Hacking: field notes for adaptive urban planning in uncertain times

ABSTRACT

Planning systems rely on an element of certainty and can sometimes be ill-equipped to creatively adapt to increasingly complex system trajectories. We analyse how designers and planners deal creatively with a statutory planning system that is increasingly being challenged by the progressive complexity of the broader social-ecological system in which it operates. Taking Sydney, Australia, as a case study and drawing from six interviews with senior planners and designers, we explore planning barriers and the strategies used to address these barriers. While many of the strategies are useful and appropriate, what seemed more significant were some of the creative methods employed to repurpose strategies in relatively modest but more adaptive ways. We propose to refer to this as ‘hacking’ and discuss how planners and designers might successfully hack the planning system within its current (legal) boundaries.

KEYWORDS:

• Strategic planning
• complexity
• resilience
• adaptive planning
• hacking

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all interviewees for their participation. We also thank our two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. We thank Heather MacDonald and Martin Bryant for their respective reviews of earlier versions of the manuscript. We are indebted to Egbert Stolk for his contributions to the conception of the article.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).