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About

The Berkeley Planning Journal is an annual peer-reviewed journal published by graduate students in the Department of City and Regional Planning (DCRP) at the University of California, Berkeley since 1985.

Issue cover

A Publication of the Graduate Students of the Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California at Berkeley

Editor: Cliff Ellis Editorial Board: Sara Calhoun, Sabina Deitrick, Nancey Leigh­

Preston, and Elizabeth Mueller. Abstracts Editor: Kenneth Ryan Faculty Advisory and Review Committee: Edward Blakely, Karen Christensen, Frederick Collignon, Richard Cowart, Peter Hall, John Landis, Michael Teitz, and Melvin Webber.

Editorial Notes

Introduction

With this issue, the Berkeley Planning Journal officially enters its third year of publication. Established as a vehicle of communication between the Berkeley planning community and the profession-at-large, this journal-and those existing now or in the future at other schools of planning-can be of increasing value to the academic planning field over the coming years. The field, itself, to use a term popular in economic development these days, is in a period of "restructuring." Restructuring implies more than simple evolution or gradual change; it implies crisis and adjustment to forces of decline. Planning schools have experienced steady declines in enrollments over the last decade. The public sector to which the planning discipline has traditionally been oriented has been steadily shrinking under the forces of Reaganism. Whether, and how, the planning field will survive is not clear. Perhaps it even depends (dare we say it?) on how well we plan. The by-now old cliche of "muddling through" more than aptly describes the developmental history of the planning field and its schools. Further, this unplanned path (to use Alonso's phrase) may just lead to extinction.

Articles

Urban Land Developers and the Origins of Zoning Laws: The Case of Berkeley

In the following paper I present an analysis of the origins of zoning laws and a case study of the beginning of zoning in Berkeley, California. The particular focus of the article is on the role of large-scale land subdividers, or "community builders", and on their economic and political activities both as entrepreneurs and as members of local real estate boards. The case of Berkeley demonstrates the key actions of one prominent community builder, Duncan McDuffie, as a promoter of local planning and zoning to facilitate the development and marketing of high-income residential subdivisions. The case illustrates both the contribution of zoning as an innovation in land planning and regulation, as well as some of its social implications as practiced in the 1910s and 1920s.

The Politics of Resource Management: Aboriginal Rights and Land Claim Settlements

The study of the role of space in the historical processes of social life need not be limited to the study of the city. The urban structure is but one of many forms into which the interaction of social relationships crystallizes. This paper moves the debate on space and society from the city to the region by focussing on the conflicting land-use requirements between subsistence and industrial economies. The purpose of this shift in analysis is to identify and document some of the methods by which local non­ industrial economic activities are integrated into the spatial logic of economic expansion.

The Importance of Class

Class can best be understood as emerging from the complex interrelationship of work and horne life. Problems, limitations, and opportunities at the workplace generate behavioral adaptations that extend into the horne, creating the shared lifestyles, childrearing practices, inter-generational education and employment experiences, and common consumption patterns that constitute and reproduce a class.1 These adaptations are forged within a larger social and spatial structure of class segregation (Soja, 1983). The working class performs the direct economic production and low-level service, clerical, and adrninistrative work2 of society and tends to live in "lower class" neighborhoods.

The Puerto Rican Industrial Policy Debate of 1940-1947: The Limits of Dependent Colonial Growth

The rapid development of the Puerto Rican economy following the Second World War provides a unique model of central planning within a dependent colonial economy. This project will present a brief overview of the conflicting socio-economic and political forces which initiated and guided the establishment of central planning in Puerto Rico during the period 1940-47. The goal of this presentation is to trace the interactions between the key actors and institutions, in the political and socio-economic environment of 1940-47, which led to a policy re-orientation of central planning in 1 94 7. This re-orientation defined Puerto Rican economic development not as an autonomous agricultural and industrial program based on both domestic and foreign capital, but instead, economic development was viewed as a massive industrialization program based solely on private foreign capital.

The Geography of Defense Production: Conceptual Issues

These days it seems as if almost everyone has something to say about defense spending and military production. The political scientist speaks of deterrence and diplomacy, the biologist of nuclear winter, the engineer of accuracy and explosive potentials, the sociologist of nuclear-age paranoia, the businessman of cost­ effectiveness and profit trends. What perspective can regional planners add to this debate?

Planners might initially approach this debate by outlining how defense spending affects the subjects of planning: land use, job generation, industrial development, city finances. This approach is certainly a necessary recognition of the dramatic affect of the military on cities and regions. Yet almost any discipline could claim that defense spending affects their subjects of study in some way or another. It thus remains the task of regional planners to trace the impact of defense spending on their discipline, and, more importantly, to demonstrate the contribution that their discipline can make to the defense spending debate at large.

The Debate Over the Disappearing Middle

The "plight of the middle-class," as it is subjected to forces transforming the U.S. economy as a whole in recent years, has become a major topic of interest among economists, political analysts, and policy makers. Understanding the debate, and even engaging in efforts to resolve it, should also be of interest to planners-particularly those who seek to plan for economic development. The debate over the disappearing middle is intertwined with two other major economic debates: that of the U.S.'s industrial decline, and that of the effects of changing demographics, especially in regards to the baby boom generation. The review of literature and research which follows is an attempt not only to identify the major issues of the alleged disappearing middle (which has also been referred to as the "declining" middle, the "shrinking" middle, and the "doomed" middle), but to show how these issues are inextricably linked with those of industrial decline and changing demographics in the U.S.

Essays

Urban Actors: Puppets, Ad Libbers, or Something in Between

In urban planning conflicts, how do we view the actors? Do we see them as constrained by their class position to play roles already predestined for them? Or do we regard them as free agents, playing parts in an unstructured and unscripted drama in which each piece of the action provides the trigger for the next? Or something in between? Most of the rich contemporary debate in the literature of urban politics, it seems to me, centers on this central question of the degree of freedom allowed both to individual actors, to groupings of these individuals, and to coalitions between these groups.

DCRP News

Abstracts and Titles of Student Work

Recent PhD Dissertations, Masters Theses and Professional Reports from the Department of City and Regional Planning.