First published in 1974, Citizens in Conflict explodes the popular mythology that town planning is an objective, rational, apolitical professional activity conducted in the public interest. The book challenges the underlying professional conception that society functions as an integrated, cooperative system based on generally agreed values—a view the author argues is fundamentally false.
In reality, society operates through continuous struggle for scarce resources and power between groups or social classes with opposed interests. This conflict creates an impossible position for town planners: they cannot serve all groups simultaneously, making their work inherently partial rather than objective. Their choice to serve certain interests over others constitutes a political act, not a neutral technical exercise. And in conditions of social conflict, no single ‘public interest’ exists to be served.
Given these fundamental contradictions, Citizens in Conflict concludes that traditional town planning had reached a dead-end by the early 1970s. Planning meaningful social change required shifts in resource distribution, power structures, and ideology—changes that most professional planners were neither equipped nor willing to undertake. The book makes a case for a radically different system of planning altogether.