Two Orthodox Views of Planning: Planning as Teleocratic Intervention and Planning as a Rational Decision-Making Method

In the twentieth century, two main, influential conceptions of planning can be identified: first, planning as a particular form of “teleocractic intervention”; second, planning as a “method of rational decision-making”. The aim of this chapter is not simply to reconstruct the evolution of these two ideas of planning; it is also to demonstrate how attention and the debate in planning theory have largely concentrated on the conception of planning as a particular form of decision-making. Much less critical attention has been paid to the other conception—planning as a particular form of intervention.