Control or cleavage – the struggle for the city

The demise of the Development Plan Review heralded the end of an era. The Review had been prepared for a city beset with the problems of projected growth. The temporary economic and political relationships that underpinned the long wave of post-war affluence were ascribed an eternal status. The claim of the planners was to produce an objective assessment of that growth and to harmoniously translate it into a pattern of phased physical development. The opposition directed at that pattern manifested the need for better techniques of prediction and planning. However, such technical modification could not contain the consequences of recession and fiscal crisis.