Ordinary citizens and the political cultures of planning: In search of the subject of a new democratic ethos

Inch, Andy

doi:10.1177/1473095214536172

Cited by 73 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…As has been recently noted by Inch (2015), the generally unrecognized private "costs of political participation" 7 are endemic to public mobilizations and can play "a critical role in people's capacity to sustain engagement" as well as "people's subsequent disposition towards political activity", and yet in the literature tend to be eclipsed by all the 'action' surrounding public controversies (p. 417). Further, the locals' ostensive success was not only carried on the back of their own resources, experiences and actions, but also came about through the activation of pre-existing institutions arrived at from previous democratization processes and struggles, including the electoralrepresentative system and the free media.…”

Section: The Prerequisites To Public Mobilizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Placing the Action in Context: Contrasting Public-centered and Institutional Understandings of Democratic Planning Politics

Zakhour

Metzger

2018

Planning Theory & Practice

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In recent years public-centered understandings of democracy have become important inspirations for scholarly debates concerning the democratization of planning processes. In this article we caution that an exclusively publiccentered understanding of planning democracy risks obscuring how public engagements in planning processes always unfold within the context of longer trajectories and broader landscapes of the evolution of democracy. In the article we counterpoint a particularly sophisticated public-centered conceptualization of democracy developed by philosopher Noortje Marres to the more historical-institutional understanding of Pierre Rosanvallon. By applying both analytical frameworks to an empirical case, we show that although Marres' public-centered approach can productively advance understandings of key dynamics in how public action in planning processes unfolds, its narrow focus on the 'heat of the action' in such episodes produces analytical blind spots with regards to the wider prerequisites and ramifications of these events. Therefore we conclude by suggesting that public-centered analyses of democracy in planning processes are at their most helpful when complemented with a more institutional understanding of the contexts within which public engagements in planning unfold. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Section: The Prerequisites To Public Mobilizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Placing the Action in Context: Contrasting Public-centered and Institutional Understandings of Democratic Planning Politics

Zakhour

Metzger

2018

Planning Theory & Practice

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“…Commitment to this can be seen in the Scottish Planning Policy and supporting guidance (Scottish Government, 2010b, 2014b. However, others remain critical suggesting it is these sorts of institutional structures that provides evidence of national governments protecting pro-growth interests (Phil Allmendinger et al, 2012;Inch, 2014) . Set within this debate, and considering the non-statutory plus preferred frontloaded nature of engagement, four categories were drawn from content analysis to provide insight into the charrette's intended impact on local development.…”

Section: Planning Rolementioning

confidence: 99%

Scotland's Approach to Participatory Planning: Characterising the Charrette

Kennedy¹

2017

ArchNet-IJAR

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INTRODUCTIONInvolving multiple stakeholders in spatial and community planning has become a salient concept with decades of legislative support in the United Kingdom (Jenkins, 2002). Many public services now lay claim to having been longstanding supporters of this participatory turn (Bishop, 2015); of which, planning is one. The 1969 Skeffington Report is often evidenced as one of the earliest national level documents to consider public involvement strategies (Baker et al., 2007;Damer et al., 1971). Since then, a plethora of techniques have come to the fore (Sanoff, 2000), and the Scottish Government in recent years endorsed the 'charrette' as an effective participatory design tool to generate strategies for community development (Scottish Government, 2010a, 2011b. The term 'charrette' derives from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, in which architecture students would hurriedly work until the 'little cart' came to collect their drawings for the examiners. The term has since been used to connote a sense of urgency, which frames the format of a typical charrette as it is approached today (Walters, 2007). The tool is a participatory 'model' yet malleable enough in the sense that its process constitutes a series of other participatory mechanisms, which can be matched to suit different scenarios (Sanoff, 2000).The model that was introduced to Scotland in 2010 was developed by New Urbanism's cofounder, Andres Duany as part of Duany Plater-Zyberk (DPZ) & Company. The charrette is often their go-to approach to community participation (Grant, 2006), which typically lasts between four to seven days and involves a multidisciplinary team establishing a temporary design studio within the study area. The team will work collaboratively with community members and key stakeholders in a series of interactive workshops, often producing a masterplan that has been developed through a series of short feedback loops (Sanoff, 2000;Walters, 2007). The compressed format has been lauded over other communicative approaches that may last weeks or months. Proponents argue these feedback loops condense the time between input and design to just hours, so not only do participants exercise more influence they can watch a transparent process unfold, thus fostering greater trust (Lennertz, 2003;Walters, 2007). Benefits of this approach therefore do not centre only on the physical; there is a commitment to social goals embedded in New Urbanism (Talen, 2002), and communicative processes more generally.Jurgen Habermas, who many communicative theorists are indebted to, also advocated collaborative discursive approaches to challenge the shortcomings observed in representative democracy (Bond, 2011). 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 na...

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“…In divided cities, for example, planning scholars look to agonism in tandem with other strategies as a way forward for transitioning city actors to living with difference (Bollens, 2012, p. 239;Gaffikin & Morrisey, 2011). Other scholars argue that agonism and communicative practices can co-exist as planning processes evolve (Fougère & Bond, 2016;Inch, 2015;Legacy, 2016).…”

Section: Opportunitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plowshares or Swords? Fostering Common Ground Across Difference

Frick

2017

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With political polarization challenging forward progress on public policy and planning processes, it is critical to examine possibilities for finding common ground across difference between community participants. In my research on contentious planning processes in the United States, I found four areas of convergence between participants over transportation policy and process related to public process and substantive matters. These convergences warrant planners' attention because they united stakeholders coming from different vantage points.

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Ordinary citizens and the political cultures of planning: In search of the subject of a new democratic ethos

Cited by 73 publications

References 40 publications

Placing the Action in Context: Contrasting Public-centered and Institutional Understandings of Democratic Planning Politics

Placing the Action in Context: Contrasting Public-centered and Institutional Understandings of Democratic Planning Politics

Scotland's Approach to Participatory Planning: Characterising the Charrette

Plowshares or Swords? Fostering Common Ground Across Difference

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