Distinguishing “Planning” from the “Plan”? On Rule-Making and Infrastructure Provision

In the twentieth century, planning as a form of (public) intervention and the plan as an instrument came to be viewed as coinciding. As a consequence of positions of this kind, the plan became the “centrepiece” of city planning. This chapter suggests that we should instead question the view that planning and the plan (in the conventional sense) completely overlap. It advances two main arguments. First, it is necessary to rediscover the importance of plans—and of skills and techniques distinctive of them—when they are really necessary and useful: in particular, it seems fundamental to rediscover the importance of “infrastructure plans”. Second, it is necessary to develop new ideas, skills, and techniques concerning various types of “regulatory instruments”, viewed as significantly different from infrastructure schemes.