Critical Planning Futures

Philip Allmendinger is Professor of Land Economy and Pro-Vice Chancellor, Education at the University of London, UK.Mark Tewdwr-Jones is Professor of Cities and Regions at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, UK.Matthew Wargent is a lecturer in Urban Planning and Development at Cardiff University, UK.

‘Planning theory needs to be recurrently challenged and unsettled to avoid becoming ossified and to remain relevant. This volume provides thought-provoking contributions that challenge taken-for-granted truths and contribute a much-needed radical edge to contemporary debates in the field.’Jonathan Metzger, Professor of Urban and Regional Studies, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden‘This timely and well-curated collection of papers brings together contributions from many parts of the world to critically engage with alternative ways of thinking in and about planning, and to highlight some important areas that have yet to be interrogated by planning scholars. It is a welcome sequel to the 2002 Planning Futures, offering a wider range of perspectives from the flourishing international field of planning theories and practices.’Simin Davoudi, Professor, School of Architecture, Planning & Landscape, Newcastle University, UK’Why is planning theory "tolerated by planning academics, endured by students, and ignored by practitioners?" Drawing on a wide geographic and disciplinary range of voices, this timely collection both enriches current debates, while charting possible new and creative trajectories for the future.’Julian Agyeman, Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, Tufts University, USA"A core strength of the volume is its intellectual depth, cross-disciplinary borrowing, and breadth of applied settings....Taken with cases from Nepal, Australia, Mexico, India, and Bangladesh, the book does not merely globalize planning, it demonstrates how non-Western cases can recalibrate core ideas on justice, understanding unsettled populations, and refugee placemaking....This collection delivers on its ambition, inviting planners in training and practice to rethink the 'story of planning' we tell ourselves."Sarah L. Hofmeyer, University of Iowa, Review for the Journal of Planning Education and Research"Critical Planning Futures represents [the authors'] attempt to confront the discipline, especially as practiced within the academy, with itself, with the aim of pushing us beyond our anxieties and out of our comfort zones, so that we might once again clearly engage with where we want to go and how we are going to get there....Ultimately, Critical Planning Futures is a satisfying collection, and anyone with an interest in planning theory or critically minded research will find something of interest within it. The editors are clear that it is neither a textbook nor a comprehensive survey but rather a showcase of some of the most dynamic and potentially fruitful avenues of current thinking and it works well in this regard."Jason Slade, Lecturer in Planning, University of Sheffield, review for Planning Perspectives

• 1. Critical planning futures 2. The ongoing unsettlement of planning thought: The difference that Settler-Colonial and Critical Indigenous Theory make 3. Environment planning after decolonial critique: On politics of knowledge, freedom, and future 4. Learning from the ‘south’: Towards a postcolonial narrative and understanding of informality 5. Refugeescapes in planning theory: Refugee placemaking in Dhaka and Delhi 6. Narrative approaches for Twenty-First Century planning 7. The epistemic limits of planning participation 8. A trek from instrumental and communicative rationality to emotional and symbolic involvement in urban planning and design 9. Planning from a systems perspective at the frontier: Complexity in the past and present 10. Ruptures and departures: an Emancipatory perspective on planning and technology 11. The mistreatment of time in planning theory: Towards planning beyond the clock in a world increasingly out-of-sync 12. Think far futures, act now: Reclaiming distant futures in planning education and practice 13. Epilogue: In search of planning theory