This week’s reading focused on the politics of private and public sector of planning. The goal was to understand how rationality is applied to planning or the opposite of how planning theory should be. My interpretation of the reading was: Politics of the planning system really affects how planners do their jobs. Especially in last 100 years, planning has changed in ways of thinking about the future by employing the today’s skills.
The only thing complicates me is the argument of public and private sector. I had a recent discussion with a classmate from last semester as we worked together on our project, I had revealed my desire to work in public sector and perhaps nonprofit organization and her response was, “Rethink that in two years because you will see the struggles of government getting involved and nothing ever gets done.” I asked her “but isn't that the challenge?” The response was "how much of a challenge do you want when it is already a challenging career.”
It did made me think for some time but in my spirit of inquiry is if we are doing this for a profession, we are supposed to take many of the negatives with the positives in the field. On page 15 and 16 of “Planning Theory,” they mentioned of planners types and how they function. I would like to think myself as a hybrid as I want to understand the politics along the public sector but also be behind the desk drafting ideas to bring both sectors to work together. I understand that itself is a challenging idea but isn't the goal of being rational to express a relationship between both sectors.
In my previous classes, there were discussions of how planning needs to have others participation in the process, within the reading of “Terrain of Planning Theory,” and other previous readings. The goal is to have public involvement that can help fulfill better outcomes by bringing knowledge to the public needs and preferences. In good circumstances, the collaboration can become more meaningful and more creative response will help with the continuous problems. The intention of it is bring a closure community and in result of it, planners have to stray from the traditional planning but become more creative in pushing further in politics as well bringing more ideas to the table.
Chapter two’s mention of Theory gap is something really perplexing as they mentioned planning is not like what we will learn in school system. Take the Law school for an example and change it to planning. The theory we will discuss in the classroom but how often will we apply it and is it really a dread topic between the profession?
How much knowledge will we really get in the classroom, as in for me, I have some background in Non profit organization and other fields but at this point I am not working as I am focusing my studies. I wonder how much will I contribute to the classroom. In the mean time, searching for internship and part time employment to ensure my thoughts will be meaningful in classroom, I may feel humble. I hope the knowledge of others will push some thought provoking ideas into the classroom
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