This paper will look at whether there is – and should be – a moral imperative to spatial planning.

It would do this by taking four possible approaches to examining this question. The first would be to examine – using reports and professional codes of conduct - whether planning has some form of higher mission. Secondly it would look at the relationship between the stated ‘moral improvement’ aims for planning in planning history, drawing on, for example, the history of model communities.

It would then look at how academic literature has considered spatial planning and morality, including, for example, the concept of ‘salvation through bricks’ coined by US theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. In doing so, it would need to look at the ability, or otherwise, and, importantly, the right of planning to seek to affect the morality of the population.

Finally, it may touch on built form as a physical reflection of a moral code, looking at, inter alia, Islamic principles embodied in design.

In covering this, the paper would need to define ‘morals’ as apposed to, for example, ‘ethics’, and would need to look at such matters as the concept of ‘right and wrong’ decisions (as contained in The RTPI’s own RTPI Learn website, for example).

The paper would, therefore, raise important questions about the role of planning as a sometimes-supposed value free profession and activity at a time when issues such as climate change may demand that we do take a moral stance in practice and when the increasing use of AI in planning raises questions of morality in decision making.