What price planning? Reimagining planning as “market maker”

Planning has been widely vilified for the role it plays in disrupting the development process, hindering economic growth and creating the conditions for undersupply in housing markets, characterised by unaffordability. In this paper we hope to show that the analyses that support this view of planning are incomplete because of the theoretical limitations of the neoclassical tradition from which they emerge. By way of alternative we posit an account of planning that draws upon game theory and behavioural economics to explore those aspects of the activity that serve to animate the development process. This interpretation of planning as a “market maker” is explored through empirical case study research from three continental European contexts where planning is charged with playing an economically active role to control liquidity.     

SMITHGROUP architecture engineering interiors planning

SmithGroup：形式源于目的 在英语中，smith是“匠心”的意思。此意义尤其适合美国设计公司SmithGroup，它多年来承接了大量技术与功能要求十分复杂的项目，并设计出了富有意义的建筑。就像手工艺人名字的意义样，SmithGroup在工作中充分表现出设计的技巧与意图，使它的建筑为人们提供种场所感与归属感。     

Environmental planning in Norway — innovations

Norway's unique rural history and postwar experience with national planning have combined to produce a set of environmental policy innovations of interest to planners elsewhere. Norway emphasizes a shoreline and mountain planning process with explicit consideration of the distribution of development benefits to landowners and regional planning that integrates pollution control and land‐use planning.     

‘Resilience thinking’ in transport planning

Resilience has been discussed in ecology for over 40 years. While some aspects of resilience have received attention in transport planning, there is no unified definition of resilience in transportation. To define resilience in transportation, I trace back to the origin of resilience in ecology with a view of revealing the essence of resilience thinking and its relevance to transport planning. Based on the fundamental concepts of engineering resilience and ecological resilience, I define ‘comprehensive resilience in transportation’ as the quality that leads to recovery, reliability and sustainability. Observing that previous work in resilience analysis in transportation has focussed on addressing engineering resilience rather than ecological resilience, I conclude that transformability has been generally overlooked and needs to be incorporated in the analysis framework for comprehensive resilience in transportation.     

Postsecular planning? The idea of municipal spirituality

In the contemporary political context, religion is rarely out of the news, usually postulated as a regressive force, battling against modern liberal Western values. However, in everyday life, and specifically with regard to place value, the situation is more complex. This paper addresses the challenge this context and the attendant notion of postsecularism bring to planning practice. It argues that religious and spiritual values can be rearticulated as concepts which add a substantive positive dimension to planning and its conceptualisation and constructions of place. This is done by developing the notion of municipal spirituality, which draws on the theological conceptions of transcendence and the common good to redefine the value of places whose worth cannot easily be made in instrumental terms. In so doing, it challenges the current antagonistic opposition of religious and liberal democratic values, repositioning religious and spiritual concepts in an inclusive way. The idea of municipal spirituality illustrates how planning could have a role in defending and promoting such places. Further, it demonstrates the importance of engaging in agonistic rather than antagonistic debate, rearticulating the criteria on which places can be valued by planning practice.     

Co-production and collaboration in planning – The difference

Processes of state-society engagement around urban development issues, termed co-production, have been documented in both the Public Administration and Development Studies fields, but until recently have not attracted much attention in planning. Yet, particularly more recent approaches and cases of co-production from global South contexts do offer the possibility of adding to planning debates in this area, by expanding the context which shapes planning ideas beyond the global North, and perhaps shifting planning theory in the direction of becoming truly international. The paper identifies the important differences which underlie various strands of thinking about co-production, and also between these and planning assumptions in the area of collaborative and communicative planning.     

City planning exhibitions in Germany, 1910–2010

This paper promotes the extraordinary events scheduled to be held in 2010 under the auspices of ‘RUHR 2010 Kulturhauptstadt Europas’ (‘The Ruhr: cultural capital of Europe’). The award of the accolade, ‘capital of culture’, to the Ruhr is unique, as a whole region has never before been honoured in this way. The Ruhr region contains 53 cities and towns, and 2500 events will take place in conjunction with this celebration, collectively named: ‘Wandel durch Kultur – Kultur durch Wandel’ (‘Change through Culture, Culture through Change’). These represent the climax of a series of cultural events held across the region from 2000 in support of efforts to regenerate the Ruhr, and they amount to a celebration of how planning, people and place have been addressed together in a new way. Full information about these events can be found at www.ruhr2010.de/veranstaltungen     

Brazilian city planners,American city planning? New perspectives on urban planning in Rio de Janeiro, 1930–1945

This article analyses the connections between the ideas and principles of American city planning from 1920 with those articulated by Brazilian city planners in the 1930s and implemented by the administration of the City of Rio de Janeiro, then the capital of Brazil, notably during the period of the Estado Novo [The New State] from 1937 to 1945. In a period characterized by the centralization of political power and the concentration of decision‐making in the hands of the president and the state, the City of Rio de Janeiro undertook a series of restructuring projects which utilized new forms of administration and organization. This article explores the links between urban planning in Brazil and the USA that were a notable feature of these projects. It examines particular requirements set down in city plans, city planning commissions and funding for urban activities, such as ‘excess condemnation’, by focusing upon articles and books written by four Brazilian engineers and proposals put forward by the American City Planning Institute, detailed in the proceedings of the National Conference on City Planning, in the periodical, City Planning and works by affiliated authors.     

Bringing planning back into the picture – How can supply chain planning aid in dealing with supply chain-related problems in construction?

There are several supply chain-related problems facing the construction industry, such as poor construction site logistics, lack of communication and trust. These problems can jeopardize construction projects through delays and cost overruns. Supply chain planning, a part of supply chain management (SCM), can be used as a tool to deal with these problems. The purpose of this paper is to study how linkages between common supply chain-related problems in construction can be illustrated and to demonstrate how they could be resolved through supply chain planning. Firstly, we identify how the linkages between common problems can be illustrated, and secondly the role of supply chain planning in resolving these problems. A conceptual model is developed that was verified using three cases with Swedish gypsum and kitchen supply chains. The model is shown to be useful in illustrating how supply chain problems occurring at executional level on-site are related to problems originating in lack of planning at company/pre-construction level. The study thus demonstrates how supply chain planning can aid in resolving supply chain problems. The paper contributes by bringing planning back into the picture and by showing how supply chain planning can help to adopt SCM in construction.     

The hidden side of cities—towards three-dimensional land planning

Vertical growth of cities into the ground is still to be developed, in particular for transport, storage of goods and geothermal exploitation. This article presents a synthesis of the potential resources offered by the urban underground and some experiences derived from different cities around the world. Analysis of these experiences shows that these resources have often been developed without any real long-term planning. This synthesis proposes a more complete approach to underground resource management, insisting on the compatibilities or incompatibilities of a parallel exploitation of certain resources due to their interactions (e.g. geothermics—groundwater). Since the impact of most underground work goes far beyond the space occupied, it must be conceived on the city scale. To attain this objective, the authors propose the notion of three-dimensional land planning for urban territory. This new concept goes much farther than the GIS applications used for the “cadastre” in the first metres of underground. A new way of conceiving underground management for the long-term development of the city is recommended.Résumé: La croissance verticale des villes vers le bas reste à développer, notamment pour le transport, le stockage de biens et l’exploitation géothermique. Le présent article fait une synthèse du potentiel de ressources que représente le sous-sol urbain et des expériences faites dans différentes métropoles. L’analyse de ces expériences montre que ces ressources ont souvent été mises en valeur de manière non systématique et non planifiée à long terme. Cette synthèse développe une approche plus complète de la gestion des ressources du sous-sol, en insistant sur les compatibilités ou non compatibilités de l’exploitation en parallèle de certaines ressources. en raison de leurs interactions (par exemple géothermie-eaux souterraines). En raison de l’impact des ouvrages bien au-delà de l’espace qu’ils occupent, ils doivent être conçus à l’échelle de la cité. Les auteurs présentent à cette fin le concept d’aménagement tridimensionnel du territoire urbain. Cette notion nouvelle va bien au-delà des systèmes d’information géographiques qui traitent du cadastre souterrain dans les premiers mètres du sous-sol. Une nouvelle manière de gérer le sous-sol est recommandée pour le développement à long terme de la ville.     

Conceptions of justice in the planning of the new urban landscape – Recent changes in the comprehensive planning discourse in Malmö, Sweden

The Swedish Planning and Building Act (PBL) from 1987, revised in 2011, stipulates that an important task of comprehensive planning is to secure both substantive and procedural justice. However, because of the municipal planning monopoly, the individual municipalities are free to decide how these goals can best be achieved. This article focuses on the ways interpretations of justice have changed over a 10-year period in one selected municipality, Malmö in southern Sweden. Analyses of the comprehensive planning discourse in this municipality reveal that when it comes to substantive justice, discussions of structural inequality and segregation have gradually been replaced by discussions of social cohesion, while at the same time discussions of procedural justice and the need to create public spheres in which underprivileged groups are allowed a voice, have been replaced by discussions of open public spaces, allowing different groups to see each other. Though the issue of social justice seems to be downplayed in the urban planning discourse for the time being, counterforces within city administration are questioning the prevailing line of development.     

Towards democratic planning? Negotiating change in St Kilda,Melbourne

Are planners ‘dealmakers’ caught up in selling urban areas to the highest bidder, or are they negotiators concerned to maintain democratic planning and social diversity in areas that are subject to gentrification? This paper explores this question through the example of two sites in St Kilda, Melbourne. The sites highlight planning strategies used at the local government level by planners who are attempting to negotiate change and to maintain the social and cultural diversity of the area. The first example illustrates the processes of ‘democratic planning’ where planners question what is ‘legitimate’ and draw on discourses of local need. The second example illustrates the problems of co‐opting local culture within a process of democratic planning that is based on community consultation. Together, the examples illustrate the need for tighter local government policies, including stricter policies about the use of developer contributions, and a closer and more critical focus on the term ‘community consultation’, if democratic planning is to be achieved.     

Urban planning practices for bikeable cities – the case of Copenhagen

Cities are increasingly looking to cycling as a means to promote sustainability, liveability, and public health. Denmark is one of the European countries where cycling has remained significant – even in the motor age, and national strategies now aim to support and further increase cycling. The article presents the state of cycling in Denmark and Copenhagen – as well as the cycling promoting efforts of the city of Copenhagen which is one of the forerunners in the field.     

Knowledge-based land use and transport planning? Consistency and gap between “state-of-the-art” knowledge and knowledge claims in planning documents in three Scandinavian city regions

The central concern of this paper is the relationship between research-driven “state-of-the-art” knowledge, and knowledge claims made in practice, in planning for sustainability. The paper approaches this topic from a critical realist perspective, which is used to provide criteria for positing “state-of-the-art” knowledge validity, and assessing the quality of situated knowledge claims in planning practice. In this way the paper contributes to debates about an ontological turn in planning knowledge. By reviewing key planning documents in three Scandinavian city regions, the paper shows that the knowledge claims about travel behavioral impacts of proposed land use and transport infrastructure presented in the documents are, to varying extents, in accordance with “state-of-the-art” academic knowledge on these topics. Some long-standing “planning myths” are encountered in the investigated planning documents. In one of the cities, residential and workplace location close to suburban public transport stops is highlighted as a traffic-reducing measure, rather than proximity to inner-city concentrations of jobs and other facilities, and density is discussed at a neighborhood scale rather than at a city scale. In all three cities, planning documents depict road capacity increases as having no traffic-generating effect. These latter claims are used in support of more decentralized land-use patterns and considerable road development. Since the likelihood of achieving sustainability goals relies heavily on whether the measures chosen are productive or counter-productive, knowledge obviously matters. A stronger focus on how well suited proposed strategies for spatial development are to produce their purported outcomes should be welcomed in planning research and practice.