British Town and Country Planning: Local Participation

The sacrifice of local autonomy and the subordination of individual rights to the implementation of public policy have long been prominent among the charges against planning writ large. Few would deny the existence of these potentials. While a generous optimism may assume that planners are motivated by public purpose alone, the experience of our time has too often demonstrated that power corrupts. And planning is uniquely power. On the other hand, though the vesting of authority commensurate with great ends necessarily provokes the threat of arbitrary decision, the crushing economic problems which face Britain today demand solution, and great power must be ventured. Happily, however, power is negotiable. A tradition of civil freedom and a responsible Parliament provide impressive sanctions against maladministration. Nor is authority inevitably the antagonist of liberty. Indeed, one may suggest, with Kant, that far from adversary, authority is the condition making liberty possible, for law is the foundation of freedom.