This book addresses the social, functional and symbolic dimensions of urban space in today's world. The twelve essays are grouped in three parts, ranging from a conceptual framework to case descriptions rich with illustrations. They provide a valuable service in exploring the nature and significance of social space and particular aspects of its contemporary distribution and contestation. The book addresses a topic that is intrinsically interdisciplinary. Questions of space are examined from a rich variety of disciplinary perspectives in a welcome range from urban planning to political philosop.
One of the most influential theories of justice in planning theory and practice has been, without doubt, that of John Rawls. The very idea of the just city is indebted to Rawls's view. However, the way in which Rawlsian theory of justice has been imported into planning often seems debatable. This article aims to discuss this aspect critically. The objective is not merely to discuss certain planning approaches inspired by Rawls; it is also to investigate, in more general terms, what meaning and role (any theory of) justice could and should have for planning and urban policies. In revisiting John Rawls's view, the article is structured around two points: first, a critical discussion on how Rawls's theory of justice has been generally applied to urban policies and planning; second, an exploration of an alternative way to interpret and apply certain Rawlsian insights (often undervalued) in this field. The article is not intended to defend and recommend Rawls's normative theory as a whole (i.e. in its entirety), but to evidence certain Rawlsian contributions of a general nature that are particularly important. Nor is it the aim of this article to contribute directly to the development of a specific substantive idea of the just city; instead, it is to highlight fundamental methodological and analytical caveats that are crucial in this regard. Rather than a "theory of the just city", this article develops a "meta-theory of the just city": that is, an approach specifying precautions and conditions for any coherent and convincing just city theory.
In the fields of planning theory and human geography, there is a growing discussion of the just city. The impression is that in order to continue the discussion of the crucial issue of the just city, certain methodological considerations and precautions are necessary. The article is focused on three in particular: (a) (urban) institutions as the first subject of justice, (b) the incomplete overlap between social justice and distributive justice, (c) the distinction between the concept and the conceptions of social justice. The impression is that these three issues are not always recognised, or at least not always to the fullest extent, in the current debate in planning theory.
In the field of planning theory the discussion often seems to assume that all problems – for example, ethical or political ones – pertain to a single level or dimension. In fact, different and clearly separate "levels", which raise problems of different kinds, can be distinguished. A "multi-level" approach therefore seems necessary. The underlying idea is that it is essential to distinguish more sharply between two analytical levels: the constitutional and post-constitutional levels. These levels are here understood mainly as analytical levels; that is, as standpoints that anyone can – at any time and even only hypothetically – assume to posit certain problems at the appropriate level and treat them by acknowledging the argumentative requirements suited to that level. This article uses such a multi-level approach to address three fundamental and currently much debated problems of planning theory and practice: the issue of "agonistic pluralism"; the issue of "public interest"; the question of "private ownership (of land)". The contribution of this article falls within the neoinstitutionalist approaches to planning. The belief is that these approaches are shedding new light on planning problems and that research in this direction should be expanded. In this regard, this article attempts to make a contribution to this research perspective especially in analytical and methodological terms.
The purpose of this article is to explore what kind of (land-use) regulation is more compatible with a radical acceptance of the idea of the complexity of socio-spatial systems and of the intrinsic limits of explanation and prediction. The article applies insights from complexity sciences to planning practice, critically comparing different land-use regulatory instruments (in particular, patterning-instruments and framework-instruments). The main result and conclusion is that it is necessary to embrace the challenge of complexity and self-organisation, and consequently to start profound revision of regulatory instruments.
It is often held that planning theory has little influence on planning practice. Some speak of an evident 'theory-practice gap'. In reality, the opposite seems to be the case. The so-called 'theorypractice gap' is not the main issue at all; the real question is 'which theory for what kind of practice'? Assuming this view, the article presents two different theories of public regulation: the teleocratic approach and the nomocratic approach.They can be interpreted as general approaches regarding the role of the state, but the article focus particularly on the consequences of accepting them in the specific field of land-use regulation. For the teleocratic approach, planning must be the central and most important instrument of land-use regulation, while for the nomocratic approach planning has only a secondary role and different kind of regulative instruments are proposed.
As is well known, many social sciences have recently attempted a sort of 'institutional turn' by recognizing the centrality of the institutional framework, when dealing with social and economic phenomena. Interest in such an approach has also begun to emerge in planning theory. But the passage from understanding the decisive role of institutional frameworks to suggesting how to design and modify those frameworks, is sometimes, in planning literature, overly simplistic and still somewhat 'engineeristic'. I believe that this institutional turn could be of considerable importance for planning theory and practice, although it is perhaps better not to adopt a strictly 'instrumentalist' view of institutions and to recognize the marked specificity of them that calls for a more prudent and 'evolutionary' approach.
The article aims to demonstrate that neither the British planning system nor Continental planning systems adhere perfectly to the classical (liberal) ideal of the rule of law. It suggests a different approach to the regulation of land use more in line with this ideal, based on the assumption that it is not only relevant but also one that cannot be renounced. The objective is to show that the more complex an (urban) system becomes, the greater is the need for abstract, general and end-independent rules to favour a sort of beneficial, spontaneous order — self-coordinating and polycentric — of individual actions.
