus, for 
 example, the indication of a proposed freeway route which is drawn upon 
 a base map of the city is not intended to indicate the specific location of 
 that freeway. What is intended is the representation that volumes of 
 traffic, which reflect the desires of citizens to move from one place to 
 another and the desires of merchants to move goods from one place to 
 another, is such as to warrant the construction of a trafficway which will 
 support that projected volume of traffic, and that those volumes will re- 
 quire a road of freeway standards. It is then the task of the highway 
 
 12
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 2i 
 
 engineer, the traffic engineer, and other technical specialists to design 
 the freeway, to determine the exact locations for not only the structural 
 elements but for the main roadbed itself. Detailed studies conducted 
 by the engineers may suggest that the freeway should follow a route 
 blocks away from that suggested in the plan; and this is as it is intended. 
 For the detailed kinds of studies which will produce the freeway were 
 not within the province of the planning staff. The studies conducted b/ 
 the planners indicate only the large-area patterns which the city should 
 develop in the future. 
 
 (5) Most of the recent general plans developed by American cities 
 make no attempt to plan the economic and social life of the city, but 
 recognize as their sphere-of-concern only the physical development of 
 the city. To be meaningfully realistic, of course, the physical plan 
 must be based upon thoroughgoing studies of the economic and social 
 characteristics of the present city and upon careful predictions of the 
 future characteristics. Implicitly too, insofar as the plan succeeds in 
 improving the physical plant of the city and of the city's parts, it will 
 have bearing upon the economic and social well-being of the entire com- 
 munity. 
 
 (6) Because the city is an ever-changing complex, because the 
 relationships among the various activities and areas which exist today 
 may be quite different in the near future, each of the general plans under 
 discussion is regarded by its developers as being merely the best that 
 their current thinking can produce. It is the intention of each of the city 
 governments involved that a permanent staff of capable planners --in 
 government -- and that a stable commission of interested citizens shall 
 continue to conduct the same kinds of studies as those which antedated 
 the plan. It is also their intention that in a period of perhaps five years 
 the plan will be revised and that the new version will be adopted as the 
 official policy statement of the city. Thus, as a result of this continu- 
 ing process of study and revision, the general plan will always be kept 
 up to date. It is unlikely that any single revision will propose many 
 major changes in the original plan; rather, as study and experience pro- 
 gress, adjustments, corrections, refinements can be made. Over an 
 extended period of time the plan may evolve into something quite dif- 
 ferent from the original version, but the process will be a slow, care- 
 fully considered one. 
 
 (7) The over-all objective of the general plan is to serve as a 
 guide for the physical development of the city. Whether it is adopted by 
 the legislative body in city government or not (and practice varies in 
 the United States) its proposals are not legal mandates. The plan func- 
 tions as a statement of policy by the city government and by the citizens 
 it represents. It outlines the kind of city which is desired; it does not 
 establish a legal program for the achievement of that kind of city. 
 These programs are legislated upon completion of the plan and serve to 
 effectuate the proposals which the plan makes. They include the zoning 
 
 13
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography Z 1 
 
 ordinance, the subdivision ordinance, the capital improvements program, 
 urban redevelopment, and the official plan lines; and although they re- 
 flect the plan, they are wholly separate from it. By the judicious appli- 
 cation of these legal devices, the proposals made by the plan can over 
 the course of the years become real and tangible elements in the life 
 of the city. 
 
 The preparation of a general plan is a major undertaking, requir- 
 ing a considerable sum of money, a staff of skilled specialists, and 
 usually some four to seven years of work. 
 
 The monetary savings are great, however; long-range planning 
 of all capital improvements makes possible the more judicious bud- 
 geting of city funds. Proper planning of industrial, commercial, 
 residential, and institutional areas repays itself in greater economic 
 prosperity and in a concomitantly higher tax base. The better living 
 conditions which result for all the citizens repay themselves in better 
 lives, the dollar value of v/hich is rarely, if ever, computable. 
 
 But the preparation of such a general plan requires a consider- 
 able period of time. During that period the city government and the 
 citizens living and working in the community must make decisions; 
 and, if it be the responsibility of the government, and in particular 
 of the city planning commission, to furnish a guide for those deci- 
 sions some four to seven years in the future, it is certainly the res- 
 ponsibility of the government to furnish that guide at the present time. 
 It is for this reason that this study attempts to explore the possibili- 
 ties of the preparation of an interim general plan for the city, to serve 
 until such time as the more thoroughly studied official general plan can 
 be prepared. 
 
 Il-b. THE NATURE OF THE INTERIM GENERAL PLAN 
 
 The study which is described in this report was initiated largely 
 for the purpose of testing one major hypothesis. The hypothesis is 
 this: 
 
 If a planning department which had been in operation 
 for several years were to be given a period of a few 
 months, a staff of reasonable size and proficiency, 
 and a budget of modest scale, it v/ould be possible for 
 such a department to produce an interim general plan 
 of sufficisnt comprehensiveness, thoroughness, and 
 calibre as to serve the community adequately during 
 the few years until an official general plan could be 
 completed. 
 
 14
 
 CPJ; Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 The conjectural thinking which preceded the formulation of this 
 proposition has been underway for some time among many planners 
 in the state. But although many quick master plans have been pre- 
 pared by planning consultants, and although unofficial, preliminary 
 study versions of official general plans have been prepared, there 
 are very few examples of officially adopted, interim general plans 
 manifesting all of the characteristics outlined here. 
 
 This interim general plan for Berkeley represents an attempt to 
 produce such a plan under conditions which approximate those of the 
 average planning agency. Of course, the real test of the feasibility 
 of the idea must be made in the real situation of an actual planning 
 agency in government, and this avenue of experimentation is not open 
 to a university group. But because the idea is thought to have con- 
 siderable merit, it is well that the deductive reasoning which underlies 
 the formal hypothesis be summarized. 
 
 The Nature of the Interim General Plan 
 
 As the official gener al plan has evolved in American city planning 
 experience and come to be described in law, the proposals which it 
 contains are indicated in generalized fashion only. Scale and location 
 of a shopping center, for example, as illustrated in the plan drawing 
 and in the text which describes the drawing, are approximate only. 
 The plan is not intended to double as a blueprint of the developments 
 which it proposes; rather it is intended to illustrate the over-all 
 relationships which would result from the realization of the plan's pro- 
 posals with respect to residential densities, with respect to various 
 circulation routings, with respect to industry, with respect to public 
 facilities, etc. It is in this sense of general relationships and of gen- 
 eral scales that the plan is an expression of policy by the community 
 with respect to its future physical development. As such, however, 
 it is considerably more than a statement of community wishes. 
 
 Were the citizens of the community in some way to reach agree- 
 ment as to their mutual goals and succeed in preparing a statement 
 which explicitly expressed their wishes, the derivation of a plan would 
 be only slightly nearer to realization than it had been prior to the 
 preparation of the statement. For, to be useful as an instrument for 
 the achievement of those goals, the general plan must be considerably 
 more detailed than a statement to the effect, for example, that retail 
 shopping facilities of given standards should be provided. Some de- 
 cision must eventually be made with respect to the location of those 
 centers and with respect to the applicability of many given standards 
 to a specific set of circumstances. The desired degree of specificity 
 of a plan can probably not be stated categorically; what can be stated 
 categorically, however, is that the plan should not attempt to fix the 
 exact boundaries of the site and should not fix the pattern of develop- 
 ment on the site. It should attempt only to estimate the relative scale, 
 
 15
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 the relative city-wide locations, the relative intensity of use. To sug- 
 gest anything inore specific is to imply a considerably higher degree of 
 knowledge than is warranted. To suggest anything less is to deny the 
 plan its optimum utility. To suggest the desired degree of specificity, 
 the plan must be based upon a large amount of factual information, an 
 expression of desire by a large number of citizens, and a large measure 
 of intuition. None of these resources is cheaply won. 
 
 In the normal course of operation of a city or county planning agency 
 much of the needed factual data is accumulated. Because the properly 
 constituted agency is in continual contact with the public, and because a 
 conscientious staff will usually attempt to encourage citizen participa- 
 tion in its activities, in the normal course of the agency's operation a 
 real sense of citizen desires can often be attained. And, as a consequence 
 of his close contact with the developmental processes and patterns of the 
 community in which he practices, the planner is usually able to achieve 
 a large measure of understanding of the forces at work which shape that 
 community. In order to complete the kind of studies and in order to achieve 
 the kinds of understanding which the preparation of an official general plan 
 requires, these are not enough. But they may be enough, coupled with a 
 concerted goal-directed staff effort, to produce a preliminary version of 
 the official plan. 
 
 It is probably true that the planner who has spent a number of 
 years in a city has many imaginative ideas, most of which have never 
 been recorded on paper, which are potentially of great value in guiding 
 the physical development of the city --a new pattern of trafficways, an 
 improved transit system, a more desirable development in a residential 
 area, a proposal for resuscitating a decaying section of the city, etc. 
 Often he is placed in the position of enforcing a zoning ordinance which 
 he feels does not properly control the distribution of land uses. There 
 are probably but few directors of planning who could not list dozens of 
 major corrections which they would like to see made in their ordinances. 
 And all of these ideas, when placed upon the same drawing and when supple- 
 mented by the thinking of his staff, of the commission, and of other in- 
 formed citizens in the community, may add up to a major portion of a 
 potential comprehensive general plan. 
 
 In view of the time element involved in the preparation of an official 
 general plan, and in view of the need for making judicious decisions during 
 the period in which the plan is in preparation, it would seem to be highly 
 desirable that the proposals which have been formulated in the minds of 
 the separate persons be collected and analyzed, fitted and refitted, and 
 that an effort be made to produce a tentative version of the plan which is 
 in process. In all likelihood, most of the over-all patterns will be simi- 
 lar in the two plans. In most cities the distribution of existing land uses, 
 of existing major trafficways, and of existing rail lines set the basic plan 
 for the city; and the function of the general plan is to devise means of im- 
 proving the built-up sections over a long period of time and of establish- 
 ing a general guide for the portions which are not yet developed. 
 
 16
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 But in the interim period during which the official general plan is 
 being prepared, the process of shifting land uses which that p]an pro- 
 poses to redirect may have become so thoroughly established as to be 
 extremely difficult to correct. A fairly typical example may be con- 
 sidered. It may be assumed that there be general agreement that a 
 given strip of commercially zoned land, which is not yet completely 
 developed for commercial use, be reshaped in the plan so as to allow 
 for the development of a modern, centralized shopping group, occupying 
 two solid city blocks, having large off-street parking areas and having 
 unified architecture and landscaping. The present zoning ordinance, 
 typically some years old, and typically having been based upon past 
 land use patterns rather than upon a land use plan, bears no necessary 
 resemblance in its details to the land use plan which is to be proposed. 
 Our example may fairly assume that the plan proposed to shift lands 
 surrounding the existing shopping nucleus from residential to commer- 
 cial use and maintain the existing commercially zoned, but undeveloped, 
 strip in residential use. Appropriate design of the street and transit 
 systems is also to be proposed in order properly to serve the new shop- 
 ping center. It should be noted also that the plan would not propose a 
 detailed description of the boundaries of the shopping center or a de- 
 tailed description of the street systems, but would rather recommend 
 only that the strip be prevented, that the unified type of center be en- 
 couraged, and that the location be at the approximate site of the exist- 
 ing core. The zoning ordinance which follows the plan would then, of 
 course, define the district lines, perhaps shifting them over a period 
 of years through a series of amendments in order to achieve the de- 
 sired goal. The plan would show only the goal. 
 
 But, if in the months or years during which the official plan is 
 in the making, the zoned commercial strip should be developed (and 
 there would be no legal way of preventing that development) it would 
 become extremely difficult to achieve the objective. The newer build- 
 ings being of more modern design and involving a much greater in- 
 vestment than those in the old nucleus may instead cause the decline 
 of the nucleus and shift the core of shopping activity far from the gen- 
 eral location in which it would most satisfactorily serve the citizens 
 in the area. An interim general plan and an interim zoning ordinance 
 reflecting that plan could have effectively prevented development, and 
 could instead have furthered the objectives of the official general plan, 
 even prior to its completion. 
 
 It is of course to be anticipated that the more thoroughgoing 
 study which would be devoted to the making of the official plan would 
 yield much better solutions to the many specific problems of the 
 city and that its proposals would recommend much more substantial 
 (and better substantiated) changes and improvements than the interim 
 plan will propose; and this is to be desired. The recommendations 
 made by the interim plan must necessarily be much more modest 
 than those of its successor, having been based upon only preliminary 
 study. Because the studies which precede it are less thoroughgoing, 
 
 17
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 the recommendations will be less certain, less detailed. But, it should 
 not yield completely to its modesty lest it sacrifice potential fertility. 
 
 Perhaps one of the most fertile attributes of the interim plan is its 
 potential ability to encourage citizen thinking and interest in the planning 
 process and in the physical development of the community. The public 
 discussion, which would normally result from the public hearings pre- 
 ceding the adoption of the interim plan by the commission and by the 
 legislative body, would unquestionably have the effect of increasing the 
 degree of citizen participation in the planning process. Those imagi- 
 native, big schemes which the plan contains would tend to inspire the 
 enthusiasm of the citizenry, tend thereby to increase support of the 
 planning agency's activities. And many of the proposals, large and 
 small, will encourage the merchant, the home owner and the tenant, 
 the industrialist, and many others to come into the planning office and 
 make known his wishes and his problems. Without this kind of citizen 
 interest and the kind of communication which that interest makes possi- 
 ble, a planning program and the plan which it produces tend to be ster- 
 ile. If planning be for the people, it must necessarily be of them. The 
 interim plan would encourage that kind of democratic planning. 
 
 Of course, the test of a democratic plan is the way in which the 
 community responds to it. By publishing a preview, as it were, of the 
 official plan, the planning agency invites the public in to criticize its 
 thinking, to make recommendations for improvement, to add to its pro- 
 posals, to delete those which the public does not approve. In this process 
 of criticism, avenues of investigation which had not been previously 
 scheduled might assume greater importance. Recommendations with 
 which the public may immediately take issue, may in the course of dis- 
 cussion on this preliminary basis come to take on more meaning and they 
 may then come to support them. Furthermore, insofar as the plan would 
 be published for all to read, it might also profit from the criticisms of 
 other professional planners in other cities. And the net effect of criti- 
 cism can only be positive. The interim general plan might thus serve as 
 a proving ground out of which the official general plan can grow with 
 stronger roots. 
 
 It is this line of thought which has suggested the initial hypothesis 
 with respect to the feasibility of the interim general plan. But the major 
 factor contributing to the decision to experiment in the actual preparation 
 of such a plan is the need for a basis for decision by both private and pub- 
 lic agencies. It is this need for an immediate basis for decision which 
 induces most planning commissions to prepare separate plans for the many 
 functional elements of their cities. But, since all physical elements within 
 the city are highly interdependent, an adequate basis must project ail those 
 elements ahead into the future; and the projection must moreover integrate 
 all those elements into a working, unified community. Since it seems to 
 be a universal law that the time of decision is always now, and since the 
 preparation of the official general plan is a time-consuming task, the 
 question which is raised is again this: "If a planning department which had
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 been in operation for a few years were to be given a period of a few 
 months, a staff of average proficiency, and a budget of modest scale, 
 would it be possible to produce an interim general plan of sufficient 
 comprehensiveness, thoroughness, and calibre to serve the community 
 adequately until such time as an official general plan could be com - 
 pleted?" 
 
 Berkeley as the Case Study 
 
 As the sample case upon which the hypothesis was to be tested, 
 it was necessary at the outset to select a fairly typical city, and for 
 study purposes the City of Berkeley was chosen. A major factor in 
 its selection was, of course, its convenience, being the site of the Uni- 
 versity of California. But it had other attractions which qualified it 
 well for the kind of investigation which was proposed. A number of 
 student projects which had been completed in the first year of the cur- 
 riculum had been concerned with specialized aspects of the Berkeley 
 scene, and as a consequence the students were relatively at home in 
 Berkeley planning. A number of the students who were involved in the 
 study had been employed on part-time or on temporary bases in the 
 Berkeley City Planning Department. They were thus familiar with much 
 of the work that had been already completed by the Berkeley depart- 
 ment, were familiar with the filed materials, and generally had a sense 
 of understanding of the planning program in that city. And too, the 
 fact that all the students had lived in Berkeley for at least one year con- 
 tributed to their general sense of familiarity with the city. It was felt 
 that some degree of understanding by the planning staff of the charac- 
 ter and of the problems of the city would be critical to the preparation 
 of an interim plan; and since the study was to be conducted by a student 
 group, Berkeley offered the closest approximation possible to the real 
 situation of an established planning staff which had worked in a local 
 office for a few years. The fact that one of the faculty directors of the 
 research project, Professor Kent, is also a member of the Berkeley 
 City Planning Commission and has consequently been inclose contact 
 with the planning program in Berkeley, further contributed toward 
 this end. 
 
 There were other factors which favored the selection of Berkeley 
 as the subject for the case study. Its Director of Planning, Corwin 
 R. Mocine, had expressed interest in the project and had offered to 
 make his services and his files available to the student staff. The 
 Planning Commission, the City Manager and the heads of the city de- 
 partments had also expressed interest in the study, and they too offered 
 their cooperation in the effort. 
 
 Berkeley's planning program, like that of most cities in Califor- 
 nia, is young. The budget for a permanent staff was established in 
 1949, and it was at this time that a capable, experienced planner was 
 employed for the first time to organize and direct a continuing plan- 
 ning program. In this sense, Berkeley is comparable to many other 
 
 19
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 cities; for having been in operation with a small staff for only two and 
 one-half years, it has accumulated a relatively small amount of basic 
 information, as compared to these cities with older agencies and to 
 those with large staffs. 
 
 In one respect, on the other hand, Berkeley is non-typical. Being 
 physically surrounded on three sides by other jurisdictions and on the 
 fourth by water, it has no new areas into which to expand, other than the 
 submerged lands of the bay. In addition, its lands have been almost com- 
 pletely developed, there being only two small areas which presently con- 
 tain any appreciable amount of vacant property. As the result of these two 
 factors, many of the problems and issues which Berkeley has to face are 
 different from those of cities having large areas of open lands on their 
 outskirts. The fact, further, that Berkeley is centrally located in the 
 midst of the East Bay metropolitan complex distinguishes it from those 
 cities located in the interior of the state and from those outside of major 
 metropolitan districts. Those factors must be kept in mind in evaluat- 
 ing the degree of success of the Berkeley study; however, it must also 
 be kept in mind thac it is the procedural aspects of this study which are 
 of most pertinence; the substantive aspects must inevitably vary from 
 city to city. In one real sense, all cities are unique and none are typical 
 in all respects. 
 
 There is one respect, however, in which Berkeley is probably very 
 similar to most cities of comparable size in the state. Faced with a zon- 
 ing ordinance which was drawn in the absence of a land use plan, it finds 
 its land use patterns to be developing in a manner which is different from 
 that which is desired; and because the city is highly "over-zoned," it finds 
 itself unable to deal with the problem in an effective manner. 
 
 Among its provisions, thfc zoning ordinance allows for the construe iiv.i 
 tion of six-story apartment houses over almost all those portions of the 
 city which are on relatively flat lands. The R-3 and R-4 residential 
 districts both allow such development, and they jointly comprise 54 per 
 cent of all lands presently zoned for residential use. (See Plate 5. ) 
 A study conducted by the planning commission in 1951 indicated that 
 the holding capacity of the city, as expressed by the zoning ordinance 
 is some 889,500 persons. The 1950 population was 113,805. 
 
 The point of departure of this study is this problem of controlling 
 the pattern of residential development. In the initial prospectus which 
 was prepared by Professor Kent and given to the student staff in Septem- 
 ber 1951, the task was stated in the following terms: 
 
 The staff is composed of 6. 5 persons: the Director, 1 Zoning Analyst, 
 1 Flanning Technician, 1. 5 Junior Planning Technicians, 1 Senior Stenog- 
 rapher-Clerk, 1 Intermediate Stenographer-Clerk. 
 
 20
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 It will be assumed for the purposes of this student 
 study that a problem of city-wide importance -- 
 the need for the reduction of the R-3 zone -- has 
 reached the point where a recommendation from 
 the Planning Commission will be required in the 
 near future. It will also be assumed that the Com- 
 mission, together with several other important 
 groups in the community, is no longer willing, as 
 it had been in the past when it had no staff, to make 
 recommendations on a matter of such importance 
 fox. the future of Berkeley without also presenting 
 to the people of the community its ideas as to the 
 nature of the future city it has in mind. Thus a 
 preliminary master plan (interim general plan) 
 must be prepared in form suitable for consideration 
 by groups and individual citizens. It must also be 
 in form suitable for later adoption by the City 
 Planning Commission. 
 
 An official general plan is presently being prepared by the 
 Berkeley City Planning Commission and its staff, but it will be some 
 time before the studies and designs which must precede the plan can 
 be completed. In the interim period, before the plan is completed, 
 the city government and the citizens of the city must continue to make 
 day-to-day and many long-range decisions. They must have some im- 
 mediate basis for those decisions. 
 
 It is, thus, in an attempt to investigate the possibility of the for- 
 mulation of an interim general plan, fitted to the specific complex of 
 circumstances which exist in the City of Bereeley, that the study which 
 is described in the pages that follow was conducted. 
 
 Because it is the control of residential land uses which is the most 
 critical problem facing the city and the planning commission, this study 
 has focussed its attention upon that issue. It submits the residential 
 portions of the plan as its most tenable proposals. Other factors have 
 been treated less thoroughly, and hence they are more tentative in 
 nature. It is assumed that the studies and designs which will follow in 
 the continued work toward an official general plan will more thoroughly 
 investigate those functional elements of the city which have been given 
 less intensive treatment here. It is also anticipated, of course, that 
 the residential areas will be submitted to a great deal of further study 
 as well; however, it is believed that the proposals for residential 
 areas will not require drastic revisions. 
 
 21
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 III. A BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY ON THE EVOLUTION OF AN IDEA 
 
 Introduction 
 
 T. J. Kent, Jr. defines the general plan as "the unified state- 
 ment, written and graphic, of the long-range, comprehensive, general 
 policies and physical design of the legislative body as to the desirable 
 future physical development of the community, " (p. 8). 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 formation 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 
 viev/ed 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 re- 
 sult that the "mechanistic" view has been "humanized" and social values 
 placed in better balance. The compiler recognizes that a severe limita- 
 tion of this bibliography is that it emphasizes what might be called the 
 "operational function and content" of general plan theory; it thus picks 
 up only a few critical threads of the social scientist and virtually ignores 
 a body of work which needs further exploration. 
 
 Because the compiler is treating the evolution of an idea, the sub- 
 ject is approached in the traditional manner* of the historian -- chrono- 
 logically. It is realized, of course, that this method has certain problems 
 in that no idea simply "pops out, " whole and new born, without a long 
 period of gestation and that often it is difficult to say when, in the time 
 scale, an idea becomes influential. In most instances, however, date 
 of publication can be assumed to be the effective date of transmission, 
 and this date is used throughout the bibliography. 
 
 Another important limitation of this bibliography is that it 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, at 
 least, to Kippodamus of Miletus (born c. 480 B. C. ) and perhaps may 
 be traced back much earlier to the civilizations lying along the Tigris - 
 Euphrates and Nile Rivers. 
 
 The compiler is indebted to T. J. Kent, Jr. , who not only made a 
 number of helpful suggestions, but gave the author permission to quote 
 from his manuscript. Melvin Webber also helped to clarify a number 
 of points. The final product, however, is solely the responsibility of 
 the bibliographer. 
 
 22
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 General References 
 
 To appreciate the significance of the general plan concept one 
 must first become acquainted with the broad sweep of town and city 
 development in the United States and, more specifically, early Ameri- 
 can attempts to plan the municipal domicile. The first 21 references, 
 thus, set the stage. 
 
 Adams, Thomas. Out l'-n e of Town and City Plannin g; 
 A Rev ie w of Past ^ffori j cad > 'odex n Aims . 
 New Yo'.rk, Russell Sagt Founc'-7uon7 1935. 368 p. 
 
 This is an excellent summary of evolution of 
 city planning in the United States. See particularly 
 pp. 113-129, pp. 161-251 for developments before 
 and after 1900. 
 
 Tunnard, Christopher, and Henry Hope Reed. American 
 Skyline; The Growth and Form of Our C i ties and 
 Towns. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 19 5^ 302 p. 
 The thesis of this interesting 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-twen- 
 tieth century. 
 
 Green, Constance M. A merican Cities in the Growth 
 
 of the Nation . New York, John de Graff, 1957. 25 8 p. 
 
 Brief historical sketches of the rise of certain 
 characteristic American cities: New York, Phila- 
 delphia, Baltimore, Charleston, Boston, Cincinnati, 
 St. Louis, New Orleans, Holyoke, Naugatuck, 
 Chicago, Denver, Wichita, Seattle, Detroit, and 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Bridenbaugh, Carl. Cities in the Wilderness; The First 
 Ce ntury of Urban Life in America, 1625-1742 . 
 2nd edition. New York, Alfred Knopf, 1955. 500 p. 
 
 Cities in Revolt; Urban Life in America, 1743- 
 1776 . New York, Alfred Knopf, 1955. 434 p. 
 
 The first of these two thoroughly documented 
 studies emphasizes the evolution of democratic 
 urban life in the five largest towns on the North 
 American continent, while the second recognizes 
 two persistent themes: "The astonishing expansion 
 of all the activities of urban existence" and the 
 revolt of urban citizens with the "old'ways of doing 
 things. 
 
 23
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 Wade, Richard C. The Urban Frontier; The Rise of 
 
 Western Cities, 1790-1830. Cambridge, Harvard 
 University Press, 1959. 360 p. (Harvard Histori- 
 cal Monograph no. 41. ) 
 
 An account of the rise and development of Ohio 
 Valley cities -- Pittsburgh to St. Louis. 
 
 Schlesinger, Arthur Meier. The Rise of the City, 1878 - 
 1898 . New York, Macmillan, 1933. 494 p. (A 
 History of American Life, vol. 10. ) 
 
 The author contends that these two decades mark 
 the era of decision between an essentially urban world 
 and a rural world. 
 
 Conklin, Paul K. Tomorrow a New World; The New Deal 
 C ommunity Program.. Ithaca, Cornell University 
 Press, 1959. 350 p. 
 
 A history of the New Deal community program with 
 background material on the influence of the garden city 
 movement. 
 
 Comeyj' Arthur C. , and Max S. Wehrly, "Planned Commu- 
 nities, " in Urban Planning and Land Policies; volume 
 1 1 of the Supplementary Report of the Urbanism Com- 
 mittee to the National Resources Committee. Wash- 
 ington, D. C. , Government Printing Office, 1939. 
 pp. 1-161. 
 
 Case studies of 144 communities which "have actu- 
 ally been constructed from the start according to a 
 more or less comprehensive physical plan. " Selected 
 bibliography, pp. 153-161. 
 
 Mackesey, Thomas W. History of City Planning. Oakland, 
 Council of Planning Librarians, 1961. 65 "p. (Ex- 
 change Bibliography no. 19. ) 
 
 A selected bibliography by a Cornell University 
 professor. See particularly pp. 35-49. 
 
 a. References on City Plan Progress in the United States 
 
 Meyer, H. H. B. , editor, " Check List of References on 
 City Planning, " S pecial Libraries , v. 3 (May, 
 1912), pp. 61-123. 
 
 General references and listings by localities. 
 Section on periodical articles with the first entry 
 dated 1861. 
 
 24
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 American Institute of Architects. Committee on Town Plan- 
 ning. City Planning Progres s in the United States, 
 1917, edited by George B. Ford. Washington, D. C. , 
 Journal of the American Institute of Architects, 1917. 
 207 p. 
 
 The first comprehensive review of city planning 
 progress. 
 
 Kimball, Theodore, editor. Municipal Accomplishment in 
 City Pl anning and Published City Plan Reports in 
 the United State s. Published under the auspices of 
 the National Conference on City Planning, 1920. 79 p. 
 
 Compiled largely from data assembled by the 
 Detroit City Plan Commission. 
 
 Nolen, John, "Twenty Years of City Planning Progress in 
 the United States: President's Address, " Proceedings 
 of the 19th National Conference on City Planning, 
 1927, pp. 1-44. 
 
 Chamber of Commerce of the United States. Civic Develop- 
 ment Department. City Planning and Zoning Accom- 
 plishments. Washington, D. C. , 1928. 102 p. mimeo, 
 
 Hubbard, Theodore K. , and Henry Vincent Hubbard. Our 
 Cities Today and Tomorrow; A Survey of Planning 
 and Zoning Progress in the United States^ Cambridge, 
 Harvard University Press, 1929. 389 p. 
 
 Based on field surveys made by Howard K. Men- 
 hinick who visited about 120 cities and 15 counties 
 and regions in all parts of the United States. 
 
 "Short List of Typical American City Plan Reports," in 
 Manual of Information on City Planning and Zoning , 
 by Theodore Kimball (Cambridge, Harvard Univer- 
 sity Press, 1923), pp. 43-46; and in Planning Infor- 
 mation Up-to-Date, by Theodore K. Hubbard and 
 Katherine McNamara (Cambridge, Harvard Univer- 
 sity 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 ..." 
 
 25
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 ' How Cities Are Preparing for the Post-War Period, " 
 Planning; Proce e ding s of the A nnual Meeting Held 
 i n Chicago, May 1-3, 1944. Chicago, American 
 Society of Planning Officials, 1944. pp. 31-117. 
 A review of planning progress and future pro- 
 grams in 16 cities over 300, 000, 4 cities under 
 50, 000, and 4 cities between 50, 000 - 300, 000 
 population. 
 
 b. Annual Review of City Planning Progress in Periodicals of the 
 Period 
 
 Landscape Architecture : April, 1912; April 1913; 
 
 January, 1915; January, 1918; January, 1920; 
 January, 1921; January, 1922; January, 1923; 
 and January, 1924. 
 
 National Municipal Review: January, 1913; July, 1914; 
 July, 1915; July and October, 1916; September, 
 1917; November, 1918; January, 1920; January, 
 1921; January, 1922; and February, 1923. 
 
 City Planning : April, 1925; April, 1926; April, 1927; 
 
 April, 1928; April, 1929; July, 1930; April, 1931; 
 April, 1932; April, 1933; and April, 1934. 
 
 Evolution of an Idea 
 
 Almost from 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 followed. 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 concept of "town plan" as a vehicle for decisions about 
 private and public uses of the land must have existed. Certainly these 
 plans were not general, long-range, or comprehensive in the modern 
 sense, but they were plans that established pattern.* -- and in some cases 
 these patterns are still predomin ant in the Twentieth Century city. 
 L,' Enfant's plan for Washington, D. C. is an outstanding 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 remain 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 adopt 
 their wants to the city plan. " Yet, according to Thomas Adams (Out- 
 line .... p. 171), Robert Morris Copeland was "probably" the first 
 to use the phrase, "city plan, " in this way. We, therefore, cite his 
 
 26
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 "general plan" -- so the drawing is marked -- as one of the early state- 
 ments of the use of a plan. To Copeland, it was "fallacious" that one 
 could not "foresee sufficiently the future requirements of business to 
 wisely provide for them. " 
 
 Copeland, Robert Morris. The Most B eautiful City in 
 America; Essay and Plan for the Improvement of 
 the City of Boston . Boston, Bee and Shepard, 
 1872. 46 p. 
 
 Certainly other early plans for American cities could be cited, 
 but in the period prior to the modern image of the general plan, per- 
 haps only one other need be mentioned. Following the classic World's 
 Columbian Exposition 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. 
 
 Burnham, Daniel H. , and Edward H. Bennett. Plan of 
 
 Chicago Prepared During the Years MCMVI, MCMVII , 
 and MCMVTII, edited by Charles Moore. Chicago, 
 Commercial Club, 1909. 164 p. 
 
 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 I960, pp. 31-38, and the special issue of 
 Architectural Forum , vol. 116, May 1962, which is 
 entirely devoted 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 modern definition. For the genesis 
 of the modern concept we must turn to a famous name in landscape de- 
 sign and city planning -- Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. , son of the man 
 who first proposed preservation principles for Yosemite Valley and 
 whose 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 live, flexible document for the 
 "intelligent control and guidance of the entire physical growth and alter- 
 ation 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 impor- 
 tant changes, additions, and extensions of the physical equipment and 
 
 27
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 arrangement of the city which a sound judgment holds likely to become 
 desirable and practicable in the course of time ..." 
 
 Olmsted, Frederick Law, Jr. , "Reply in Behalf of the City 
 Planning Conference, " Proceedings of the Third 
 National Conference on Cit y Pla nni ng, Phil adelphia 
 May 15-17, 1911 . Boston, 1911. pp. 3-13. 
 
 , "A City Planning Program, " Proceedings of the Fifth 
 
 Nat io nal Conference on City Planning, Chicago, May 
 5-7 , 1913. pp. 1-16. 
 
 , "Introduction, " in John Nolen, editor, City Planning; 
 
 A Series o f Papers Presenting the Essential Elements 
 of a City~Plan. New York, D. Appleton & Co. , 19i6. 
 (See also revision published in 1929. ) 
 
 Two contemporaries of Olmsted, Jr. , shared in the development 
 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 zon- 
 ing ordinance. Although reports of these. Commissions and his own speeches 
 before 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 pe- 
 riod. 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 published twelve years later. 
 
 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 Purposes, and Sugges - 
 tions as to How They Should Be Administered. New York, 
 Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs, 1926. 30 p. 
 (Bulletin no. 11. ) 
 
 The second contemporary ot 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, al- 
 though Bettman's training and experience was very different from Olmsted's, 
 the two men developed very similar thoughts about the master plan, ad, 
 as Kent has pointed out, undoubtedly were influenced and stimulated by one 
 another. Bettman's chief contribution, at this period, was his clear un- 
 derstanding of the essential technical elements of the plan. 
 
 28
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 2. 
 
 Bettman, Alfred, "The Relationship of the Functions and 
 Powers of the City Planning Commission, to the 
 Legislative, Executive, and Administrative Depart- 
 ments of City Government, " Pla nning Problems of 
 Town, City, an d Region; Papers and Discussion s at 
 the Twen tieth Nation al Co nference on City Plannin g 
 Held at D all as and Fort W orth, 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 Bett- 
 man were members of this Committee and share, in large part, res- 
 ponsibility for key statements in this influential document. The sig- 
 nificance of the Standard Act is recognized by later writers on city 
 planning legislation and administration, particularly Robert Walker 
 and T. J. Kent, Jr. The latter writer is the first, however, to set 
 forth the thesis that the Standard Act contributed greatly to the con- 
 fusion in the city planning profession during the subsequent two decades, 
 thus delaying by some twenty years a full realization of the essential 
 content and legislative role of the general plan. 
 
 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 p. 
 
 The immediate effect of the Standard Act was to encourage a num- 
 ber of state enabling acts and revisions, patterned in large part after 
 it. Nevertheless, progress toward refinement of the general plan con- 
 cept 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 dif- 
 ferent 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 mas- 
 ter 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. 
 
 Bettman, Alfred, "City Planning Legislation, " in John 
 Nolen, Editor, City Planning: A Series of Papers 
 Presen t ing the E s s ential_ Elements of a City Plan . 
 New York, D. Appfeton & Co., 1929, pp. 431-471 
 
 29
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 Bettman, Alfred, "Master Plans and Official Maps," 
 Planning Problems of Town, City, and R egion ; 
 Pape rs and Di sc uss ions at the Twenty-Third 
 Nati ona l Co nference o n City Planning Held at 
 Rochester, N. Y. ,~7une 22 tb~24, 1 9 3~ pp. 
 50-71. Reprinted in City and Regional Planning 
 Paper s, edited by Arthur C. Comey (Cambridge, 
 Harvard University Press, 1946), pp. 37-41. 
 
 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, etc.), but perhaps the 
 most valuable contribution to an understanding of the concept was 
 Bettman's discussion, pp. 57-62, 77-78, 95-96, and 115-117. 
 
 Bassett, Edward M. , Frank B. Williams, Alfred Bettman, 
 and Robert Whitten. Model Law s for Planning Cities , 
 C ounties, and States Including Zoning, Subdivisio n 
 R egulation, and Pr otecti on of Official Map . Cambridge, 
 Harvard University Press, 1935. 137 p. 
 
 By the latter half of the depression decade, the master plan con- 
 cept as a "guide for comprehensive 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, wide-spread 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 introduced modifications (the Pennsylvania, California, Massa- 
 chusetts, New York enabling legislation for counties and the New York 
 City Charter effective on November 3, 1936). 
 
 Bassett, Edward M. The Master Plan; With a Dis- 
 cussion of the Theory of Community Land " 
 Planning Legislation. New York, Russell 
 Sage Foundation, 1938. 151 p. 
 
 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 
 
 30
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography Zl 
 
 book in which he undertook the task of analyzing the composition of 
 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 planning as a line 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 com- 
 ments. Rexford Tugwell, former Governor of Puerto Rico and an 
 influential figure in the New Deal days of the Resettlement Administra- 
 tion, and a political scientist, Edward C. Banfield, suggested that 
 there may be another "conception of the planning profession, if not its 
 practice, " called "developmental planning. " John T. Howard, Chair- 
 man of the Department of City and Regional Planning, Massachusetts 
 Institute of Technology, disagreed with both Walker and his reviewers 
 in his "Defense of the Planning Commission. " 
 
 V/alker, Robert Averill. The Planning Function in Urban 
 Government. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 
 1941. 376 p. (Social Science Studies no. 39.) 2nd 
 edition, 1950. 
 
 Tugwell, R. G. , and E. C. Banfield, "The Planning Func- 
 tion Reappraised, " Journal of the American Institute 
 of Planners , vol. 17 (Winter, 1951), pp. 46-49. 
 
 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 International 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. 
 
 Institute for Training in Municipal Administration, 
 Chicago. Local Planning Administration , by 
 Ladislas Segoe with the collaboration of Walter 
 F. Blucher, F. P. Best, and others. Chicago, 
 1941. 684 p. 3rd edition edited by Mary McLean, 
 Chicago, 1959. 467 p. 
 
 After several years of experience with the Standard Act and its 
 consequences, Bettman reversed a position he had held earlier and 
 wrote into his draft of a model urban redevelopment act, prepared as 
 
 31
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 Chairman of the American Society of Planning Officials' Committee 
 on Urban Redevelopment, a definition of the essential physical ele- 
 ments of the general plan. Two years later the model act was 
 issued in revised form. 
 
 "Report of the Committee on Urban Redevelopment" 
 at the annual Business Meeting, American 
 Society of Planning Officials, Planning, 1943; Pro - 
 ceedings of the Annual Meeting Held in New York 
 City, May 17-19, 1943. Chicago, American Society 
 of Planning Officials, 1943, pp. 93-103. 
 
 Bettman, Alfred. Draft of an Act for Urban Development 
 and Redevelopment . Chicago, American Society of 
 Planning Officials, 1943. 14 p. mimeo. 
 
 . "Revised Draft of an Act for Urban Development and 
 
 Redevelopment, " in Arthur C. Comey, editor, City and 
 Regional Planning Papers . (Cambridge, Harvard Uni- 
 versity Press, 1946), pp. 259-275. 
 
 Post-War Experience 
 
 With 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 planners and educators began to take 
 a hard look at planning's new-found status; they began to question old 
 concepts and, at the same time, to evolve new procedures and methods. 
 The influence, too, of the federal government in making funds avail- 
 able for redevelopment and urban planning stimulated thinking signifi- 
 cantly. It is no wonder, then, that the decade of the fifties 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 large city plan to be adopted by a City 
 Council. 
 
 Cincinnati (Ohio) City Planning Commission. The Cincin- 
 nati Metropolitan Master Plan and the Official City 
 Plan of the City of Cincinnati, adopted November 22, 
 1948 . Cincinnati, 1948. 175 p. 
 
 After five years of debate, Congress passed the Housing Act of 
 1949 on July 15. Although subsequent legislation, particularly that of 
 1954, considerably 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 
 
 32
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 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 operation, the Housing and Home Finance Agency 
 found it necessary to call in S. B. Zisman and others to define the ele- 
 ments necessary for a general plan. The result of this work was pub- 
 lished first as a departmental memorandum and more formally stated 
 in the Division's manual. 
 
 U. S. Housing and Home Finance Agency. Division of Slum 
 Clearance and Urban Redevelopment. T he General 
 Community Plan -- A Preliminary Statement. Wash- 
 ington, D. C. , 1950. 
 
 U. S. Housing and Home Finance Agency. Office of the 
 
 Administrator. S lum Clearance and Urban Redevelop - 
 ment Program, Manual of Policies and Requirements 
 for Local Public Agencies. Book I, Part 2, Chapter 
 2, "Community Planning, " Section 2, "The General 
 Plan. " 3 p. loose-leaf. 
 
 While federal personnel labored over the application of the general 
 plan concept to redevelopment plans and procedures, a practical 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 subsequently published by the Chamber of Commerce of the 
 United States. 
 
 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 (N. Y. , Wilson, 1956), as vol. 28, no. 4, 
 of the Reference Shelf, pp. 72-79. 
 
 Chamber of Commerce of the United States. Construction 
 and Civic Development Department. City Planning 
 and Urban Development . Washington, D. C. , 1952. 
 47 p. 
 
 A concise statement of the nature and purpose of 
 the general plan in contrast to the "official map" 
 appears on pp. 23-24. 
 
 33
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 Zisman's contribution has already been referred to. Meanwhile, 
 Professor Kent and a group of graduate students were involved in group 
 exercises culminating in the student report reproduced in part on 
 pages 4 to 21 of this bibliography. One of these students, Melvin Webber, 
 an Associate Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning, Uni- 
 versity of California, added substantially to the general plan concept, 
 ideas later developed more fully by Black and Kent himself. In 1954 Kent 
 addressed the California Biennial Institute of Mayors and Councilmen, 
 and for the first time outlined his ideas on the legislative functions of the 
 general plan. 
 
 Zisman, S. B. , The General Plan in the Redevelopment 
 
 Program . Chicago, National A ssociation of Housing 
 Officials, November, 1952. 8 p. (Redevelopment 
 Information Service Publication no. 5. ) 
 
 The author stresses "the fact that ultimately the 
 best redevelopment grows out of, and is in fact part 
 of, the general plan. " 
 
 Webber, Melvin M. T he Nature and Function of the Urban 
 General Plan. University of California, Berkeley. 
 1952. 80 p. M.C.P. Thesis. 
 
 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 p. 
 
 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 
 of the general plan (Article 7). Citizen awareness of the new Cali- 
 fornia concept was enhanced with a colorful and well illustrated bro- 
 chure on city planning. 
 
 California. Laws, Statutes, etc. Laws Relating to Conser- 
 vation, Planning, and Zoning . . . Sacramento, Print- 
 ing Division, 1955. 14b p. 
 See particularly pp. 9-11. 
 
 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 p. 
 
 See particularly pp. 22-23 ("Nature and Function 
 of the Master Plan"), pp. 24-25 ("Steps in Preparing 
 the Master Plan" and "Elements of the Master Plan"), 
 and pp. 26-31 for examples of experience in Berkeley, 
 Richmond, and Los Altos, California 
 
 34
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 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 re- 
 cently, 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 re- 
 sponsibilities 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 ten- 
 dencies 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 the master plan, what the master plan means to the planner, 
 what it means to property interests, the criteria for a statutory check- 
 list, and the written master plan. 
 
 Haar, Charles M. , "The Content of the Master Plan: A 
 Glance at History, " Journal of the American Insti- 
 tute of Planners , vol. 21 (Spring-Summer, 1955), 
 pp. 66-70. 
 
 , "The Master Plan: An Impermanent Constitution, " 
 
 Law and Contemporary Problems , vol. 20 (Summer, 
 1955), pp. 353-418. 
 
 Contains a valuable appendix summarizing infor- 
 mation on planning 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 mas- 
 t er plan. 
 
 In 1956 the Cambridge firm of Adams, Howard and Greeley was 
 commissioned to survey the vork 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 mem- 
 bers 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. " 
 
 Adams, Howard and Greeley. Report to the Board of City 
 Planning Commissioners, City of Los Angeles, on 
 the Los Angeles City Planni ng Department . Cambridge, 
 November 1956. 175 p. 
 
 35
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 Two other lawyers who examine the content of the general plan 
 and whose analysis is especially revealing are J. B. Milner and 
 Allison Dunham. Milner critically discusses the legal and adminis- 
 trative 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 land- 
 owner. He criticizes Bassett's concept as "too narrow because it 
 excludes from city planning all development plans . . . (other than 
 location) of public and private users of land resources; too physical 
 because it emphasizes location and thereby ignores numerous socio- 
 economic forces; too rigid because a city is a dynamic place; and too 
 detailed because a master plan ought to be confined mere to general 
 principles. " While the author claims that recent city planning liter- 
 ature shows a marked tendency to depart from the Bassett view (in 
 part due to the planner's confusion over the terxns "plan," "fore- 
 cast," 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 deter- 
 mines "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. " 
 
 Milner, J. B. , "Introduction to Master Plan Legislation, " 
 Canadian Bar Review , vol. 35 (December, 1957), 
 pp. 1125-1175. 
 
 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 planner is to prepare a city plan; 
 indeed, he believes so strongly in this central concept that he urges 
 the title, "Director of the City Plan." for the chief planning officer. 
 On the other hand, Dennis O'Harrow, Executive Director, American 
 Society of Planning Officials, takes quite a different view. 
 
 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. 
 
 36
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 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, Diiector 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 course, applies them to very dif- 
 ferent local government situations in Latin America. 
 
 Pomeroy, Hugh R. , The Master Plan -- Its Importance 
 and Its Implementation . Address given before the 
 Pennsylvania Planning Association Annual Meeting 
 and the Local Government Conference on Planning, 
 Philadelphia, November 14, 1958. 20 p. mimeo. 
 
 Violich, Francis. The Urban General Plan as an Instru- 
 ment for Guiding 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, Uni- 
 versity of California, May 1, 1958. 27 p. mimeo. 
 
 Mocine, Corwin R. , "The Master Plan -- Its Form and 
 Function, " Arizona Review of Business and Public 
 Administration , vol. 10 (July, 19bl), pp. 13-14. 
 
 Perhaps the most significant book of an epochal decade for city 
 planning 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 metro- 
 politan areas. But he reviews the history of the assumptions and goals 
 of city planning, utilizing material which he developed earlier in 
 various law journals, relating his discussion to important law cases 
 and including a "brilliantly argued debate" in which "an attorney and a 
 city planner discuss some fundamental issues ccncerned 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. 
 
 Haar, Charles M. , "The Master Plan: An Inquiry in 
 Dialogue Form, " in his Land -Use Planning; A 
 Casebook on the Use, Misuse, and Re - Us e of 
 Urba. i Land Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 
 1959), pp. 730-744. 
 
 Reprinted in Journal of the American Institute 
 
 of PL.i.ners, vol. 25 (August, 1959), pp. 133-142. 
 
 37
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 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 who have contributed 
 richly, in their own right, to the theory of the gen eral plan, Alan 
 Black stands out as the most important in recent years. 
 
 Kent, T. J. , Jr. , "The Legislative Functions of the Gen- 
 eral Plan, " Proceedings, 8th Biennial Institute of 
 May or s and Councilmen . Berkeley, League of Cali- 
 fornia Cities, I960. 14 p. 
 
 , "The City General Plan: Its Technical Elements and 
 
 Legislative Functions, 1 ' in California Governor's Con- 
 ference on California's Urban Areas and the State 
 Highway System, Papers (Sacramento, State Depart- 
 ment of Public Works, I960), pp. 32-35. 
 
 Black, Alan. The Functions of the Urban General Plan . M.C.P. Thi 
 University of California, Berkeley. I960. 1 36 p. 
 
 Robert C. Hoover of Wayne State University rejects the "fourth 
 power" concept of Tugwell as well as Haar's "master plan as an imper- 
 manent constitution. " It is also certain that his proposals would not 
 fit the definition of general plan suggested by Kent. Hoover would 
 have an elected "Metropolitan Direction-Finding Commission" pre- 
 pare a 25 -year "body of socio-physical end-directions; an execu- 
 tive-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. " 
 
 Hoover, Robert C. , "On Master Plans and Constitutions, " 
 Journal of the American Institute of Planners, vol. 
 2b (February, I960), pp. b-24. 
 
 The significance of the "community design plan" as an element 
 of the general plan has only recently been recognized. Chief 
 credit, perhaps, belongs to Henry Fagin and Robert C. Weinberg -- 
 with an important "assist" by Carl Feiss. 
 
 American Institute of Architects. Joint Committee on 
 
 Design Control. Planning and Community Appear - 
 anc e, edited by Henry Fagirl and Robert C. Wein- 
 berg. New York, Regional Plan Association, 
 1958. 159 p. 
 
 38
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography Zl 
 
 Feiss, Carl, "Planning Absorbs Zoning, " Journal of the 
 American Institute of Planne rs, vol. 27 (May, 
 1961), pp. 121-126. 
 
 This brings us to the decade of the sixties --a period of intensi- 
 fied exploration of city planning 's goals and continued expansion of its 
 achievements. It is also an era in which all major university schools 
 of city planning are increasingly concerned that their students par- 
 ticipate in some kind of general plan experience -- whether in "new 
 town" group workshops within the curriculum or as interns thrown 
 into the whirl of the local agency's practical general plan prepara- 
 tion. More graduate students, too, are turning to general plan 
 themes for theses topics; Joshua Siegel and Ronald Kaliszewski are 
 but two recent examples. 
 
 Siegel, Joshua. An Investigation of the Utility of the 
 General Renewal Plan Concept in Urban Renewal 
 Planning. M.S. in Urban Planning, Columbia 
 University, I960. 
 
 Kaliszewski, Ronald Edmund. The Master Plan: Its 
 Functions, Potential and Limiting Factors . 
 M. S. in City Planning, University of Illinois, 
 1961. 51 p. 
 
 Finally, a milestone in the evolution of urban general plan 
 theory may be reached with publication of Professor Kent's book. 
 
 Kent, T.J. , Jr. The Urban General Plan. Draft 
 prepared for critical comment. April, 1962. 
 213 p. 
 
 The draft, as presently constituted, consists of five main chap- 
 ters. Following a section on definitions, forms of municipal govern- 
 ment, the ci£y council, the role of city planning in municipal govern- 
 ment, the client and purposes of the general plan, the author discusses 
 "fifty years of experience with the general plan, " legislative functions 
 and characteristics of the general plan, and, in a final chapter, 
 touches on implications and states his conclusions: 
 
 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 once 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. 
 
 If the simplicity of the concept can be appreciated, the 
 practical benefits will become apparent very quickly. 
 
 39
 
 CPL Exchange Bibliography 21 
 
 Major conflicts in community development policies will be 
 resolved. Major capital improvement 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. . . . But 
 in our society, with our philosophy of democratic self- 
 government, they will come sooner if we will trust our 
 elected representatives and will assist them, by means of 
 a general plan that they can use, to do well what they must 
 do in any case. (p. 213. ) 
 
 40
 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 „,J7114C73E C001 
 
 EXCHANGE BIBLIOGRAPHY URBANA ILL 
 21-28 1962-65 
 
 II