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On 31 October 1993 in Columbus, Ohio, the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning presented its Distinguished Planning Educator Award to Melville C Branch The following comments were prepared by Professor Branch from speaking notes of his remarks in response to a reguest from the editors

All existing cities were new towns at some time in the past. Although there is a relative lack of interest in new towns in the USA today, they continue to be planned and constructed in other parts of the world. The common characteristics they exhibit constitute long-range goals for the gradual physical redevelopment of existing cities as well as shorter-range planning objectives for the superior new town.

Sound city planning requires a valid theoretical and analytical base. But our present knowledge of the functioning of urban organisms and their analysis for planning purposes does not justify the operational pretensions of city planning practitioners, nor the academic claim that city planning is as yet an intellectual discipline and prospective science. In the United States, development of the foundation of fundamental knowledge for sound city planning has been subordinated to strengthening the superstructure of professional practice. Emulating the paper “Mathematical Problems” presented by David Hilbert at the turn of the century, twenty-three critical unresolved problems of urban planning analysis are identified and explained briefly. City planners are aware of most of these problems separately, but the importance of their resolution warrants collective statement. When these problems are resolved, urban planning will be established as a foremost field of knowledge deserving universal application.

This paper postulates that larger more complicated organisms cannot be comprehended completely. Some of their important internal characteristics and dynamics are indeterminate. Certain external conditions and occurrences vitally affecting them cannot be predicted or treated as random events. The internal functioning of complex organisms and their interaction with the external environment cannot therefore be formulated analytically with the completeness, precision, and reliability required for truly comprehensive planning and decision-making. Limitations of rational and collective action by people are also involved in what comprehensive planning can and cannot accomplish, and how it is best conducted.

In this article the significance and requirements of monitoring outdoor noise pollution in urban environments are discussed. Potentialities and limitations of using the regular telephone network for this purpose are identified. A system of noise monitoring is described which uses single telephone lines and existing electronic and data processing components. This system provides a technically and economically feasible means of enforcing local legislation controlling noise from aircraft overhead and from other outdoor sources, and of analyzing needs and trends with respect to such sounds over time.

This study analyses the failures of the zoning system in large cities in the USA. The ease with which waivers have been granted to developers in return for amenity provision has made nonsense of town planning. The long construction lead times of transport and public utility systems never allows them to catch up with contemporary densities. City councillors see no political advantage in concerning themselves with planning for the city as a whole. A change in attitude must bring about higher-level planning if over- or misguided densification is to be halted.

Oil exploration and production have taken place in Los Angeles for seventy-five years. Regulation of these activities has developed over the years without making them economically impossible. Today, improved city planning and greater urban environmental protection call for additional policies and requirements. This review of Los Angeles experience is intended to assist the many communities in the world which are or will be faced with the problems accompanying urban oil extraction. By studying the Los Angeles experience and modifying it to fit the local situation, cities can establish policies, laws, and regulatory conditions which allow urban oil operations consistent with sound city planning, urban development, and favorable local environment.

Use of commercial helicopters in cities is expanding rapidly. Continued growth in this use and the development of other means of aerial travel could create a new set of city planning problems. Advance analysis of the complex questions involved in widespread urban air traffic would reduce its potentially disruptive effects and possibly prevent a period of serious metropolitan confusion. It would provide a better basis for the decisions relating to urban air travel made by city planning commissions today and for those likely to arise in the future.

(1950). Concerning Coordinative Planning. Journal of the American Institute of Planners: Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 163-171.

(1957). Planning and Operations Research. Journal of the American Institute of Planners: Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 168-175.

Corporate planning has expanded as an organized staff activity in business, but little is known concerning either its operating characteristics or its practitioners as a group. Results of a recent sample survey represent the best information now available.

City planning is an established activity, field of knowledge, and profession. Except for river basin development and specific functional programs, regional planning is presently limited as an organized endeavor. Civil engineers will continue their roles relating to the design and construction of certain physical facilities; but greater knowledge of the dynamics of urban-regional organisms and subsystem analysis will be necessary for effective participation as the scope of planning broadens and deepens. The current focus is on comprehensive planning which analyzes and projects all major elements in shaping the city or region in accordance with trends and objectives. This calls for improved techniques of synthesizing disparate interdependent variables, projecting into the future, formulating sound subjective judgments, and systems design. Together with other engineers and professions, the civil engineer is a potential candidate for directorial positions in comprehensive or master planning; these require graduate education in city or regional planning, or acquiring equivalent knowledge through university extension, self-education, or expanded civil engineering curricula.

There is a need in planning for an instrumentality to assist decisionmakers in the difficult task of comprehending and conceptualizing the organization and activity they direct. The "corporate control center" or "planning room" may meet this need.

Many professional fields are now involved directly in different applications of planning: architecture, economics, engineering, geography, business and governmental management, mathematics and operations research, military and physical planning, sociology. Such recent intellectual advances as information and decision theory, game and communication theory, symbolic logic, mathematical and other simulation, queueing theory, linear programming, or the psychology of groups are being applied successfully to planning problems. From a synthesis of these professional and intellectual activities, a theory, principles, and methodology of comprehensive planning are likely to develop. This substantive body of knowledge will become an important field of study.

There has been urban oil exploration and production in Los Angeles, California, for 75 years. production in Los Angeles, California, for 75 years. Regulation of these activities has developed progressively over the years without making them progressively over the years without making them economically impossible. Today, improved city planning and greater urban environmental protection planning and greater urban environmental protection call for additional policies and requirements This review of Los Angeles experience and recommendation for the future are intended to assist the many communities in the world which are or will be built over oil fields. By applying this experience modified to fit the local situation, cities elsewhere can establish policies, laws, and regulatory conditions which permit urban oil operations consistent with sound city planning, urban development, and favorable local environment.

A number of concepts and conditions in current city planning are questioned: the grand master plan delusion; planning after the fact; intermittent master planning; the illusion of complete study; avoiding the critical problems; trying to do everything; sematic confusion; conflicts of role and organization; unrealistic derivation of goals and objectives; failure of city planning in the general public interest; deficiencies of planning personnel; inadequacies of theory and research; underestimating fundamental difficulties of the city planning endeavor.