Planning culture and practice

The course proposes an exploration of urban and territorial planning as a culturally, institutionally and politically situated practice. It specifically investigates how different ways of understanding space, place and society have shaped planning thought and continue to influence contemporary planning cultures and practices.
By introducing students to different ways of understanding planning problems, producing knowledge and defining the role of planners and other actors, the course aims to bridge theoretical questions about urban planning culture to the contemporary practices of urbanism across geographical and institutional contexts.
Particular attention is therefore given to the relationships between planning cultures, formal planning systems and actual planning practices, with a specific focus on collaborative, tactical, radical and community planning practices. Through referring to different case studies from different urban contexts, the course addresses contemporary planning challenges with a regard on the role of institutions, planners, public authorities, private actors, civil society and local communities in shaping planning processes and outcomes. It also examines how planning practices are influenced by power relations, knowledge, participation, socio-spatial inequalities and changing environmental conditions.

The main objective of the course is to provide students with conceptual and analytical tools to critically understand how different conceptions of space, place, knowledge and society shape planning cultures and practices.
More broadly, the course aims to develop students' capacity to mobilize theoretical perspectives as analytical lenses for interpreting concrete planning situations rather than as fixed categories, recognizing the coexistence and interaction of different planning rationalities within contemporary practices.
By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• identify and critically discuss the main traditions and paradigms of urban planning and formulate their own position on it – in verbal presentations and debates;
• understand the relationships between conceptions of space and place, planning cultures, planning systems and planning practices;
• analyse planning processes in relation to institutional settings, actors, knowledge and power relations;
• compare planning approaches across different geographical and institutional contexts;
• critically assess contemporary planning practices in relation to participation, inequalities and sustainability;
• learn how to develop a qualitative/documentary research around a selected urban planning experience.

The course combines ex-cathedra lectures with more active pedagogy techniques, such as collective discussions, critical readings, exercises and comparative case-study analysis.
Lectures introduce the main theoretical concepts, planning traditions and analytical frameworks, which are subsequently discussed through concrete examples and case studies across different institutional and geographical contexts. Selected academic readings are used to support critical discussion and to familiarize students with key debates in planning theory and practices.
Throughout the semester, students are progressively required to conduct, individually or in small-group, a qualitative/documentary research analysing a specific real planning process, policy, plan, project or practice, exemplifying the approaches presented during the course and using the bibliography mobilised during the sessions.
The course combines theoretical learning and applied analysis, encouraging active participation, comparative reasoning and critical reflection on the relationships between planning culture and planning practice.

Références, bibliographie et lectures recommandées

• Davoudi, S. & Strange, I. (Eds.) (2009). Conceptions of Space and Place in Strategic Spatial Planning. Routledge, London.
• Forester, J. (1989). Planning in the face of power. University of California Press, Berkeley.
• Friedmann, J. (1987). Planning in the public domain. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
• Friedmann, J. (2005). Globalization and the emerging culture of planning. Progress in Planning 64, 183-234.
• Healey, P. (1997). Collaborative Planning: Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies. Macmillan, London.
• Miraftab, F. (2009) Insurgent planning: situating radical planning in the Global South. Planning Theory 8(1), 32–50.
• Parnell, S. & Oldfield, S. (Eds) (2014). The Routledge handbook on cities of the Global South. Routledge, London
• Reimer, M., Getimis, P. & Blotevogel, H.H. (Eds.) (2014). Spatial Planning Systems and Practices in Europe: A Comparative Perspective on Continuity and Changes. Routledge, New York.
• Robinson, J. (2006). Ordinary cities: between modernity and development. Routledge, New York.
• Sandercock, L. (1998). Towards cosmopolis: planning for multicultural cities. Wiley, Chichester.
• Sanyal, B. (Ed.) (2005). Comparative Planning Cultures. Routledge, New York.
• Simone, A. & Pieterse, E. (2017). New urban worlds: Inhabiting dissonant times. Polity Press, Cambridge.
• Watson, V. (2002). The usefulness of normative planning theories in the context of Sub-Saharan
• Africa. Planning Theory 1(1), 27–52.
• Watson, V. (2009). Seeing from the South: Refocusing Urban Planning on the Globe’s Central Urban Issues. Urban Studies 46(11), 2259–2275.

Contacts

Giuseppe Faldi: giuseppe.faldi@ulb.be

Campus

Flagey

Méthode(s) d'évaluation

• Autre

Autre

Assessment is based on a combination of continuous work developed throughout the semester, including through class exercises, and a final analytical essay.
Evaluation of the continuous work during the course account for 40% (20% progresses and active participation, 20% exercises) of the final grade and contribute to the progressive development of the final assignment.
Students are required to select a specific planning process, policy, plan, project or practice and progressively analyse its institutional context, main actors, planning instruments, forms of knowledge, power relations and participatory arrangements. Intermediate exercises, in the form of presentation and critical discussion of key readings, also help students to acquire specific knowledge and frameworks potentially providing complementary interpretations of the selected case.
The final assignment accounts for 60% of the grade and consists of a written essays based on the performed analysis of the selected case study. Students are expected to formulate a clear research question, mobilise relevant theoretical perspectives introduced during the course and critically analyse the relationships between planning conception, actors and actual practices. Rather than categorising a case as belonging to a single planning tradition, students are encouraged to identify how different planning rationalities coexist, interact or conflict within concrete practices and to discuss their implications for planning processes and outcomes.
Students will be evaluated according to: 1) the understanding and critical use of theoretical concepts; 2) the capacity to structure a qualitative research; 3) the quality of the empirical analysis and critical and comparative reasoning, specifically on the ability to connect theoretical conceptions with the observed planning practice; 4) coherence and relevance of the research conducted; 5) clearness of the final essay presented.

Langue(s) d'évaluation

• anglais