Pragmatic Spatial Planning

Instead of seeking theory to justify practical professional judgments this book describes how professionals can and should use theory to guide these judgments. Professional spatial planning in the US, and globally, continues to suffer from a weak conceptual grasp of its own practice. Practitioners routinely recognize the value and wisdom of practical judgment finely attuned to context, nuance and complexity; but later offer banal testimony and glib stories of 'just so' best-practice discrediting the ambiguity of their own experience. The chapters in this book provide a vocabulary tailored to the conventions of practical judgment, challenging students and practitioners to treat professional expertise as work in progress rather than 'best' practice. Instead of seeking theory to justify practical professional judgments, Hoch describes how professionals can and should use theory to guide these judgments. The pragmatist plan helps cope with complexity rather than control it, making it invaluable in the anyone's pursuit of a planning career. This book will appeal to a wide cross section of students and scholars, especially those working in urban planning, public policy, and government. t invaluable in the anyone's pursuit of a planning career. This book will appeal to a wide cross section of students and scholars, especially those working in urban planning, public policy, and government.

Instead of seeking theory to justify practical professional judgments this book describes how professionals can and should use theory to guide these judgments. Professional spatial planning in the US, and globally, continues to suffer from a weak conceptual grasp of its own practice. Practitioners routinely recognize the value and wisdom of practical judgment finely attuned to context, nuance and complexity; but later offer banal testimony and glib stories of ‘just so’ best-practice discrediting the ambiguity of their own experience. The chapters in this book provide a vocabulary tailored to the conventions of practical judgment, challenging students and practitioners to treat professional expertise as work in progress rather than ‘best’ practice. Instead of seeking theory to justify practical professional judgments, Hoch describes how professionals can and should use theory to guide these judgments. The pragmatist plan helps cope with complexity rather than control it, making it invaluable in the anyone’s pursuit of a planning career. This book will appeal to a wide cross section of students and scholars, especially those working in urban planning, public policy, and government.

Urban planning is a complex field of knowledge and practice. Through the decades, theoretical debate has formed an eclectic set of possible perspectives, without finding, in our opinion, a coherent paradigmatic framework which can adequately guide the interpretation and action in urban planning. The hypothesis of this book is that the attempts of founding an autonomous planning theory are inadequate if they do not explore two interconnected fields: architecture and public policies.The book critically reviews a selected set of current practices and theoretical founding works of modern and contemporary urban planning by highlighting the continuous search for the epistemic legitimization of a large variety of experiences. The distinctive contribution of this book is a documented critique to the eclecticism and abstraction of the main international trends in current planning theory. The dialogic relationship with the traditions of architecture and public policy is proposed here in order to critically review planning theory and practice. The outcome is the proposal of a paradigmatic framework that, in the authors’ opinion, can adequately guide reflections and actions. A pragmatic and interpretative heritage and the project-orientated approach are the basis of this new spatial planning paradigm.

The Routledge Handbook of Planning Theory presents key contemporary themes in planning theory through the views of some of the most innovative thinkers in planning. They introduce and explore their own specialized areas of planning theory, to conceptualize their contemporary positions and to speculate how these positions are likely to evolve and change as new challenges emerge. In a changing and often unpredictable globalized world, planning theory is core to understanding how planning and its practices both function and evolve. As illustrated in this book, planning and its many roles have changed profoundly over the recent decades; so have the theories, both critical and explanatory, about its practices, values and knowledges. In the context of these changes, and to contribute to the development of planning research, this handbook identifies and introduces the cutting edge, and the new emerging trajectories, of contemporary planning theory. The aim is to provide the reader with key insights into not just contemporary planning thought, but potential future directions of both planning theory and planning as a whole. This book is written for an international readership, and includes planning theories that address, or have emerged from, both the global North and parts of the world beyond.

The culmination of a critical study of neo-pragmatism philosophy and its application to planning, Dialogical Planning in a Fragmented Society begins with philosopher Stanley M. Stein's examination of neo-pragmatism and his thoughts on how it can be useful in the field of environmental design-specifically, how it can be applied to planning procedures and problems. Neo-pragmatism is an approach that has been, in the past, best expressed or implied in the writing of Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty, and, in particular, Donald Davidson, John Rawls, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Thomas L. Harper furthers this tradition by providing the context for this theoretical application from his academic background in economics and management as well as his practical experience with political decision-making processes, community planning, and economic development. The result is a fresh synthesis of ideas-a new approach to thinking about planning theory and its implications for, and relationship with, practice. Philosopher Michael Walzer has asserted that "philosophy reflects and articulates the political culture of its time, and politics presents and enacts the arguments of philosophy." Similarly, the authors view planning theory as planning reflected upon in tranquility, away from the tumult of battle, and planning practice as planning theory acted out in the confusion of the trenches. Each changes the other in a dynamic way, and the authors demonstrate the intimate and inextricable link between them.

Markets, Politics and the Environment answers three groups of question: What is planning?’ and as part of this ‘What are its key features as a style of social practice and action?’ and ‘How does planning as a style of social practice relate to social and economic change? How, as part of the justification for planning, might claims of valid technical knowledge be constructed? What is meant by ‘rational’? What is the contribution of pragmatism as a supplement or replacement to rationalism? How might rationality and pragmatism be adapted to postmodernism and the requirements of diversity? Finally, how may concepts of planning be reoriented towards sustainable development as a collective duty? How might sustainable development be reworked in relation to planning as a means of managing and stimulating change? Each group of question is discussed in a separate chapter and is associated with different theories, debates and examples of practice. Markets, Politics and the Environment concludes that the full implications of sustainable development and climate change point in the direction of a different type of state- a green state whose future functioning can draw on planning theory but at present can only be conceived as a sketchy outline.

This Companion provides a stimulating and comprehensive overview of planning theory. It brings together authoritative chapters on key issues from a team of respected experts from within and beyond what is narrowly defined as 'planning'. The authors draw on different disciplinary traditions and theoretical frames to explore different ways of conceptualizing spatial planning. The book is divided into four main sections: understandings of place; understandings of governance; imagining futures; and spatial planning and governance in complexity.

Planning theory is currently in a confused state as a consequence of a number of changes over the last ten years in planning practice and social and economic theory. Even prior to these events, planning theory was an uncertain discipline, reflecting planning's precarious position between and resting upon a range of professional subject areas and philosophical roots. Planning Futures is an attempt to pin down the constantly evolving landscape of planning theory and to chart a path through this fast changing field. Planning Futures is an up-to-date reader on planning theory, but adds something more to the subject area than a mere textbook. The contributors have attempted to bridge theory and practice while putting forward new theoretical ideas. By drawing upon examples from planning practice and case study scenarios, the authors ensure that the work discusses planning theory within the context of present planning practice. Case studies are drawn from an international arena, from the UK, Europe, South Africa and Australia.