Reinventing Planning: Critical Reflections

Abstract

There is a growing acceptance in international development circles of the contribution a revitalised planning can make to addressing key urban challenges. Current expectations that planning can play roles in managing the growth of cities in ways that promote their sustainability, inclusiveness and liveability, contrasts with past perceptions of planning as an irrelevant discipline obsessed with spatial ordering and control. This paper considers whether the new forms of planning can address the challenges facing cities, with particular reference to the South African context. It does so through providing an overview of the shift in thinking about planning, and reflecting on the new agendas for planning as well as on some of their silences. It argues that the new approaches need to be understood in terms of contemporary urban and planning theories which are rethinking the nature of planning and its relationship to power and institutions, and which view cities as complex, dynamic places, embodying multiple interests and spatialities. These perspectives can help to enrich our understanding of the new approaches to planning, and to avoid ineffectiveness or a return to the negative elements of modernist planning of the past. The paper demonstrates the argument through focusing on some of the recent themes that have received attention in the contemporary international agendas for planning: the cross-cutting themes of sustainability and gender; the infrastructural turn in planning; and the ambiguities of the compact city. While these are quite particular concerns, they highlight the complexities of institutionalising the new approaches to planning, and ways of thinking about spatial planning.

Urban growth of Kampala, Uganda: Pattern analysis and scenario development

“…These mounting challenges have prompted renewed debate about planning in Africa (Todes, 2011) and there has been a call to move away from western modernism towards a more fruitful dialogue with the marginalized majority (Harrison, 2006;Myers, 2011;Trefon, 2009;Watson, 2007). Traditional planning is preventative and focuses on restrictive regulation whereby developments have to follow zoning laws (Harloe & Pickvance, 1990).…”

How to Mend a Fragmented City: a Critique of ‘Infrastructural Solidarity'

“…The global design industry stands to gain from the circulation of schemes that claim to govern society through formal alignments. Urban design is making a resurgence today as a legitimate tool of social and environmental policy (Madanipour, ; Todes, ), largely by promoting a formal view of infrastructure and the built environment. The industry thus assumes a place on the leading edge of what Langdon Winner () called ‘technological politics', wherein the political class tackles complex social problems through technical solutions.…”

Tweets and Facebook Posts, the Novelty Techniques in the Creation of Origin-Destination Models

“…Planning in South Africa was previously conducted using the apartheid statutory approaches hence, the settlement planning in the country resembles segregation which current planners are attempting to rectify through modern planning theories (Todes, 2011). Similarly, the transportation planning policies are outdated, resulting in poor transportation management systems that give effect to poor public transportation systems, the preferred use of private automobiles, traffic congestion and heavy emissions of carbon monoxide (RSA, 2008).…”