The document discusses the evolving role of urban planners and designers in governance, emphasizing their need to comprehend diverse stakeholder perspectives to foster sustainable and equitable outcomes. It highlights the intersubjective nature of knowledge and the importance of communication in decision-making processes, underscoring the political dimensions of urban development. The text also calls for recognition of marginalized voices in planning dialogues to enhance fairness in urban governance.

1. What's governance and
what's it for?
Dealing with the knowledge turn in
public architecture and urban design
Challenge the future
SpatialPlanning
&Strategy
Prepared by Roberto Rocco
Chair of Spatial Planning and Strategy. Dep. of Urbanism
TU Delft

2. What do theories of
knowledge , communication and
power tell us about activities
as designers of urban places?

3. Sir Peter Hall said:
It is easier to
send a man to
the moon than to
plan and design
a city

4. Urban planners and designers are
moving away from ideas about
superciliousness of the profession.
We don’t know it
all!

5. We are also moving away
from ideas like the ‘ideal city’
Fra Carnevale, Ideal City, ca. 1480-84

6. which have influenced urban design thought for so long
Le Corbusier, Ville Radieuse, 1931

7. Or are we?

8. The main task for urban planners and designers
is to act as articulators of spatial visions and
solutions for sustainable and fair futures
Foster + Partners, Duisburg City Masterplan, Duisburg, Germany, 2007.The new masterplan for the inner city of Duisburg builds on the success of Foster + Partners’ Inner Harbour
redevelopment and will strengthen Duisburg’s transformation into a vibrant, green and sustainable city.Available at: http://www.fosterandpartners.com/Projects/1443/Default.aspx

9. Spatial visions and plans that...
Deliver sustainable and
fair futures
Increase public goods
Redistribute gains
Increase life chances
and prosperity

10. Planners and designers do not “make”
cities. They are one of the agents that
act in order to steer the city
Video shot of SIMCITY Feb 29th 2012 11:14 AM by Jeroen Amin

11. Foucault Merleau-Ponty
Habermas

12. Cherry picking concepts?

13. Theories of Knowledge and Power
Necessary elements to understand
the discourse about governance and
what it is for

14. His theory of practical knowledge identifies
human interaction as ‘communicative action’ and
describes the political world as a basically
communicational world. Knowledge is eminently
inter-subjective and relational.
Habermas

15. Foucault
He describes the (largely
false) distinction between
competent and incompetent
agents.
Some agents are deemed
‘incompetent’ by the
established powers as a way
to legitimate power
structures.
We need therefore to explore
‘other’ knowledges.

16. Ponty’s phenomenology
describes our cognitive
limitations to form ideas,
which means that our ‘points
of view’ results in limited
capacity to apprehend all the
‘sides’ of a problem.
It is necessary therefore to
multiply the points of view to
have ‘true’ knowledge.
Merleau-Ponty

17. If we assume that...
Knowledge is INTER-
SUBJECTIVE, as it happens
between two or more
reasoning beings
I You

18. It is easy to assume that
Knowledge is communicative, that
is, only through communication
can we achieve knowledge that is
relevant or ‘usable’ or even TRUE

19. Knowledge needs to be
communicated and explained
in order to become tangible ,
transmissible and verifiable

20. Even EXPERIENTIAL
KNOWLEDGE (acquired by
experience or LEARNING BY
DOING) needs to materialise into
actions, things or words that then
need to be discussed and
measured against other
knowledge in order to become
operational in the physical world.

21. Otherwise
One can never
know whether what
one has is true
knowledge or just
pure fancy

22. Knowledge that exists only in
your mind is IRRELEVANT
Because it is not
operating in the world

23. It is more than validation
It is not only about validating knowledge.
Communicating knowledge will make it EXIST
in the world and BE USEFUL.
Communicating knowledge will also CHANGE
YOUR knowledge, YOU and the person you are
communicating with.

24. But what (the hell)
does this have to do
with spatial planning
and urban design?

25. If we acknowledge that urban
planners and designers are
part of complex systems of
governance

26. Like so
Private
Sector
Civil
Society
Public
Sector
Civil
Public
Sector
Coalitions
between sectors
and within sectors
Urban planners
&
Designers

27. And if we then assume that...
Urban planning and designing are
inter subjective activities, where it is
all about understanding the wishes
and aspirations of multiple stake
holders to help them achieve THEIR
objectives...

28. ...while promoting prosperity,
public goods, equal distribution
of spatial opportunities and
avoiding negative externalities

29. Then we must conclude that any
project or spatial intervention
needs to have some degree of
participation of those stake holders

30. This means that group or
sectorial needs and wishes
must be articulated into
plans and designs that
maximize the common good

31. Why is this
problematic?
Photo by Sarah Cass at Flickr

32. There are no neutral or purely ‘technical’
parameters or agents in urban development.
All decisions in urban development are political
decisions, including yours
(although you will certainly guide them by
technical, ethical, aesthetic, economic and other
parameters)

33. Urban development lies
within the realm of
politics, interests and
negotiations. Knowledge
and power are side by
side, like in everything
else.

34. Photo by epsos.de at Flickr
The problem is
that not everyone has a
voice in urban development.
Some agents are more vocal
(powerful) than
others..

35. Not everybody
has access to relevant
knowledge
Photo by Sarah Cass at Flickr

36. Worse
still: the knowledge of
some groups is considered
irrelevant or is not
recognized as
knowledge
Photo by Sarah Cass at Flickr

37. Children
Young girl by CubaGallery at Flickr

38. Mothers
Pregnant woman by IzdelavaVabil at Flickr

39. ©RonaldVogel
The elderly

40. The homeless
Homeless man in Tokyo by theeruditefrog at Flickr

41. Immigrants
Diversity in the workplace, available at http://www.siop2011.com/category/diversity/

42. White Heterosexual
Western Male
Technocrat
anything but... Robert Moses
Image source: http://www.newmuseum.org/blog/view/ideas-city-istanbul-or-how-to-obtain-a-building-permit-for-central-park

43. Governance

44. Governance (normative)
Private
Sector
Civil
Society
Public
Sector
Positive tension: checks and balances

45. Governance (descriptive)
Private
Sector
Civil
Society
Public
Sector
Civil
Public
Sector
Coalitions
between sectors
and within sectors
Urban planners
&
Designers

46. What does governance respond to?
Knowledge is eminently
inter-subjective and
relational.
We need
to explore ‘other’ kinds of
knowledge.
It is necessary to multiply the
points of view.

47. Governance entails
an
understanding of
how policy making and
implementation happens
in complex societies,
among a multitude of
agents with different
capacities, different
knowledges and
different
objectives

48. Changes in governing
(& planning and designing for cities)
Emergence of a particular style of
decision-making where there must
be sustained co-ordination and
coherence among a wide variety of
actors with different purposes and
views of society, different types of
knowledge and different objectives.
Adapted from Papadopoulos, 2007

49. Multilevel governance
‘Involves a large number
of decision-making
arenas, differentiated
along both functional and
territorial lines and
interlinked in a non-
hierarchical way’
Eberlein and Kerwer, 2004

50. Network governance
Policy-making and implementation is
‘shared’ by:
politicians, technocrats, experts,
dedicated agencies, authorities, semi
private and private companies, the
public, NGOs, etc
which constitute NETWORKS of policy
and decision making across levels,
territories, mandates

51. Governance (normative)
Private
Sector
Civil
Society
Public
Sector
Positive tension: checks and balances

52. Policy formulation and implementation
Networks involving:
• public actors (politicians and
administrators) in different decision levels
• technocrats
• economic agents
• interest representatives (civil + corporate)
• OTHER STAKEHOLDERS (CIVIL SOCIETY)
experts (e.g. planners)

53. New forms of steering complex governance
networks
Deliberation
Bargaining
Compromise-
seeking

54. How?

55. For inspiration: Candy Chang
http://candychang.com

56. Thanks for listening!
Questions?

57. References
ALBRECHTS, L., HEALEY, P. & KUNZMANN, K. R. 2003. Strategic Spatial Planning and Regional Governance in Europe.
Journal of the American Planning Association, 69, 113-129.
EBERLEIN, B. & KERWER, D. 2004. New Governance in the European Union: A Theoretical Perspective. Journal of Common
Market Studies, 42, 128.
FAINSTEIN, S. 2000. New Directions in Planning Theory. Urban Affairs Review, 35, 451-478.
FAINSTEIN, S. 2010. The Just City, Ithaca, Cornell University Press.
FOUCAULT, M. 1984. The Foucault Reader, New York, Pantheon.
HABERMAS, J. 1976. Communication and the Evolution of Society, Boston, Beacon Press.
HABERMAS, J. 1991. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Boston, MIT Press.
HARVEY, D. 2008. The Right to the City. New Left Review. New Left Review.
HARVEY, D. 2009. Social Justice and the City, Athens (GA), The University of Georgia Press.
HEALEY, P. 1997. Collaborative Planning: Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies, Vancouver, UBC Press.
HEALEY, P. 2003. The communicative turn in planning theory and its implications for spatial strategy formation. In:
CAMPBELL, S. & FAINSTEIN, S. (eds.) Readings in Planning Theory. Oxford: Blackwell.
HILLIER, J. & HEALEY, P. 2008. Contemporary Movements in Planning Theory, Aldershot, Ashgate.
LEFEBVRE, H. 1996. Writings on Cities, Oxford, Blackwell.
MERLEAU-PONTY, M. 2012. Phenomenology of Perception, New York Routledge.
MITCHELL, D. 2003. The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space, New York, Guilford.
PAPADOPOULOS, Y. 2007. Problems of Democratic Accountability in Network and Multilevel Governance. European Law
Journal, 13, 469-486.
RHODES, R. A. W. 1996. The New Governance: Governing without Government. Political Studies, XLIV, 652-667.
SEHESTED, K. 2009. Urban Planners as Network Managers and Metagovernors. Planning Theory and Practice, 10, 245-263.
SOJA, E. 2010. Seeking Spatial Justice, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.

58. This presentation is available at
www.issuu.com/robertorocco
Prepared by Roberto Rocco
Chair of Spatial Planning and Strategy,
TU Delft
for information, please contact r.c.rocco@tudelft.nl