Theories of Spatial Interventions hoorcollege notities

TSI hoorcolleges



Hoorcollege 1:

 Problems in a space differ per stakeholder – different opinions
o Different opinions
 Power and authority problem (post politics)

Ecomodernity: modernist approach to A->B problem

- Expert planner
o No opinions of people that use the space
- State
o Nation
- Public government – core idea
o Has experts that decide what to do with the space
o Powerful, strong and at level of nation state
 Make big projects real

Strategy: planning approach to deal with problems of public planning
approach

- Lack of money and authority: problem
- Public -> private
- Government cannot realize plans
- Strategic planning as solution

Institutions: frameworks that shape planning

- Regulations
o Not design or expert knowledge
- Useful tools to afford certain things

Post politics: participation does not work, alternative ways of politics

- Power
- Static planning due to different stakeholders with different power

Degrowth: respond to specific circumstances of today

- Planetary limits
- Wellbeing problems
- Climate change

Communication, conflict, exclusion, futures, complexity and punctual-
urbanism: different dimensions of planning that are always there

,  Spatial planning: the theory that we use to take collective decisions
and implement them directly affects the space that is produced
o Space <-> collective action
 Collective action: project of organizing
 Different subjects that coordinate themselves and
mobilize resources to solve problems
o Decisions based on that assumption




Hoorcollege 2:

, Modernist thinking
o The way we think: rationalism
 Human rationalism
 Human as center of the world
o How the space looks: functionalism
 Division of functions in land
 Clarification of borders (functions)
 Methods of taking collective decisions and implement them
o Planning is the process by which the expert selects a course of
action (set of means) for attainment of their ends
o Good planning: these means are likely to attain the ends or
maximize the chances of their attainment (efficiency)
o It is by the process of rational choice that the best adaptation
of means to ends is likely to be achieved
 The roots of modern planning
o Antropocentrism (human as center)
o Effiency and expert-led
o Nation state and government led (political power/ authority
over the economy)
o Techno-driven (state-innovation)
o Colonial roots (planning industrial politics)
 Generally guided by a moral (public) imperative to
guarantee a certain ‘standard’ of livability based on
historically defined preconceptions of how people ‘want
to live’
 Assumption: the expert ‘knows’ how people want to live
 The modern rational plan
o 1. Analysis of a situation
 Resources at disposal
 Authority and power conditions
o 2. End reduction and elaboration
 Images of the future
 Real life goals -> wanted and unwanted effects
o 3. Design a course of action
 Operational steps (investment plans)
 Strategic steps (values, principles, broad directions)
o 4. Comparative evaluation of consequences
 Check results, wanted and unwanted
 Define acceptable risks
 -
 Two major critiques

, o The agreement about a goal is and should be (almost)
impossible
 Politics
o The capacity and conditions to intervene are context and
situation specific and they are not given
 Power and institutions
 10 points in paper: Rittel & Webber
 Efficiency vs. justice
o X
o X
o X
 Planning
 Ecology vs. equity vs. economy/ livability
o Campbell
o Godschalk




 Bioregionalism
o It can be effective to visualize sustainable regions within an
interdependent world full of trade, migration, information flows
and capital flows