Introducing Philosophical Theories to Urban Transportation Planning

TedChing in substantive areas ofphnning has become increasingly calculative. Students have been taught to use techniques, but not to ask whether they are asking the right questions A new course whlch attempted to instead emphasize a meditatlve approach to transportation planning is described. A theme of exposing and criticizing assumptions-bubble bursting--lies at the heart of the course. Philosophical theories were taught to help accomplish this, and problem setting was shown to be csscntially a question of ethics. The shortcomings of current systems analysis approaches in transportation were discussed, and the alternative of a wider form of systems research suggested by Churchman was explored. The interrelationships between transportation and relatcd systems were stressed throughout the course. Students expressed some concern that the course did not emphasize the practical side of transportation planning, but responded positively to the new perspectives for cntlclsm that were introduwd. Teaching the course demonstrated that there is a useful role for courses which expose and criticize assumptions rather than merely teach techniques and which reveal the essentially ethical nature of planning and all social inquiry; and that if we want future generations of thinking planners, we need to teach them how to think. INTRODUCTIONLIFE INSIDE A BUBBLE PLANNERS inhabit bubbles. The bubble provides a womb-like sense of comfort and security, an uncertainty-controlled environment in which the planner can work, using the repertory of procedures on the list of problems contained within the bubble’s walls. The planner may peer out to glance at the outside world ; it is seen, however, only from the perspective afforded by the individual’s particular bubble. Because the bubble has invisible walls, the planner is not even aware of being in a bubble. Heidegger [6] was surely observing the retreat into bubbles when he wrote that ‘Man today is in flight f r o m thinking. . . . Part of this flight is that man will neither see nor admit it. . . . He will say~~ and quite rightly-that there was at no time such far-reaching plans, so many inquiries in so many areas, research carried on as passionately as today’ (p. 45). But, according to Heidegger, such work revolves around ‘calculative thinking’, which takes place within ‘conditions that are given’. The conditions are taken into account ‘with the calculated intent of their serving specific purposes. Thus we can count on specific results. Calculative thinking computes. It computes ever new, ever more promising and at the same time more economical possibilities. . . . Calculative thinking never stops, never collects itself. Calculative thinking is not meditative thinking, not thinking which contemplates the meaning which reigns in everything that is’ (p. 46). Meditative thinking is about identifying. questioningand moving beyond assumptions. I t is about bursting bubbles to discover that few planning problems may be productively tackled with a limited set of technical procedures and without an understanding of how those problems relate to other questions. At the core of meditative thinking is the asking of what to West Churchman [5 , p. 1321following his teacher Edgar Singer-is the most crucial ethical