Showing papers in "Planning Theory in 2013"

Reframing strategic spatial planning by using a coproduction perspective

Abstract: There is growing evidence that the problems, challenges and opportunities that our cities, city-regions and regions are facing cannot be tackled adequately by traditional spatial planning. One of the key challenges for planning in this respect is to analyse critically what type of planning is suited as an approach to deal – in an innovative/emancipatory and transformative way – with the problems and challenges developing and developed societies are facing. An expanding literature and an increasing number of practices all over the world seem to suggest that strategic spatial planning may be looked upon as a possible approach. But at the same time critical comments and reactions are raised on the theory and the practices of strategic spatial planning. This paper uses the theory and practices of coproduction to reframe strategic spatial planning. It first looks for a deeper understanding of the meaning(s) of coproduction as it emerged in different contexts and different intellectual traditions and then intro...

On the theory and practice of critical pragmatism: Deliberative practice and creative negotiations:

Abstract: Critical pragmatism provides a line of analysis and imagination that might contribute both to academic planning theory and to engaged planning practices as well. To do so, it must build upon, and develop more politically, Donald Schon’s seminal work on reflective practice. It must help students of planning think critically about outcomes as well as processes, about institutional and process designs, about power and performance. It must resonate experientially with perceptions of change-oriented practitioners facing complex multi-party “problems” characterized by distrust, anger, strategic behavior, poor information, and inequalities of power. Not least of all, a critical pragmatism must—and can—help students of planning reconstruct possibilities where others might initially perceive or presume impossibilities.

Planning and the ‘stubborn realities’ of global south-east cities: Some emerging ideas

Abstract: Five years ago Yiftachel (2006) called on planning theorists to focus attention on cities of the global ‘South-East’ where issues differ significantly from northern contexts – which currently infor...

Using Actor–Network Theory to understand planning practice: Exploring relationships between actants in regulating low-carbon commercial development

Abstract: There has been a recent growth in interest within planning theory in Actor–Network Theory. This article explores the potential for Actor–Network Theory to deliver a distinctive perspective on planning practice. Using a case study of commercial office development and the discussion of its carbon performance within the regulatory planning process, an Actor–Network Theory– based analysis is provided. The analysis points to the role of planning policy documents as intermediaries, the planning consent process as an obligatory passage point and energy-modelling exercises as potentially black-boxing low-carbon development. It also emphasises how materiality of the development embodies compliance with policy through the construction and warranting of evidence claims. In all these ways, the relationships between actants within networks are shaped. The practice-based conclusions draw attention to the importance of planners devising highly detailed and carefully worded plan policies, and understanding and being able to challenge the knowledge derived from energy-modelling tools as ways of developing agency to influence the outcomes of planning practice. Such agency is revealed by an Actor–Network Theory analysis to be small work in local sites of practice but set against the backdrop of regulatory regimes.

Co-evolutions of planning and design: Risks and benefits of design perspectives in planning systems:

Abstract: We develop an evolutionary perspective on spatial planning to investigate the potential contributions of design approaches to the coordination of spatial organization. After a re-articulation of th...

Planning and the invisible hand: Allies or adversaries?

Abstract: Sometimes planning is designed to counteract market forces, revealing an adversarial relationship between planning and the invisible hand. Other times, planning builds on the spontaneous order of the market and the two will be allies. This article offers two related arguments on the division between top-down planning and the bottom-up planning produced by the spontaneous order of the market. First, planning as a whole has insufficiently appreciated both the effectiveness of the spontaneous order of the market and the difficulty of overriding it. Second, when one recognizes the way in which bottom-up planning creates an orderly outcome, one can see that governments have simultaneously planned too much of the affairs of market participants, but at the same time have insufficiently planned their own activities.

Collaborative planning in the network: Consensus seeking in urban planning issues on the Internet—the case of China

Abstract: For the last few years in China, several urban planning issues have become public concerns with debates arising on the Internet. As the power of the Internet media continues to rise, the grassroots...

Insurgencies: Essays in planning theory

Abstract: Editorial note: The publication of a retrospective selection of John Friedmann’s life works seemed an important opportunity to reflect on the impact of Friedmann on the evolution of planning theory over the last half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. Not surprisingly, few invitations to contribute were declined; no one who teaches or writes planning theory today is without an opinion on John Friedmann’s work. The comments by Angelique Chettiparamb, Judith Innes, ER Alexander, Charles Hoch, Kang Cao, and Richard Margerum are testimony to the breadth of methods Friedmann has utilized and the depth of his impact. He is described as an intellectual historian, utopian, ethicist, bridge builder, and provocateur, as well as mentor, colleague, and role model. It is impossible to read these comments without challenging the modalities of one’s own work and asking when convention should be abandoned for possibility. The commentators also point unmistakably to the power of theory to change practice.

Shaping acting space: In search of a new political awareness among local authority planners:

Abstract: A shift in governing modes is increasingly leading to new conditions for professionals. In view of such change, there is a need for deeper awareness of how hegemonic power struggles and processes of identification are deeply interconnected. In order to illustrate how such processes shape the acting space of professionals, a critical reflection on changing conditions for English local authority planning 1998-2010 is presented. The analysis focuses on deconstruction of power as ability, authority and identity. The conclusion is that if society is to reconsider the value of local authority planners having influence, then it is time to introduce a new perception of the political into planning. Such a perception hinges on increased understanding within the profession itself of how power shapes acting space. © The Author(s) 2012.

Urbanization and sustainability in China: An analysis based on the urbanization Kuznets-curve

Abstract: Nowadays, China’s rapid urbanization is accompanied by emerging problems of nonsustainability, as a challenge to global sustainable development. Our research addresses the complicated relationship between urbanization and sustainability in China. First, we establish the Kuznets-curve hypothesis of urbanization and test its reliability based on evidence from China’s urbanization, and the result shows that a win–win situation between urbanization and sustainability can possibly be achieved in China. Second, faced with an unbalanced urbanization trend in China that can be accommodated but not overturned, in order to realize the win–win situation effectively, the government needs to adopt a flexible urbanization strategy to combine an inclusive regional policy framework with a sustainable urban planning system in different regions of China.

Network Governance and Regional Equity: Shared Agendas or Problematic Partners?

Abstract: Over the past decade, scholars from various fields have argued that the salience of the metropolitan region as a scale of real economic interaction and public intervention has increased significant...

The longue durée of community engagement: New applications of critical theory in planning research:

Abstract: Habermas’ critical theory, and particularly his theory of communicative action, has been applied in the theory and practice of communicative planning. The concept of creating a public sphere in pla...

Being and becoming: Writing children into planning theory:

Abstract: This paper offers a framework to redress the neglect of children in planning theory. Noting that children are viewed as both human beings and human becomings, attention is drawn to the role of plan...

Fear of difference: ‘Space of risk’ and anxiety in violent settings:

Abstract: Yosef Jabareen ties fear to planning in his empirical research conducted in Israel/Palestine, offering scholarly research in planning an important concept that is termed a 'space of risk'. Yet, Jabareen's research fails to outline the key theoretical aspects of fear which underpin his concept. The importance of fear to planning practice lies in helping planning scholars, and in particular those conducting research in cases of violent conflict, to understand the complexity that underpins spaces of anxiety, risk and threat. Analysis in this article therefore attempts to further conceptualise fear in planning theory, building upon and complementing Jabareen's conceptualisation of a 'space of risk'. A fresh area for scholarly research in planning theory emerges that addresses the politics of fear and the impact that fear has on the production of spaces in violent settings. Language: en

Bourdieu and urban politics: Conceptualizing a Bourdieusian relational framework for urban politics research

Abstract: This study purposes to build a generic theoretical framework of urban politics, drawing on Bourdieu’s relational sociology and theory of practice. Through a Bourdieusian relational mode of analysis, the study has conceptualized subfields of urban politics and the possible dimensions of politics among stakeholders in different subfields. In addition, the two conceptual spaces of positions and position-takings in the field of urban politics were hypothetically constructed with a methodological suggestion of Galois lattice analysis. The concepts of capital and habitus have also been related to develop the theoretical framework.

Light Rail: All change please! A post-structural perspective on the global mushrooming of a transport concept:

Abstract: An important contribution of post-structural thinking to planning theory has been the elaboration of fluid and inclusive approaches to planning. Yet, this openness only presents one face of post-st...

The role of the imagined user in planning and design narratives

Abstract: The role of the imagined user in planning and design narratives is explored. It is argued that the imagined user is critical to the plausibility of design and planning narratives by bringing resonance and meaningfulness to them. As such, the imagined user is an important rhetorical tool. This article draws on the author’s experience of the regeneration of Hulme, Manchester, in the United Kingdom, in the late 1990s and shows how tenants were constructed as imagined users by planners and designers in ways that made sense of, and supported, specific planning and design choices.

Plassein: On the fluid mobility of place and urban qualities in planning

Abstract: What could the addition of a variegated spatial approach contribute to planning studies? Planning studies, by and large, rely on Euclidean space as a ‘reality’ to be planned However, Euclidean space may only be one of many spaces enacted in planning practice Thus, this article proposes that most urban planning practice features at least a severe spatial imaginative challenge to our understanding of it First, there is the problem of how to manage at a distance, which is solved by a translation and hence mobilization of place Second, there is the problem of how mobilized place is done ex situ, which suggests that it must become somewhat fluid and be translated into plassein These features are discussed in light of brief empirical illustrations drawn from a study of urban waterfront redevelopment in Swedish cities In concluding the argument, a note is made on the relevance of plassein with a suggestion that fluidity is a requirement for achieving democracy in planning practices

Urban scaling-up and endogenous development promoted by continuous city marketing: A case study of Xuyi County, China

Abstract: The processes of decentralization, marketization, and globalization of socioeconomic reform in the last few decades have promoted the transformation of local governance in China. City marketing has become one of the most typical local governance activities. This article examines the mechanism of city marketing and urban scaling-up in Xuyi County, which is marketed as “Lobster Capital” for its lobster production and festival, from urban awareness, economy, and governance. It argues that the effective combination of city marketing and local resource endowment is a very important tactic for the development of small- and medium-sized cities. The key point in this combination is the branding of local production. Moving from city marketing to city branding means not only a long-term development strategy but also an endogenous development model. Rather than simply focusing on attracting capital, continuous city marketing based on endogenous sources of power, such as political, economic, and cultural power, can e...

Pragmatic rational planning: Comparing Shanghai and Chicago

Abstract: Planners in Shanghai and Chicago inhabit contrasting institutional planning systems. Despite these differences, the professional planners exhibit a shared commitment to basic rational planning doctrine. But most importantly, they practice a kind of pragmatic planning that adapts the principles of sustainability and an inclusive public interest to everyday planning conduct. Professional planners share a kind of practical intelligence acquired through university education that they use to pragmatically pursue shared planning norms within different institutional settings.

Urban planning in generalized non-Euclidean space:

Abstract: The concepts of space and time have dramatically changed with the development of modern sciences, such as geometry, physics, and astronomy. This radical shift also changes every aspect of our persp...

Planning cultures in Europe. Decoding cultural phenomena in urban and regional planning

Abstract: changing the language we use to label things correctly (Fischer, Wolf Peters). This is a good start to what Amartya Sen (2009) would call a “messy social choice process.” The planner has to help reveal what the stakes are in decisions, what their distributive and justice effects are. S/he has to facilitate dialogue, but it can’t be “anything goes.” There is a material reality and there are facts. But the planner needs a sophisticated understanding of these things in order to play the role of helping the powerless and the powerful to see what is on the table. Hopefully, the planner can also use techniques to bring those whose interests lie on the side of injustice, around to cooperating, or at least compromising, in the direction of justice. Or, failing that, to help the victims to tell the powerful that they listened to them but didn’t buy what they had to say, and that if they want political cooperation, they will need to do better, or face conflict. Every area of urban analysis and practice needs to engage with normative or justice issues. This starts with those who study substance and generate the doctrines that run the society – urban and land economists, housing economists, spatial economists, infrastructure economists, public goods economists. The second fundamental theorem of welfare economics – mostly ignored by them – tells us that aggregate welfare outcomes shift in the face of different distributions. It continues to practicing professionals: lawyers, developers, planners, architects. They should be trained to understand issues of justice and distribution and they should be held to a higher standard of literacy about these issues.Citizens’ groups and politicians, too, need to have their knowledge and language upgraded and changed to reflect justice concerns, not in a woolly and romantic way, but with much greater rigor and logic, and planners should be there to help them do this. We have a lot to do as a field.

Searching for the just city: Debates in urban theory and practice

Abstract: The risk, on the other hand, is that of losing sight of the ‘trials of strength’ that may lie behind the way planners and planning researchers perceive and frame ethical issues, and of the fact that planners themselves may well be entangled in related practices as they argue about ‘ethics’. Verma’s ‘systemic ethics’ hegemonized by planners’ practices of ‘prediction’ on the one hand, and Thomas’ ‘moral community’ of academics holding forums of on-going ethical reflexivity among themselves on the other hand, can hardly be satisfying answers. There are other directions shown in the volume – which, however, if taken to the extreme, may go so far as to question the whole endeavour. We are, in fact, reminded that the issues underlying ethical discourses may be, after all, better understood as political. In this respect, it is no point contrasting macro-political structuralism with micropolitical actualism; at issue is rather, as Lo Piccolo himself – quoting Mazza – remarks, the illusion of pursuing ‘a clear moral aim [...] without assuming a partisan stand’ (p.248). In this respect, as Goonewardena puts it, one could just plainly point at the ‘inadequacy of ethics’ (p.57) to address the issues raised by the volume. There is more to it. Behind the ‘ethical turn’ in politics, as Goonewardena reminds us, lies the risk of an ‘eviction of politics by ethics’ (p.64). The ‘institutionalisation’ of ethics – for instance in academic research – may go hand in hand with ‘the concomitant exemption from its scope of the political questions that really matter in social struggles over planning’ (p.58). The planner may happen to be left by this with nothing more than ‘a useful moral shield – to be wielded against any perspective on planning that may reveal the gap between his liberal humanist values and economic-corporate interests’ (pp.58–59): condemned (in the words of Marcuse) ‘ethically to fulfil unethical tasks’ or, at best, to ‘being moral without having to change the world’ (pp.61, 65). As moral dilemmas are ‘nothing more nor less than the products of social relations underlying planning’ (p.64), Goonewardena tells us, ethical debates that do not address these relations are ethically blind. Admittedly, most of the contributions are aware of this. But a point of scepticism remains nonetheless. There is no way of escaping ethical issues in planning research, as this volume argues. But the risk of ethical self-deception is never really far away.

Planning theory in China and Chinese planning theory: Guest editorial introduction

Abstract: This Special Issue aims to present an overview of contemporary planning theory debates in China. In our Introduction, we pose two key questions. Our first question is ‘does “Chinese planning theory” exist?’ Zhang (2008) suggests that ‘if planning theory is interpreted as the values, principles and working procedures which conduct planning practices, then Chinese planners already have their own set of theory’ (p. 18). However, the current composition of ‘Chinese’ planning theory is more heterogeneous than this. In 2004, Hok-Lin Leung initiated the ‘Qiushi Theory Forum’, a paper competition which encouraged the exploration of Chinese planning theory from three origins or perspectives, namely, inspirations from traditional Chinese philosophy, lessons from Western positivist philosophy and practices of the socialist market economy. While this, of course, provides excellent guidance on how to explore planning theory with so-called Chinese characteristics, it, at the same time, exemplifies the hybrid nature of current Chinese planning theory. The year 1978, when China initiated its policy of reform and opening-up, marks a distinct turning point in the history of urban planning in modern China. The current urban planning system, with its values, ethics, approaches, laws, regulations and so on, has gradually formed since that time. Evolution of the intellectual enquiry of Chinese urban planning since 1978 may be divided into three stages. We must admit, however, that the evolutionary process is not linear, clear, legible or sequential. Rather, it has taken a course characterized by chaos, ambiguity, conflict and complexity. For this reason, in this Introduction, we do not make any explicit division between stages, which would, in fact, be impossible, as they overlap with each other both chronologically and in terms of content. We do, however, suggest a distinction between ‘planning theory in China’ – theory based on imported ideas – and ‘Chinese planning theory’ – theory developed from Chinese ideas. An early stage of planning theory development since 1978 witnessed a direct borrowing from Western thought, theories and approaches, with an emphasis on theoretical exploration of the ‘fundamental theoretical issues’. Such issues included the duality of urban planning (e.g. centralization and decentralization, control and development), the foundation of planning theory (science or rationality?), ways of thinking of urban planning (dialectic, systematic, comparative, advanced, dynamic, etc.) and so on. From 1978, all kinds of ‘Western’ planning thoughts and theories poured into China and were eagerly engaged as important enlightenments for developing ‘Chinese’ planning theory – what we term ‘planning theory in China’ – finally forming the second origin of planning theory debate mentioned above. Cheng’s paper in this issue exemplifies this trend. 493983 PLT12410.1177/1473095213493983Planning TheoryEditorial 2013

The language of planning: Cancerous development:

Abstract: Are ubiquitous “Cancerous Development” metaphors legitimate and appropriate? Initially a terminal diagnosis requiring radical treatment, many cancers are now chronic diseases managed by pharmaceutical intervention. Similarly, the cancer of urban decay engendered extreme surgical remedy, namely, Urban Renewal. Now planners must convert sprawl—metastasizing across green fields, wasting older urban fabric—into sustainable forms healing diseased ecosystems. The productive employment of metaphors directs thinking to focus on that which is highlighted. This exclusionary process inhibits holistic, systems thinking. When we recognize the constraints of this metaphor, we can operationalize a boundary-crossing, future-oriented process. This article begins to unpack the layers embedded in Cancerous Development to recognize inherent limitations and value.