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Abstract
Footnote1Plans are among the most durable products of planning, and as such offer a revealing window into the worlds of the planners of their time. In this paper we set out a methodology for viewing those worlds using critical discourse analysis (CDA). This method focuses on four key textual features of plans: construal of substance, construction of agency, generic structure, and presentation. Together they enable the investigator to go beyond thematic discourses and uncover the institutional, political and ideological role of planning during the time period in which plans are produced. We use this method to interrogate the changing rationalities governing planning in Western Australia (WA) since the Second World War by analysing the four major city plans for Perth, covering a period from 1955 to 2010. This longitudinal analysis suggests that planning in WA mirrors concurrent trends in international planning theory, and highlights the significance of “the plan” as an object of inquiry for revealing the changing nature of planning and planners over time.
Notes
1. Thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the draft of this paper. Thanks also to Garry Middle and Curtin's Planning Theory students of 2005–2006, who participated in this exercise when it was first conceived, and thereby helped us to develop the idea.
2. Fairclough, adopting a critical realist approach (2003; Fairclough et al., Citation2004) rejects the characterization of texts as solely performative; he maintains a distinction between texts' construal of the social world and their construction of it, reflecting an ongoing concern with the dialectics of structure and agency.
3. The review report dealt with the reasons for the change in a small number of dot points (six negative, five positive) pointing out costs and opposition from residents (Review Group, Citation1987, p. 99). The alternative corridor was dissected by the policy-protected agricultural area of the Swan Valley, and became the subject of extensive consultation and lobbying efforts throughout the 1990s (see Healey & Hillier, Citation1996; Hillier, Citation2000, Citation2002).
4. The scope of the plan included the Peel region to the south of the city because Perth had grown significantly since the early 1990s and had encompassed the regional town of Mandurah in the Peel region.
5. Following the consultation phase, it was considered that 2031 was an appropriate planning horizon, but that the state also needed to look “beyond that date to ensure that the city is able to respond in a sustainable way to longer term growth pressures” (State of WA, Citation2010, p. v). The document's subtitle, “metropolitan planning beyond the horizon”, is strangely reminiscent of Jean Hillier's (Citation2007) poststructuralist theory of planning.
6. The report goes further, presenting explicitly the planning methodology, including the systematic elimination of less desirable alternative solutions.
7. The report differs significantly from the Corridor Plan, in that the MRPA is present throughout as an active actor, thinker, feeler, speaker. The authority's agency—their responsibility for the decision to endorse the Plan and reject the Ritter report—is openly stated. Still, the actual new government (as opposed to its institutions, parliament and cabinet) remains invisible here.
8. Even where recommendations are material processes, these tend to be “soft”, abstract rather than concrete: “collaborate”, “consolidate”, “develop strategies”, etc.
9. Metroplan is certainly substantially different from the draft Metropolitan Strategy (Review Group, Citation1987), which is explicitly written by individual planners according to a stated process of data collection, objectives development, and analysis of alternative strategies. The 1987 report also lacks the fancy presentation of Metroplan; it is printed in a single colour and its graphics are limited to spatial and tabulated presentation of data and projections.