Book contents
- Frontmatter
- FOREWORD
- Contents
- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- INTRODUCTION
- 1 PRELUDE
- 2 THE STEERING COMMITTEE
- 3 THE PLANNING TEAM
- 4 PLACE, FOLK AND WORK
- 5 THE HOUSING CRISIS
- 6 BREAKING THE STALEMATE
- 7 THE BRIDGE
- 8 SELLING THE PLAN
- 9 INTERLUDE
- 10 THE DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION
- 11 COMMUNITY RESOLVE
- 12 RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT
- APPENDIX: NORTHERN IRELAND REGIONAL PLANS
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- INDEX
9 - INTERLUDE
- Frontmatter
- FOREWORD
- Contents
- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- INTRODUCTION
- 1 PRELUDE
- 2 THE STEERING COMMITTEE
- 3 THE PLANNING TEAM
- 4 PLACE, FOLK AND WORK
- 5 THE HOUSING CRISIS
- 6 BREAKING THE STALEMATE
- 7 THE BRIDGE
- 8 SELLING THE PLAN
- 9 INTERLUDE
- 10 THE DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION
- 11 COMMUNITY RESOLVE
- 12 RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT
- APPENDIX: NORTHERN IRELAND REGIONAL PLANS
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- INDEX
Summary
I have often reflected on my decision to leave the Munce Partnership, and while in the long run I had no reason to regret my decision, I realised that my people-participation model did not fit very well with the aggressive entrepreneurial goals of private practice. My planning qualifications had not been acquired without great cost to myself and my young family and I cherished the title of chartered planner. While my ethical standards might have been described as overly conservative at the time, Jimmy's Nietzschean approach to practice sometimes left me unnerved. When we had finished the Derry plan Jimmy had anticipated that we might somehow become involved in its implementation. To his credit he had been prepared to gamble on this and must have sustained considerable losses in producing the plan. While his time commitment and role in Derry had made him a background figure as far as the team was concerned, his advocacy at meetings and his work behind the scenes were critical in dealing with the Steering Committee and getting the plan accepted.
Nevertheless even today I find the necessary marketing aspects of private practice uncomfortable and look back with some nostalgia to what seemed to have been a time when work was earned solely on the basis of reputation. I realise, however, that this pre-fifties model is probably a chimera of my own making, and in this too I have not yet wholly succeeded in discarding my Candide-like persona.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Planning DerryPlanning and Politics in Northern Ireland, pp. 91 - 97Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2000