Between Modernity and Postmodernity: The Ambiguous Position of US Planning

Abstract

In the last half of the 20th century in the United States of America, the modernist planning project that emerged in the first half is being challenged by the political and economic manifestations of postmodernity and its corresponding cultural practices, Despite a serious erosion of its rationalist roots, critical distance, reformist intentions, commitment to master narratives, and focus on the city as object of theory and practice, that project persists. Modernist planning seems suspended between modernity and postmodernity. In order to resolve these tensions, planners need to refocus their work on the built environment (specifically the process of city building), to reestablish a mediative role between capital, labor, and the state, and to project a more democratic profile in public debates surrounding the meaning and consequences of urban and regional development.