On Episode 124 of A is for Architecture Graham Haughton and Iain White tell me about their excellent book, Why Plan? Theory for Practitioners, published by Lund Humphries in 2019.
On the reason for theory for planning, Graham suggests: ‘ to a certain extent, theories sometimes can make reality. […] you could argue that some of Patsy Healy's work around collaborative and communicative planning, of new ways of trying to engage with communities in the planning process, by bringing them, giving them the knowledge to be able to debate with planners on an equal footing, really important in remaking planning. […] So at one level, in a way, we inadvertently, I think, have helped change practice by highlighting what was happening, trying to understanding it, not just as a separate theory, but through different theoretical lenses, using neoliberalism, using postpolitics and other kind of theoretical insights, to understand what this phenomenon that we were observing was.’
Iain is Professor of Environmental Planning at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Graham is Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at the University of Manchester, UK
Thanks for listening.
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Music credits: Bruno Gillick
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