It is only a hundred years ago since the history of planning was established as an academic subject and a discipline at the Department of Civic Design at the University of Liverpool. The Town Planning Review journal was founded in 1910 at the same institution and was based on the idea of presenting theory and good practice. A third event at the same time was the start of a planning course at Harvard University. The author has followed the development of theory and practice in planning for 50 years. He has been a professional planner, a researcher and university lecturer. He argues that we have witnessed a change in making many examples of good practice into objective science. We are longing for facts, but the crucial issues are what we do with the facts and what types of action do these facts trigger. "We are all practitioners", claims the author. But what do planners really do? They listen, read, speak and write when working on theoretical issues in a university, at a municipal planni
