Volume 03 (2016)

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14235/1776

Browse

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8

Open Access
Editorial introduction : Questioning planning, connecting places and times Introduction to the special issue
(AESOP, 2016) Tulumello, Simone; Healy, Patsy
Let us open this editorial introduction in an unusual way, made possible by plaNext’s innovative approach to peer-review. Let us quote a paragraph from one of the reviews to the articles of this issue, namely the review by Marco Allegra to Ignacio Castillo Ulloa’s article. One might suspect that this is a simplistic account of the functioning of the planning process: planners, after all, might be creative in their work; take risks (or not); simply rely on their professional expertise, but also use it in a strategic way to negotiate their role in the policy process; display a number of alternative, ‘non-planning strategies’; follow a private, particularistic or political agenda (rather than planning handbooks) in doing their job; cheat, lie, manipulate their clients, colleagues or the stakeholders in general. In sum, what the author presents as a dispute between two irreconcilable logics – between the rational, positivistic planner and the hysteric residents – might be part of a broader interaction between a ‘planner- actor’ and all the other participants to the planning process
Open Access
Foreword Vol. 3 (2016) : Questioning planning, connecting places and times
(AESOP, 2016) Geppert, Anna
It is a pleasure to write a foreword for the third volume of plaNext, dedicated to ‘Differences and Connections: Beyond Universal Theories in Planning, Urban, and Heritage Studies’. This volume publishes six papers selected from the YA conference held on this topic in Palermo in March 2015, thanks to the support of Francesco Lo Piccolo, at the time acting President of AESOP. Published since 2015, plaNext is a peer-reviewed journal, created and edited by the AESOP Young Academics Network. Since the beginning, AESOP has supported this initiative for two reasons.
Open Access
From apophenia to epiphany Making planning theory-research-practice co-constitutive
(AESOP, 2016) Castillo Ulloa, Ignacio
This paper addresses the question of how planning research could be reasserted to balance the relationship between theory and practice. To that end, a twofold approach is taken: on the one hand, different interrelations among planning theory, research and practice are set out building on Jacques Lacan’s ‘four discourses’—the master’s, the university’s, the hysteric’s and the analyst’s. On the other hand, a process to formulate the plan regulador (local normative master plan) of a canton in southern Costa Rica is drawn upon, through storytelling, to shed light on the aforementioned relations. The article’s in-conclusion is that among planning theory, research and practice, rather than a synergic co-constitution, linkages that challenge, occlude, bypass or control one another are generated. Moreover, due to the apophenic ability of universal(izing)-technocratic(ized) theories to obviate the ‘right measure’ between action and reaction, discourses of research and practice are manipulated and the role of theory as ‘master signifier’ upheld. However, the ‘counter-discourses’ of both the hysteric and the analyst could be articulated by a planning ‘critical-hysterical’ research, which, in turn, would allow epiphanies to come to the fore, separate action from reaction and, pragmatically and dynamically, co-constitute planning theory, research and practice.
Open Access
Hernando de Soto on land titling: Consensus and criticism
(AESOP, 2016)
The proliferation of informal settlements is one of the most relevant consequences of the urbanization process that has been affecting most of the cities in the Global South. Among the different ways to cope with this issue, the regularization of informal settlements through land titling has been one of the main shared strategies that scholars and policy makers have focused on for the last twenty years. A relevant and well-known contribution concerning this issue is the one provided by the Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto. Defined together, one of the best economists in the world, and the ‘guru of neo-liberal populism’, de Soto attracts both important endorsements and harsh criticisms for his theories. The contribution of this paper is to provide a detailed framework of de Soto main achievements, in terms of his current institutional influence and the international impact of his ideas, in contraposition with an analysis of the most relevant critiques developed against his theories.
Open Access
Operationalising resilience within urban planning : Bridging theory and practice
(AESOP, 2016) Doyle, Aoife
Over the past two decades, the concept of ‘urban resilience’ has gained increasing attention within the field of urban planning. More recently, interest in the concept can be partly linked to the recent global economic crisis, which has stimulated much debate around pre-crisis urban development models, and more broadly around the ability of modern planning systems to adequately adapt and respond to changing circumstances. This paper reviews the scholarly literature on urban resilience and concludes that despite its increasing ubiquity, the concept still lacks precise definition, and operationalising the concept within the planning domain remains a challenge. Specifically, the paper highlights the importance of distinguishing between ‘equilibrium’ and ‘evolutionary’ understandings of resilience, with particular focus on the potential of the evolutionary perspective to aid analysis of local planning responses to the recent global economic crisis. In doing so, the paper also queries the potential contribution of new institutionalism, and discursive institutionalism in particular, in enhancing our understanding of the resilience concept in this context, and in addressing some of the common critiques attached to it.
Open Access
Systemic constellations in spatial planning processes : A method to visualise questions of power and cultural peculiarities?
(AESOP, 2016) Levin-Keitel, Meike
Coming from a systemic point of view, systemic constellations focus on the complex interplay of different elements in order to come to a better understanding of the whole system. Spatial planning, which involves complex decision-making in an uncertain environment, is eventually able to profit from such a different methodology. In this context, the aim of the article is to implement systemic constellations as method for spatial research in two different ways: first, to visualise questions of power in planning processes, and, second, to visualise cultural influences in planning processes. The article concludes that the method of systemic constellations serves to visualise questions of power and is able to highlight important differences at a glance, even though this method does not meet all of the scientific requirements academia asks for. The specific contribution is that this method will be able to enrich the dialogue between theory and practice for a daily use, to make complex problems clearly visible and easier to handle.
Open Access
The city as a witness of social and political changes : Analysis of post-war reconstruction of Minsk as a Soviet urban model
(AESOP, 2016) Smirnova, Aliaksandra
In contemporary urban studies, the physical reconstruction of cities is achieving a new dimension, which is reflected in the urban resilience that is expressed as the physical, social, cultural and economic capability of urban structures to respond to anthropogenic or natural catastrophes. In this paper, we study the reconstruction processes of Minsk, Belarus, which was almost completely destroyed and rebuilt as a new city after World War II, in order to understand in which way specific social and political conditions may have influence on the physical rebuilding of urban and architectural form in “devastated” cities. We based our analysis on study of Master Plans from different periods. In particular, we focused on the Master Plan 1946 analysing its specific characteristic and linking them to political and social circumstances of post-war period. We conclude that Minsk was reconstructed as a model for a new Soviet city that brings us to a question: could the Soviet architecture and urbanism fill the void in Minsk’s urban heritage?
Open Access
The views of neighbourhood associations on collaborative urban governance in Tallinn, Estonia
(AESOP, 2016) Holvandus, Johanna; Leetma, Kadri
Throughout the 21st century a clear shift from hierarchical government towards network-like governance is evident in Europe and countries of the former Soviet Union. A door has been opened for citizens to assert their social and political citizenship and for the public sector to systematically search for novel ways to improve and expand representative practices. Estonia may be considered a post-socialist ‘market-experiment’, as almost no urban land belongs to the public sector. Thus, all decisions related to urban spatial changes are strongly influenced by private interests. The situation of ad-hoc planning, which intensified during the real-estate boom of the mid-2000s, evoked the mushrooming of civil activism, mostly in the form of neighbourhood associations. Current research investigates the roles and efficiency of neighbourhood associations in the collaborative urban governance of Tallinn. The study shows that neighbourhood associations help to reinforce people’s social and political citizenship; however, there are still insufficiencies regarding their ability to represent different interests in Tallinn and in their own neighbourhood. We also discovered that Tallinn, as a post-socialist city, is currently in an experimental phase of learning how to efficiently gain from collaborative networks in the urban governance processes.

Browse

Browsing Volume 03 (2016) by Title

Results Per Page

Sort Options