Neither Looking Down Nor Up: 50 Years of Planning and Participation
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Date
2025
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AESOP
Abstract
This lecture by Prof. Alessandro Balducci, delivered as part of the AESOP Lecture Series 2025, offers a deeply reflective and politically grounded account of his professional journey across academia, planning practice, and public service. Framed as a personal travelogue, the talk revisits five decades of evolving democratic ideals and planning paradigms—from the radical experiments of the 1970s to the contemporary need for “trading zones”: hybrid arenas where conflicting actors co-produce situated knowledge.
Balducci challenges linear, rationalist models of planning, advocating instead for exploratory, enabling approaches rooted in participation, multi-perspectival understanding, and institutional humility. Drawing on experiences such as the City of Cities strategic plan for Milan and lessons from the IBA Emscher Park initiative, he illustrates how planners can foster collective intelligence and navigate complexity through strategic openness.
The Q&A session further expands these themes, with interventions from AESOP President Maria Håkansson, moderator Marco Cremaschi, and audience members. Discussions explore the role of education in transmitting democratic planning values, the growing presence of private actors in urban transformation, and the generative potential of conflict in planning processes.
In both form and content, the lecture exemplifies what Balducci calls “the organisation of hope”—a vision of planning that is simultaneously critical, engaged, and future-oriented.
Description
video available at: https://vimeo.com/1094339333