I think there's a huge continuum of "planning". It's true that even cities which have mostly evolved organically also have probably had various bits of planning applied to them here and there, and there's a big difference between that and a city where the majority of the city's layout was planned as a whole, and rigidly controlled over time... [E.g., Tokyo, which is hugely "organic" city, even now, but which also certainly has had parts of it planned, and continues to have some central direction to its development.]
I'm a fan of organically evolved cities, but planning isn't some sort of poison that ruins everything in any amount, and indeed it can be done in a way that really works well. Look at Edinburgh, where large parts of the central city are the result of several eras of large-scale urban planning (all centuries ago). It's one of the most beautiful and livable cities in the world.
I think one has to be much more wary of modern efforts at city planning, in part because the modern obsession with automobiles means that modern city plans are almost always oriented around them—and this is pretty much universally poison for a livable city.
I'm a fan of organically evolved cities, but planning isn't some sort of poison that ruins everything in any amount, and indeed it can be done in a way that really works well. Look at Edinburgh, where large parts of the central city are the result of several eras of large-scale urban planning (all centuries ago). It's one of the most beautiful and livable cities in the world.
I think one has to be much more wary of modern efforts at city planning, in part because the modern obsession with automobiles means that modern city plans are almost always oriented around them—and this is pretty much universally poison for a livable city.