Emerging knowledge about planning practice

Studies of planning practice can be organized into a typology according to their substantive focus and re-search method. Case studies of plan-ning situations and surveys of plan-ners and planning agencies have been published for over twenty years. Further, studies appeared in the late 1960s and 1970s of how planning directors assess their roles and how public planning agencies work. However, interpretations of social interaction, organizational re-lationships, and political behavior represent a new way of exploring planning practice. This article notes that the findings of the studies re-viewed could be made more accessi-ble to practitioners and synthesized into theories of practice. Ltnda C. Dalton is a Professor of City and Re