Planning in/for/with the Public
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Date
2016-03-18Author
Strohmayer, Ulf
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Recommended Citation
Ulf Strohmayer (2016) 'Planning in/for/with the Public'. Urban Planning, 1 (1):55-58.
Abstract
Urban planning in general, and discursively motivated
practices attaching to urban form in particular, are beholden
in many ways to notions of a ‘public’. In fact, it
would not be an exaggeration to say that urban planners
continue to grapple with the idea and reality of
the ‘public’ in many relevant contexts. It is also one of
those terms that are customarily invoked when urban
planning makes headlines in different media: from concerns
over ‘public’ access to public consultation processes,
from normative practices embedded in a ‘public
sphere’ to public relations, from ‘public sector’ involvement
through ‘public’ policy to the everyday concerns of
‘public’ housing and ‘public’ transport—the notion of
something ‘public’ marks a dimension we as planning
practitioners or theoreticians (or both) ignore at our individual
and collective peril. This brief intervention aims
to illuminate the outer contours of this ‘grappling’ in an
attempt to open up future productive conversations in
the pages of Urban Planning. There are at least three
aspects of ‘the public’ that concern us here.