Role Orientations of Third World Urban Planners

Although urban planners in Third World countries enjoy relatively high levels of power and autonomy, little is known about their values, attitudes, and professional role orientations. The findings arc reported of a questionnaire survey designed to elicit information on the professional culture of planners from Barbados, India, Jamaica, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Particular attention is given to respondents' perceived attributes of a ‘good planner’ and to their attitudes to specific issues relating to the theory and practice of urban planning and management in Third World settings. The results suggest a conventional wisdom among practitioners that is managerial and technocratic but at the same time pragmatic and grassroots-oriented. In addition, evidence is presented for the existence of three distinctive subgroups whose professional world-views are characterized respectively as ‘defensive’, ‘paternalistic’, and ‘radical’.