Susanne Cowan
Selling Socialism: Promoting the ‘Public Good’ over Private Property in Planning Legislation

In the 1940s, as the British attempted to pass new legislation to increase planning powers, they used propaganda to try to convince the public that planning would improve the quality of their lives. However, many land owners expressed concern about the loss of property rights in controlling how they could build on their own land. While writing both the 1944 and 1947 town and County Planning Acts, politicians and planners had to deal with questions of how to manage government acquisition of private land as well as zoning restrictions and compensation to owners. Susanne’s talk will address the public discourse about the effects of planning on private property and the public good.

Susanne Cowan is a Ph.D. candidate at Berkeley studying the history of Architecture and urbanism. She received her BA here in Landscape Architecture. Susanne’s research focuses on the relationship between planning professionals and the public, looking at issues of professionalization, public outreach, and participatory democracy. Her dissertation, entitled “Planning to the People,” examines how town planners in the UK in the 1940s tried to create a public forum for discussing new planning policies.