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This paper examines spatial planning as a cultural practice, conceptualizing it as an interplay between attitudes, actions, and artifacts. Spatial planning is not merely a technical, political, or communicative activity, but rather a complex cultural practice influenced by shared societal norms, values, and practices that evolve over time. This study adopts a meaning-oriented and praxeological perspective of culture (Reckwitz 2002), emphasizing the dual dimensions of planning: its substantive character, encompassing collective norms, values, and beliefs, and its procedural aspects, involving planning practices, decision-making processes, and social interactions.
The paper explores a paradigmatic shift towards a "cultural turn" in planning theory, advocating for a relational understanding of planning cultures that integrates discourse and practice.
Recent empirical studies highlight the heterogeneity of planning cultures across national, regional, and local levels, emphasizing their dependence on socio-political contexts and the interrelation of structural and procedural elements. Utilizing models such as the Culturalized Planning Model (CPM; Knieling/Othengrafen 2009), the paper delineates the influence of societal and planning discourses on tangible planning artifacts, including planning policies and documents, as well as corresponding physical results of planning, such as spatial patterns of the built environment.
A literature review of recent empirical studies highlights the role of planning cultures in shaping different
a) National planning practices (e. g. Li et al. 2020)
b) Regional and local planning practices (e. g. Pukarthofer et al. 2021) as well as
c) Relational understandings of national and local planning cultures and practices (e. g. Patiwael et al. 2022)
Based on the literature review a relational framework is developed, that links substantive and procedural dimensions through shared systems of meaning, incorporating the
a) societal discourse that shapes norms and values
b) the planning discourse that informs specific practices, and the
c) artifacts resulting from these interactions.
This integrated model captures the variations of planning, emphasizing their emergence, evolution, and contextual variations.
The study acknowledges the challenges posed by the complexity and diversity of planning cultures. Despite methodological difficulties in operationalizing and empirically analyzing cultural dimensions, the concept holds significant promise for enriching planning research. By bridging theoretical and practical knowledge, the relational approach enhances our understanding of why planning practices vary across contexts and how they are shaped by cultural differences.
Future research is encouraged to adopt interdisciplinary methods and refined analytical models, emphasizing the interconnections between discourse, practice, and artifacts. This methodological advancement holds the potential to shed light on the cultural underpinnings of planning practices, offering researchers deeper insights into their evolution and the possibility of adaptation in diverse spatial and temporal contexts. In conclusion, the study positions planning as an inherently cultural endeavor, underscoring its pivotal role in the social construction of space.
References
Knieling, J.; Othengrafen, F. (2009): En route to a theoretical model for comparative research on planning cultures. In: Knieling, J.; Othengrafen, F. (Eds.): Planning Cultures in Europe. Decoding Cultural Phenomena in Urban and Regional Planning. London: Ashgate, 39–62.
Li, K.; Dethier, P.; Eika, A.; Samsura, D. A. A.; van der Krabben, E.; Nordahl, B.; Halleux, J. M. (2020): Measuring and comparing planning cultures: risk, trust and co-operative attitudes in experimental games. In: European Planning Studies 28 (6), 1118-1138. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2019.1612325
Patiwael, P.; Groote, P.; Vanclay, F. (2022): Does local planning culture influence the effectiveness of impact assessments? Reflecting on infrastructure projects in a Dutch UNESCO World Heritage site. In: Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal 40 (3), 254-265. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14615517.2022.2035647
Purkarthofer, E; Humer, A.; Mattila, H. (2021): Subnational and Dynamic Conceptualisations of Planning Culture: The Culture of Regional Planning and Regional Planning Cultures in Finland. In: Planning Theory & Practice 22 (2), 244-265. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2021.1896772
Reckwitz, A. (2002): Toward a theory of social practices: A development in culturalist theorizing. In: European journal of social theory 5 (2), 243-263. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310222225432
| Keywords | culture; systems of meaning; practice theory; discourse |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
