Collaborative Planning in an Uncollaborative World

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to expose the concept of collaborative planning to the reality of planning, thereby assessing its efficacy for informing and explaining what planners `really' do and can do. In this systematic appraisal, we begin by disaggregating collaborative planning into four elements that can enlighten such conceptual frameworks: ontology, epistemology, ideology and methodology. These four lenses help delimit and clarify the object of our examination and provide transparent criteria that guide our examination of collaborative planning's strengths and weaknesses. The second part of this article comprises an empirical investigation of planning processes in Northern Ireland, ranging from region-wide to local and from statutory to visionary. Planning efforts in this province make suitable test cases because special care has been invested in participatory deliberation processes to compensate for the democratic deficits in its mainstream political system. Such efforts have sought to ensure a maximally inclusive planning process. And indeed, the consultation process leading to the Regional Development Strategy, for example, has earned plaudits from leading exponents of collaborative planning. The final analysis provides a systematic gauge of collaborative planning in light of our empirical evidence, deploying the four conceptual dimensions introduced in the first part. This exposes a range of problems not only with the concept itself but also regarding its affinity with the uncollaborative world within which it has to operate. The former shed light on those aspects where collaborative planning as a conceptual tool for practitioners needs to be renovated, while the latter highlight inconsistencies in a political framework that struggles to accommodate both global competitiveness and local democratic collaboration.

Neither Revolution, Nor Resignation: (Re)Democratizing Contemporary Planning Praxis: A Commentary on Allmendinger and Haughton's “Spatial Planning, Devolution, and New Planning Spaces”

“…Brand & Gaffikin, 2007;Oosterlynck & Swyngedouw, 2010;Metzger, 2011). Possibly, it could also entail a renewed interest in a rediscovery and reworking of advocacy planning theory to put it more in tune with the demands of contemporary society and the present challenge of confronting neo-corporatist governance structures in which spatial planning is reduced to little else than pseudo-democratic window-dressing of dominant corporatist interests.…”

Scotland's Approach to Participatory Planning: Characterising the Charrette

“…Fourth, Brand and Gaffikin (2007) observe in their review of participatory planning processes, at various governance levels, future visioning exercises generally create more 'fanciful ideas that are not rooted in any real options for practical delivery' compared with those tied to legislative bases. Other participatory spaces were highly formalised, and were created from legislative or legal proceedings (Aitken, 2010;Cunningham et al, 2008).…”

“…These approaches challenged modernist thinking that valued expert epistemologies, and instead believed knowledge to be something coconstructed; not a collation of ideas but rather that communication has the power to build shared meanings through reasoning and deliberative exchange (Brand et al, 2007;Innes et al, 1999). Equally, the charrette's consensus-seeking nature depends on feedback loops and an iterative dialogue to not only acknowledge perspectives but ultimately create new shared meaning, leading to a widely endorsed strategy (Lennertz, 2003;Sanoff, 2000).…”

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“…Hitherto, the collaborative approach simply assumes a unified, coherent voice but few scholars (Albrechts & Denayer, 2001;Brand & Gaffikin, 2007;Healey, 2006) had noted that this is seldom realised in practice. The main difficulties come from the stringent institutional conditions where power remains with the executive politicians.…”