Planning the sustainable city: The hegemonic logics of planning agencies and the importance of equitable representation in green city planning

Keywords: sustainability, planning, post-politics, equity, democratic representation
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 08:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 09:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 11

Abstract

Over the last decade, critical approaches and perspectives have been developed that re-cast green cities as politically contested and controversial. The post-political critique and the critique of inequitable representation has shed light on the suppression of dissent and the exclusion of voices, bodies, and opinions from the process of planning the sustainable city. Central to many analyses is the critique of the perfidious promise of a stage-managed green political consensus in city planning. In this analysis we explore the broader implications of post-political technocratic planning practices. We emphasize on the common planning practice of city councils assigning planning agencies and teams with responsibility for the technical elaboration and practical implementation of sustainability policies and plans. This work is often based on a pre-defined catalogue of procedures and measurements. Often private planning agencies are based in different cities, such as Berlin, Copenhagen, Vancouver and others; often planners proceed without extensive consideration of place-specific circumstances and concerns. Drawing on experiences from an urban mobility living-lab that aims at experimenting with new forms of sustainable car/bicycle interaction in the city of Münster, and from a recent program to re-plan established neighbourhoods in Calgary, we argue that inadequate democratic representation and the post-politicization of planning often works at cross purposes to cities’ declared sustainability objectives.