On Insights on Town Planning in Britain

It has occurred to me, as I plough through various books on the history of Town Planning in UK, that contrary to widespread belief, (which is aided in part to games such as SimCity/Civilizaion), national planning, seldom, if ever develops from a "Clean Slate". It is never a game in which governments inherit blocks of land with no settlements on them and start plotting in detail what should be built and developed on site. Instead, the complications of planning arise from the natural growth of unplanned communities and industries, which we inherit from history, and most importantly it affects ways of livelihood already in place decades before planning. Governmental Planning in the UK also had to vie (in the early stages) with long established private property developers for spatial control.

Most interestingly, obvious urban elements such as neighbourhood concepts, the importance of open green spaces, the importance of survery and anylysis before planning is done; which we all take for granted, actually all arose as ideas within the last 80 years, they did not happen naturally as one would assume it would!

The same case can be made for ideas of human liberty, democracy and meritocracy, these weren't ideas that have been around since the start of civilizaion, but their "obviousness" now only goes to show how successful they have been in reality, or in propoganda.

What are the problems of society now? And what revolutionary ideas can be taught of in this age that will be seen as 'all-time'in the next century? I do wonder.