Advanced Planning at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

World War II advanced the techniques of new town planning through the many defense projects and towns, most of them temporary in nature, throughout the nation. Even though temporary in type of construction, town planning principles necessary to good circulation, safety, social amenities, and even aesthetic satisfaction were employed. Much was learned from them.

This universality of science has encouraged the formation of many international scientific associations and these organizations have, in turn, fostered a great variety of international cooperative projects. Among the most successful and elaborate of all such international programs was the International Geophysical Year (IGY) in the late 1950s. In 1967 and 1968, 11 such major international programs were in progress or in a state of advanced planning. They ranged from a program for the compilation of "critically evaluated numerical data," whose proposed U.S. share is an annual $33,000, to a massive global undertaking known as the International Biological Program (IBP), whose U.S. planning budget alone is about $300,000.

The real task of the planning board therefore should be—and is, in those communities where planning is taken seriously—to serve as a research arm to the executive. "Pure" planning, planning according to theory, is a practical impossibility, for every executive decision is weighted by many factors of politics, expediency, finance, and local pressure. A conscientious executive and legislative body, nevertheless, can be assisted greatly in making decisions, if presented with the full implications, city-wide, of the alternatives.