understanding "planning theory" and its typologies

the aim of this paper is presenting an account of the development of the body of knowledge which so far has been known as planning theory. this branch of knowledge studies the major issues related to different kinds of planning. hough, the origin of planning practice was in soviet :union: , the first steps toward creating a set of theoretical axioms for justifying and explaining planning was taken in capitalist world and in the turn of the 20th century, these attempts were based on theory of rationalization of weber and ideas of karl manheim on the conscious administration of the society and economy. since, in the realm of planning theory, there are competing theories with different philosophical-scientific as well as social-political backgrounds and arguments, so that in a study like this, one can neglect none of them, the only solution is using typologies. the first and most widely used typology of planning th theory which explains the procedure of planning per se, irrespective of what we plan for, in other words, one group of theories discusses issues of planning methodology, and the other group is specialized in issues related to subjects of plans. furthermore, falludi strongly believed that procedural theory is the area of specialization of planners rather than substantive which has its own specialists (economists, sociologists etc.). therefore, for him procedural theory is the real planning theory. falludi typology was seriously criticized by many authors (especially in second half of 1970s and first half of 1980s. these criticisms jed to suggestion of new typologies. in 1980, nigel taylor recognized two classes of theories related to planning: sociological and philosophical. in fact by coined these two terms, he tried to distinguish between descriptive theoretical statements and statements with prescriptive nature. later. in 1983,cooke explained three kinds of theories: 1) development process !heories,2)planning process !heories,3)theories of government. as a matter of fact, he tried his best to put all challenging issues related to planning in his package. in the last year of 1980s yiftachel suggested a six- dimentional model of planning theories. this typology is based on two criteria: first whether the the theory is explanative or prescriptive, and second whether the theory is about analysing the nature of planning subject or it is about the form of planning product(the plan itself)or is related to the procedure of planning. the result would be six types of planning theory: 1) analytical-explanative, 2) formal-explanative, 3) procedural-explanative, 4) analytical prescriptive, 5) formal-prescriptive, 6) procedural-prescriptive. in 1990s postmodernism took the lead everywhere. among post modern planning theorists, allmendinger recognized five types of planning theories as follows: social scientific philosophy, social theory, exogenous theory, framing theory and indigenous theory. in this decade we witness an escape from complicated typologies and more or less a return to falludi's with some modifications. as a conclusion in this paper we present a typology of planning theories which can embrace all theoretical endeavors related to major planning issues as planning theories with no hierarchy among them.