First, it should be remembered that planning provides *standards* as much
as it provides *constraints*. The ideology of our time leads public
discussion to focus almost exclusively on the constraint aspect but that
leaves people not actually involved (and a sad number of the people who ARE
involved) with a deep misunderstanding of what is going on. Zoning, to
take a basic example is critical in providing a *standard* that makes the
developer and potential owners of a project confident about the security of
their investment. This is not to say that planning can not be done well or
badly, but that both aspects in inevitably involved.
Second point is that it should always be remembered that older
neighborhoods have the advantage of time. Time to age. They can age well or
badly, but when comparing a neighborhood first built 50 or 2000 years ago
with one built now it is more productive to ask, "How will the new one age?"
than "How is the new one like the older one."