Innovation in planning: creating and securing public value

ABSTRACT

Innovation is a much hyped term and yet is difficult to define. In planning, this difficulty is partly explained by the ‘wicked’ nature of many planning problems and the complexities of evaluating diverse, often long-term cultural, social and environmental outcomes; but also because innovation is often associated with the economic. Explicitly expanding the concept of innovation to foreground non-financial outcomes helps the planning discipline understand the complex ways planning actions make novel, positive contributions to societal goals. An idea of public value helps evaluate how innovation in spatial planning provides benefits beyond private individuals. The concept is mobilized to test a framework of innovation in planning that underpins an empirical review. The framework and the wider review highlights five features present in innovative planning that delivers public value.

KEYWORDS:

• Public value
• innovation
• spatial planning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 This work was supported by the Royal Town Planning Institute.

2 We do not mean to imply that collaborative processes are some kind of ‘magic bullet’ to ensure success of an innovation; only that collaboration between multiple stakeholders is an inherent part of any innovative planning intervention. Such collaboration is likely to be surrounded by critique from those not included and there could also be substantial disagreements among those involved. Such critique is often part of the creative environment within which progressive innovations are developed and sustained, though it may become the basis for mobilising resistance to change. Not all collaborative processes, of course, are progressive in either intent or outcome.

3 The full report is available at http://www.rtpi.org.uk/knowledge/research/projects/small-project-impact-research-spire-scheme/success-and-innovation-in-planning