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Open Access
18th Congress of the AESOP, Grenoble, France, 2004 ‘Metropolitan Planning and Environmental Issues’
(Routledge : Taylor and Francis Group, 2005) Silva, Elisabete A.
Grenoble-France was this year’s venue for the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) 18th congress entitled ‘Metropolitan Planning and Environmental Issues’. A successful congress ensued (it contained 390 authors and 195 papers) taking place in a sustainable and charming city at the University Pierre Mende`s France, Grenoble and at the Institute of Urbanism in Grenoble. The local organizing committee Jan Tucny, Alain Motte, Gilles Novarina, Marc Bonneville, Yves Chalas, Jack Fontanel, and Bernard Pouyet; as well as the conference coordinator, the very promising young academic Ste´phane Sadoux, are to be congratulated for this year’s AESOP congress. The congress opening ceremony began with the welcome address by professors: Prof. Claude Courlet (President University Pierre Mende`s France), and Prof. Alessandro Balducci (President Association of European Planning Schools) Politecnico di Milano The keynote were addressed by: Prof. Gabriel Dupuy, University Paris Sorbonne with a presentation entitled ‘Cities and Planning in an era of Information Technologies and Communication’; Prof. Bernardo Secchi, Unversity of Venice presenting ‘The contemporary European city and its project’; Prof. Sir Peter Hall, University College of London with a presentation entitled ‘Policentropolis: in search of the European Holy Grail’; and Jean-Paul Blais, PUCA, Ministe`re de l’Equipment with a speech on ‘Current research issues in strategic and metropolitan planning: a French perspective’.
Open Access
A Giant Contribution to Global Planning Education : Klaus Kunzmann and the Founding of AESOP
(Routledge : Taylor and Francis Group, 2017) Alterman, Rachelle
The existence of a global academic identity for planning must not be taken for granted. If it weren’t for Klaus Kunzmann, there would have been no AESOP. And if it weren’t for AESOP, today’s global planning education institutions would have not emerged or, at best, have been greatly delayed. The vision that Klaus realized 30 years ago with the founding of AESOP has created a momentum with invaluable benefits not only for planning education, but for the citizen-clients of planning worldwide. Even though I was not representing any European school 1, I sensed that something very significant was in the offing; I therefore travelled to Amsterdam in 1987 to attend AESOP’s inauguration ceremony (and was the only non-European there). I have followed AESOP’s evolution and impact ever since. In this brief note, I would like to share with you what I have observed about AESOP’s contribution to the emergence of planning education globally. Unlike medicine or engineering, for example, planning is not a self-propelling global profession. Medical practitioners are dependent on knowledge transfer about dangers discovered, new medicines, or new technologies. In planning, the gains and losses due to knowledge transfer are more amorphous. In fact, planning has a built-in contradiction between the pull of localization and the push of globalization. On the one hand, planning is locally grounded both in its history and ideology: Historically, the planning profession emerged from local-national initiatives in a geographically fragmented process. Planning ideology seeks to enshrine locally specific “placemaking” as a valued norm. In each country, the planning profession is bounded by its own national and local legal frameworks, and it is embedded in specific socio-cultural and political contexts. The legal and political contexts differ greatly across countries, even when they might seem similar from a distance (Alterman 2017). At the same time, the planning profession cannot continue to serve its clients – the majority of humanity – without global knowledge exchange.
Open Access
A Lacanian understanding of the southern planning theorists' identification under the hegemony of western philosophy
(AESOP, 2021) Mohammadzadeh, Mohsen
As a planning theorist who has studied and taught planning theory in the Global South and North, I grapple with the question - "What does planning theory mean in the Global South?" To answer this question, I ontologically investigate the meaning of Southern planning theory based on a Lacanian approach. Drawing on the Lacanian theory of human subjectivity, this article explains how planning theorists’ identities are constituted through their interactions within academia. Lacanian discourse theory assists in exploring how most Southern planning theorists adopt, internalise, and use hegemonic Western philosophy, ideas, and discourses as the only accepted mechanism of truth. Consequently, this process profoundly alienates Southern planning theorists from their local context, as they often devalue, overlook, and neglect non-Western beliefs, ideas, knowledge, and philosophy. I argue that although the number of Southern planning theorists has increased during the last decades, non-Western philosophy is seldom utilised as the core of their critical studies. Based on the Lacanian discourse theory, I show that they mostly remain in the hegemonic mechanism of knowledge production that is embedded in the colonial era.
Open Access
A methodological approach on studying policy-making of autonomous driving in cities
(AESOP, 2019) Servou, Eriketti
This commentary proposes a methodological approach about policy analysis on autonomous driving. It focuses on the role of discourse, the multiple actors and technologies involved in the processes of urban policy-making. Autonomous driving is considered a crucial case of policy-making in cities, because of the multitude of established and new actors involved as well as the combination of different digitalisation and automation technologies. Current research outlines the uncertainty planners and policymakers find themselves in regarding how to plan and regulate for autonomous driving, and calls for the need of finding the right forms of governance and policy for the implementation of autonomous driving in urban contexts. Therefore, studying the processes of its policy in the making is vital, as it is these processes that determine if and how any kind of policy will come into place. Subsequently, it is urban policy that will define the ways autonomous driving will be implemented and its implications in cities. Since both socio-political and material factors play a role in policy-making, a suitable methodological approach is needed that can address both. Therefore, this commentary discusses methodological developments drawing inspiration from Argumentative Discourse Analysis (ADA) and combining it with elements from Actor-Network-Theory (ANT). The insights provided by the commentary aim at a more comprehensive and thorough understanding of policy-making processes of autonomous driving and how policy change occurs (or not).
Open Access
A tribute to Patsy Healey (1940–2024) : Obituary
(Routledge : Taylor and Francis Group, 2024) Davoudi, Simin
I write this tribute with a heavy heart as I had never imagined that one day I would write about Patsy Healey in past tense. Her passing away in March 2024, at the age of 84 left planning communities across the world with a deep sense of loss and sadness. But as her commemoration in the AESOP conference in Paris showed, people who know Patsy wish to share their cherished memories of her and celebrate her life and achievements not only as a distinguished scholar but also as a remarkable caring and compassionate person. There is much that I can say about Patsy from my own experience of knowing her for over thirty years as her student, colleague, and friend, but in the interest of brevity, I limit myself to a brief account of her key accolades. After an undergraduate degree in Geography at University College London (UCL), Patsy was trained as a teacher and then a planner, following a Diploma in Town Planning from Regent Street Polytechnic (now University of Westminster). In the 1960s, she worked as a planning officer in the London Borough of Lewisham at a time when, as Patsy often recalled, there was a lot of planning without much clarity about its purpose.
Open Access
Activism by lay and professional planners : Types, research issues, and ongoing analysis
(AESOP, 2019) Sager, Tore
Activism was one of the main themes of the AESOP PhD Workshop 2018 in Karlskrona and Tjärö, Sweden. One of my presentations was about the activist roles of planners working for local governments and lay planners affiliated with civil society organizations. I have kept a close eye on the academic literature on activist planning for many years, and am still working in that sub-field of planning theory. My aim is to explore the limits of how professional planners with an activist intent can practice their line of work inside a bureaucracy, and to study how actors from the civil society can use spatial planning and local environmental planning in combination with direct action as a strategy for achieving their goals. To specify the kind of planning I have in mind, I follow Healey (1997:69), stating that: ‘Spatial and environmental planning, understood relationally, becomes a practice of building a relational capacity which can address collective concerns about spatial co-existence, spatial organisation and the qualities of places’. Activist planners can contribute to the processes of such planning and help collect and form the input to spatial and environmental plans.
Open Access
Activist researchers : Four cases of affecting change
(AESOP, 2019) Sharkey, Megan; Lopez, Monica; Katharine Mottee, Lara; Scaffidi, Federica
Researchers in urban planning are frequently motivated by the desire to facilitate positive social change. In seeking better ways to effect change, the researcher becomes an activist by engaging with social and environmental issues in a meaningful way to solve a problem. It is also often at this nexus where practice and academia meet, where the researcher adopts an activist role. In this paper we argue that activist research requires researchers to place themselves in one of two dominant positionalities or engagement positions: the insider or the outsider, as they join efforts with their research participants and activities. Using four case examples from our own research, we discuss how each positionality influences the production of new knowledge in both practice and theory. We reflect on challenges faced by early-career activist researchers in adopting activist research approaches, highlighting implications for undertaking this type of research in urban planning, and the need for a rethink from current discourses to set a path for a more hopeful future.
Open Access
AESOP activities are back on track after the pandemic
(Taylor & Fransis, 2024) Cotella, Giancarlo; Casavola, Donato
The years of the Covid-19 pandemic have been tough for the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) and its community. The main catalyst of AESOP connectivity – its an- nual congress – was cancelled in 2020 and held remotely in 2021, depriving our members of the much-needed face-to-face interactions that have always contributed to the Association’s ad- vancement and growth. Now, after a slow restart in 2022 and 2023, when people hesitantly attempted to go back to normal, we can now officially say that AESOP and its activities are back on track. The larg- est event in the history of the Association took place in Paris in July, hosting over 1200 dele- gates from 55 different countries. In the wake of this great success, it may be worth summaris- ing the multiple activities of AESOP for inter- ested disP readers, in the hope that more peo- ple will attend and benefit from AESOP events in the future.
Open Access
AESOP PLANNING EDUCATION N°3
(Association of European Schools of Planning, 2015-07) Mironowicz, Izabela
Restricted
AESOP Young Academics Special Edition Call for Abstracts
(Routledge : Taylor and Francis Group, 2013) Driscoll, Patrick; Galland, Daniel
Urban planning has dramatically shifted when compared with its former logics and styles. Increasingly, the dynamics of large urban agglomerations spanning multiple boundaries put significant pressure on planning institutions to scale up. In this shifting context, how can both planning theory and practice coevolve in adapting to the ever-increasing transformation of cities and urban regions? In this context, Planning Practice and Research (PPR) is seeking perspectives from the young academic community in planning. We propose to publish at least one special edition of PPR with a number of short papers from Young Academics. The contributions should address the question of how planning theory and practice can respond to the increasing complexity of cities and regions. We are proposing shorter contributions so that we can include a wider range of perspectives. They may of course, point to longer explanations of research published elsewhere. Otherwise the papers will have to meet the normal expectations for publication in PPR. Young academics means researchers doing their PhD and up to 5 years after finishing their PhD and young practitioners with an academic interest.
Open Access
An anatomy of hope
(AESOP, 2015) Torisson, Frederik
‘So, it is the crisis of the idea of revolution. But behind the idea of revolution is the crisis of the idea of another world, of the possibility of, really, another organization of society, and so on. Not the crisis of the pure possibility, but the crisis of the historical possibility of something like that is caught in the facts themselves. And it is a crisis of negation because it is a crisis of a conception of negation which was a creative one.’(Alain Badiou)The paper seeks to elaborate on the concept of hope and the possibility of a ‘politics of hope’that goes beyond negation in relation to contemporary architectural practice. The focus will be on the affective modality of hope, the intra-personal, as opposed to the common understanding of hope as a personal feeling. Following Ernst Bloch’s notion of hope as ‘anticipatory consciousness’, the paper discusses the limitations and potentials of the principle of hope in contemporary spatial practices using Brecht’s dictum ‘something’s missing’ as a starting point for thinking about hope as a cognitive instrument. In a post-modern society, the notion of an ‘outside’ is hardly conceivable. The alternative orders of society imagined are almost invariably mirrors of what already is; these could be called utopias of compensation. At the same time, there has over the last couple of years been a rapid increase in instances of political upheaval, and the words change and hope are heard increasingly often in political discussion, signalling a dynamism as well as an openness in political discussion that goes well beyond the ideologies of the 20th century. Hope is in other words here understood as transformative; the concept is interlinked with the prospect of change. Hope is as an operative concept capable of a double move, simulta-neously being critical and propositional. The critical aspect is implicit in the connection to change; it denotes a desire for a different world than what is. The propositional aspect implies a direction and the exploration of an alternative. Hope in relation to spatial practices is thus concerned with the experimentation along the edge of the current doxai – challenging them and seeking to extend them.
Open Access
Antigone, today: Dignity and human rights in contemporary spaces
(AESOP, 2020) Lo Piccolo, Francesco
The tragedy of Antigone revolves around the theme of conflict. Both the version written by Sophocles and the one by Jean Anouilh are mainly focused on conflicts. The conflict between Antigone and Creon is real and symbolic at the same time. It is the conflict between a woman’s body and the law, between women’s and men’s conditions, between two anthropologies. It is also a conflict between two opposite ethical perspectives, and two opposite political visions. It is the conflict between the rule of individuals and the rule of laws, between non-violence and violence, social responsibility and individual egoism, and self-identification and identity. The conflict between Antigone and Creon is the heterogeneous sum of many conflicts. If we try to fit all conflicts within a broader framework, we could say that Antigone’s choice of disobedience raises the high-level conflict between human dignity and the law. This conflict takes place within the positive law and cannot exist outside it. Human dignity cannot elude the law, since it is rooted within the legal system. It does not, however, originate from it, but its finalisation is actually in the law; where gaps and fallacies are revealed. Its strength lies in the lack of a definition. Human dignity helps the law to regenerate and not become locked in a formal stronghold.
Open Access
Are Spatial Planning Schools across Europe Teaching Climate Change? A Survey of Curricula in the European Context
(SAGE, 2025) Johnson, Cassidy; Sliuzas, Richard; Galderisi, Adriana; Bradaschia , Massimiliano Granceri; Zwangsleitner, Daniel; Fernandez, Armando Caroca; Hasemi, Maliheh
It is important that the current and the next generations of planners are well equipped to contribute to the realization and upscaling of effective climate change action as a central element in any urban or spatial planning educational program. Framing the issue in the European context, and building on studies of other global regions, this research is the first European-wide scale survey to look at the extent to which European planning schools are addressing climate change in their curricula. The findings highlight the need for more comprehensive education on this critical issue and that further research and resources are needed to enhance climate resilience education in planning.
Open Access
Balloons to talk about : Exploring conversational potential of an art intervention
(AESOP, 2019) Hotakainen, Tiina; Oikarinen, Essi
Relational approaches to urban development have gained ground in academic literature, highlighting diverse perspectives, such as experience, participation, aesthetics, performativity and affection. However, these practices neglect conversation as a connection between local everyday life and urban development. We argue that as art generally provokes discussion, material art acquires potential to question urban development and thus, act as a conversation mediator in public space. To test the hypothesis, we organised an explorative action research study: a data art installation within the annual ‘Oulu Night of the Arts’ in August 2017. The installation illustrated spatiotemporal analysis of everyday life in Åström Park, Oulu, Northern Finland. The art intervention succeeded in engaging diverse social groups online and on-site, although it proved challenging to evoke focused conversations. The induced discussions bore relevance to everyday realities in the locality. If public discourse on urban environment concentrates solely on municipal urban planning projects and visible new constructions, we risk creating a misconception of them being superior to mundane everyday life. The study suggests that even tentative information without specific objectives, when presented in a public data installation, could prove valuable for urban development discourse.
Open Access
Beyond 2020: Moving from objectives to governance to master ever more pressing challenges
(AESOP, 2020) Böhme, Kai
The adoption of the Territorial Agenda 2030, some 20 years after the adoption of the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) (European Commission, 1999) presents an opportunity to both look back on what has been achieved and envisage developments for the next 20 years. This paper starts with some personal reflections on the aspirations put forward in the ESDP and some key achievements. The main part of the paper then concentrates on what might be done differently over the next 20 years. It is argued that because the world has changed substantially since 1999 it is time to breathe new life into the original objectives of the ESDP and support them with clear governance and implementation tools. Furthermore, the geographical coverage ought to be extended to cover the Western Balkans. The final section offers an outlook on what we might want to see when looking back again 20 years from now.
Open Access
Brazilian uprising : The spatial diffusion of protests during the June Journeys and the politics of identity
(AESOP, 2015) Gonçalves de Almeida, Rafael; da Silveira Grandi, Matheus
Brazil experienced, in June of 2013, the largest popular demonstrations in its recent history —an event that has been called the June Journeys. In this paper, we briefly address briefly the processes of spatial diffusion and dispersion observed during these journeys. We then reflect on how these processes relate to a politics of identity, and the strategies used by protesters to differentiate themselves from other groups, and by the State to classify the protesters in order to guide the use of police repression. Identity can, therefore, group individuals around a common struggle using as reference the location of the demon-stration as ‘spaces of identity reference’, but can also play an important role in the reproduction of dominant power relations by creating mechanisms with which to legitimate punitive action. The ‘vandal’ is, then, understood as the identity constructed to allow the transition from an indirect regulation to a mode of violent intervention. We conclude the paper by emphasising how both of these processes highlight the role of the politics of identity on this recent series of demonstrations in Brazil.
Open Access
Build it and they will come Analysis of an Online Deliberation initiative
(AESOP, 2017) Lusoli, Alberto; Sardo, Stefania
Public and private investments are increasingly being directed towards the development of ICTs for the construction of more inclusive and connected communities. Labelled as Collective Awareness Platforms (CAPs) under the European Seventh Framework Program, these initiatives explore the possibility of tackling societal issues relying on digitally-mediated citizen cooperation. As their diffusion increases, it is important to critically reflect on the extent to which they can effectively trigger forms of engagement and sustainable collaboration within and through digital artefacts. Among the associated risks is the furthering of a technocratic understanding of how collaborative processes work, based on the assumption that the introduction of CAPs would be a sufficient condition for the construction of inclusive and engaged communities. In this respect, this contribution investigates a case in which a digital platform was implemented with the aim of promoting citizens’ deliberation on urban-related issues. This experiment is analyzed by 1) assessing whether the platform functioned as a deliberative space; 2) tracking the negotiation processes of the digital artefacts’ functionalities occurring among initiative’s organizers, platform developers, and participants. The goal of the paper is to understand how different understandings and unexpected usages of the digital platform affected the deliberation process and therefore the initiative’s outcomes.
Open Access
Challenges and obstacles in the production of cross-border territorial strategies: The example of the greater region
(AESOP, 2017) Decoville, Antoine; Durand, Frédéric
Cross-border strategies have been flourishing over the last few decades in Europe, mostly in a favourable context where European funding is available and legal instruments are well-developed. However, one may wonder which objectives are really targeted within this very broad and imprecise notion of cross-border strategy. The purpose of this paper is, first, to provide a theoretical framework in order to better understand the different meanings of the notion of cross-border integration and to provide a more critical perspective on its effects. Secondly, it analyses the policy content of the cross-border territorial strategy developed within the Greater Region before, in the final section, pointing out the difficulties faced by policy-makers during its elaboration. This final section is based on the insights brought both by the regional stakeholders interviewed and by our expertise as moderators and scientific advisors within the working group in charge of the realisation of the cross-border territorial strategy. The main finding of our analysis is that the consensus that has been reached by all the stakeholders is the “smallest common denominator”; that is to say, the least constraining.
Open Access
Changing Planning Discourses and Practices: Flanders Structure Plan
(AESOP, 2017-07) Olesen, Kristian; Albrechts, Louis
This booklet explores the contributions of Professor Emeritus Louis Albrechts (KU Leuven) to planning practice, with special reference to the case study of the ‘Flanders Structure and Plan’. Albrechts has, through his long academic career, maintained a strong interest in planning practice. His academic work has in many ways been focused on developing more appropriate and responsible ways of doing planning and at the core of Albrechts’ academic thinking has been the question of how to improve the practice of planning. His scholarly work has always been deeply rooted in his own experiences and reflections from working closely with and in planning practice. Albrechts has a long and impressive CV, and there are a significant number of projects that I could have explored deeper in this publication. In the end, I decided to focus on Albrechts’ perhaps most well-known contribution to planning practice, his work on the first Structure Plan for Flanders in the early 1990s. This choice reflects partly my own interest in strategic spatial planning, but it appeals hopefully also to a broader audience interested in how new planning ideas emerge, gain momentum, and then partly loose legitimacy, as socio-economic and political conditions change.
Open Access
The circular economy in urban projects: A case study analysis of current practices and tools
(AESOP, 2021) Appendino, Federica; Roux, Charlotte; Saadé, Myriam; Peuportier, Bruno
Over the last decade, the concept of the circular economy (CE) has gained momentum among practitioners, politicians, and scholars because of its promise of achieving sustainability goals. However, there is still a need to demonstrate and assess the positive environmental impacts of the CE. With respect to the building sector, the CE is still a relatively new topic. To date, research has tended to focus primarily on the macro-scale (cities or eco-parks) and the micro-scale (manufactured products or construction materials). Nevertheless, the often-neglected built environment is also expected to play a crucial role in the transition towards a CE due to its high contribution to various environmental burdens. This paper contributes to this growing area of research by reviewing four cases of ‘circular neighbourhood’ projects in Europe. First, a conceptual framework analysis is defined and applied to the cases. Second, CE initiatives and actions are identified and classified using interviews and document analysis. Third, the use of assessment tools within these CE projects is investigated. The results demonstrate a diverse representation of the CE paradigm and the growing role played by the assessment tools.