On page 5 of the February 2020 issue of The Planner, the chair of
the Royal Town Planning Institute’s (RTPI’s) board of trustees presented the
institute’s vision and mission for the next
decade. Beyond its global vision, it is the mission that has technical
resonance: “to advance the science and art of planning” (but notice the absence
of the word “town”). For this author, the art of town planning is the majesty and intimacy of urban form as a
three-dimensional concept (Cullen, 1961). The science of town planning is an entirely different matter. Is there
a common understanding of the term? What is its nature and scope? To contribute
to a possible interpretation, this paper offers a review. The ambition is to
see if the “science of cities” is useful in the world of town planning
practice.
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