On planning, planning theories, and practices: A critical reflection

The futility of defining planning suggests that there is no planning as a recognizable practice. Sociology of knowledge definitions imply three kinds of planning practices: (1) Generic “planning”—what people do when they are planning; (2) Knowledge-centered “something” (e.g., spatial) planning; and (3) Real planning practiced in specific contexts, from metro-regional planning for Jakarta to transportation planning for the Trans-Europe Network, and enacted in general contexts, for example, informal- or Southern planning. Planning theories are linked to different practices: generic “planning” theories and “something” (e.g., regional, community, environmental, or Southern) planning theories. Selected topics illustrate the “planning” theory discourse and spatial planning theories are briefly reviewed. Three generations of planning practice studies are reviewed: the first, a-theoretical; the second, the “practice movement,” who studied practice for their own theorizing; and the third, informed by practice theories. Five books about planning show how their planning theorist authors understand planning practice. While recognizing planning as diverse practices, they hardly apply “planning” theory to planning practices. “Planning” theories are divorced from enacted planning practices, “something” (e.g., spatial) planning theories include constructive adaptations of “planning” theories and paradigms, but knowledge about real planning practices is limited. Implications from these conclusions are drawn for planning theory, education, and practices.

A new framework for imagining the climate commons? The case of a Green New Deal in the US

The Green New Deal is arguably the most ambitious climate policy platform to gain legislative traction in the U.S. to date. A pioneering policy framework in its holistic consideration of climate change, social justice, and economic reform, the resolution would have vast implications for commons governance regimes if enacted. Planning theorists have long debated how to manage the global commons, and this paper adds to that conversation by assessing the Green New Deal’s theoretical underpinnings. Our analysis suggests that in practice, “top-down” Hardinian and “bottom-up” post-Hardinian commons theory coexist, as market and state-based interventions act as layers in the nested enterprises necessary for the formation of a polycentric approach to climate governance. This finding presents a novel theoretical perspective for studying the commons, specifically as we consider the influence of theory on developing policy imagination.

The framing of power in communicative planning theory: Analysing the work of John Forester, Patsy Healey and Judith Innes

In this paper, I analyse the framing of power in streams of communicative planning influenced by American pragmatism, sociological institutionalism and alternative dispute resolution. While scholars have heavily debated Habermasian communicative planning theory, the broader conception of power across these linked, but distinct, streams of the theory remains to be explicated. Through analysis of 40 years’ of publishing by John Forester, Patsy Healey and Judith Innes – widely cited representatives of these three streams – a broader account of the treatment of power in communicative planning is established. The analysis shows that the streams of communicative planning provide distinct approaches to power with a joint focus on criticising conflictual illegitimate power over and developing ideas for how consensual power with might arise through agency in the micro practices of planning. Even if communicative planning thereby offers more for reflections on power than critics have acknowledged, the theory still leaves conceptual voids regarding constitutive power to and legitimate power over.

Do planning concepts matter? A Lacanian interpretation of the urban village in a British context

Numerous novel planning concepts have been developed in pursuit of better urban environments, while many are notoriously difficult to define. Lacan’s master signifier is widely employed to criticise these vague, fashionable concepts but lacks a specific examination tool. To fill this gap, this article develops an analytical framework based on Lacanian discourse analysis (LDA) to decipher the complex social relations in the process of applying new concepts to planning policymaking and practice. A comprehensive review of the UK urban village movement is used to demonstrate how this framework provides a deeper analysis, arguing that urban villages are understood differently depending on individual social positions, which, to some extent, determine their actions towards planning practice.

Provincializing planning: Reflections on spatial ordering and imperial power

This paper takes the development of the British town planning movement as its starting point to explore a series of challenges for the discipline’s historiography. The emergence of the professional field involved the circulation of ideas beyond the metropolitan core to colonial territories with spatial interventions that were deemed both physically and morally beneficial. The paper explores the role played by the discipline in developing spatialized forms of ethnic and racial differentiation within colonial territories. I conclude that British planning has largely ignored its own historiography, including the colonial legacy, enabling the discipline to assert its role as a socially progressive profession.