Conflict is immanent to planning, and perhaps particularly to practice within a pluralistic, multicultural society. Chantal Mouffe argues that there is a political need for an ‘agonistic pluralism’ as a democratic response to a context of diversity and conflict. Perhaps the key complex of problems in contemporary planning is how to work with ‘strife’. Proceeding from the perspective of a Danish urban regeneration project named ‘kvarterløft’, this article will discuss planning experiences with conflicts, empowerment, consensussteering, and governance that point to the need to make ‘strife’ – the ongoing dispute about words, meaning, discourses, visions or ‘the good life’ – central to planning processes.
IntroductionThe theory of communicative planning has, over the last decade, established itself as one of the most influential critics of contemporary planning (Hajer, 1997). This in turn has forcefully emphasised how language and modes of communication play a key role in shaping planning practice, public dialogues, policymaking, and processes of collaboration . The critique of forms of communication within public planning and planning discourses has been emphasised as a central point of departure, in order to discuss innovative steps to improve public planning as a democratic process (Douglas and Friedman
Michel Foucault was concerned with the role of urban planning in `bio-politics'. Only a few authors, however, emphasize the crucial role of the dispositif in his thinking about space and discipline. This article emphasizes the dispositif ensemble as exemplary to understanding urban planning and to one of Foucault's main themes: the constitution of disciplinarian forces through relations of power, knowledge and space. The article explores the dispositif both categorically and in its common use, and indicates Foucault's understanding of dispositif by looking at his writings on `the healthy city' and the Panopticon.
Introduction Urban design is about form and about governing the social use of city space to make it disciplined, repetitious, tamed. When urbanism is about the spatialisation of life, we must consider, as Henri Lefevbre suggests, that``every plan is a plan for an everyday life'' (Franze¨n and Sandstedt, 1982, page 6). There is certainly a moral in urban design (Joyce, 2003) and urban planning must be seen as being about`orchestrating' life (Sennett, 1991). Urbanism is intentional but is no longer understood as deterministic, and for a critical understanding of urbanism it is important to stress, as Michel Foucault does, that``the architect has no power over me'' (1986, page 247). Predefined space indeed is often subject to different kinds of counteractions such as graffiti and what might be called`reclaiming the space' by alternative use. Cities, of course, see themselves in a much more positive light. The lively and intense, exciting and experimental, spontaneous city (`everything can happen') is now highly praised by politicians, and no city wishing to be part of an interurban competition dares to ignore planning for this symbolic force. All cities believe that, if they have the best sociocultural amenities and creative milieus, architectural heritage, and cultural events, they have a reliable strategy to get the maximum in return, in consumption and image turnover. It seems as if these cities, in particular, focus on mega-events as an efficient short-term way to gain fast money. This common outlook is seen as part of the growing importance of the sign economy (Lash and Urry, 1994) that now is epitomised as the need to attract a creative class of innovative minds living as hardworking cosmopolitans. This is why
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