Planning in New Zealand: A practice without a past?

Abstract

In 2007 Caroline Miller published a monograph on the New Zealand Planning Institute provocatively entitled The Unsung Profession. Since then, as if to reinforce the point, there have been few narratives that either “sing,” shame or seriously scrutinise the work of planners in this country. It is often left to our Australian cousins to try to shine a light on contributors to New Zealand’s planning legacy witness Robert Freestone’s recent examination of the work of R. T. Kennedy. Otherwise, it is often down to heartfelt obituaries in Planning Quarterly to remind us that planning is done by real people. I am less concerned about the obscured planning history of New Zealand from an academic perspective than I am about the practical implications of this absence of ownership. I will use the example of a state housing project begun in the 1950s at Aranui in Christchurch to tease out such implications.