Values, Networking and the Hybrid Planner

As a young local authority planner in the late 1980s, I was struck by the role of football (soccer) in planning practice. Not only were discussions, or at least heavily loaded comments, about football an important part of the day-to-day relationships within the office and with other departments, they were an often predictable element in the opening of new negotiations with external stakeholders and in the “small talk” that oiled sandwich lunches and developed interactions. It was not a wholly male domain or some of my few female colleagues were impressively knowledgeable and enthusiastic, although they did not, as far as I recall, participate in inter-departmental derbys or seven-aside leagues. On all scores, however, I sensed that I was at a networking disadvantage.

These were only a fraction of the memories of urban planning practice that were stirred as I read “The Power of the Ornithologists”, Jan Olsson's account and analysis of network processes in the development of policy for the expansion of the Swedish city of Orebro. In developing and promoting either land use or integrated management strategies, the shifting landscapes of language, allegiances, active communication and decision making (punctuated by what I found to be excruciatingly frustrating intervals of political and organisational hiatus) demanded reflection. At the same time, while I was developing a strong sense of “community” with my fellow planners, I was also aware of profound tensions within that community about what we were trying to do. Often I found myself caught between colleagues with strong environmental conservation convictions and those who were driven by deeply held beliefs in social equity and a passion for fairness in, for instance, decent housing or improved economic opportunities for more vulnerable sections of the community. I confess that for me, with a background in the biological sciences and a socially cultivated empathy for “the underdog”, the opportunity that planning offered was to find and broker the “win-win” solutions. But I began to realise that I needed more information and stronger analytical tools to make sense of, or at least to comprehend, the processes I was dealing with both within and outwith the doors of the planning office.

Olsson's description of the genesis, development and outcomes of two contrasting approaches to the redevelopment of former waste disposal and industrial land on the shores of the nearby lake prompted recall of comparable experiences in the redevelopment of coastal land in Scotland, where, in contrast to the Swedish example, the “traditional” approach to development appeared to maintain a stronger hold. His analysis of policy change charts the success of a “community-based”, environmentalist approach over an, initially “council-led”, traditional, development approach. He highlights that such changes involved complex networking processes. These included not only political or governance networks but also “value networks”. The latter are not formed specifically to influence policy but they are, nonetheless, immensely influential. In this case the persuasive value network was made up of those with a passion for bird-watching, whether government officials, teachers, journalists, or even politicians. Olsson tracks the way in which the optimum bird-watching outcome, the restoration of grazed meadows, overcomes not only proposals for housing and road-building but also other forms of landscaping, amenity and ecological management. Their argument is, however, framed in terms of ecological modernisation, offering a “win-win” situation that chimed politically with the wider objectives of the city government to meet national sustainability commitments. This approach proved instrumental in achieving outcomes that had their roots in a much narrower agenda. The crux was that the value network enabled key actors to have crucial information and agenda-setting power.

“Heritage”, whether built, cultural or natural, is a powerful concept that is constructed, used, reconstructed and reused by social groups to create both internal and external order. Michael Leary's paper involves a focus on the built heritage but again reveals the workings of value networks. A personal journey into the National Archive allowed him to piece together the development of policy that underpinned the regeneration of the Castlefield area in the city of Manchester. Once a pulse point of the Industrial Age, and the site of the first passenger train station in the world, Castlefield was an area so derelict that its name had slid from the records. Unearthed records revealed the coalition of amenity society activists, politicians, civil servants, journalists and railway enthusiasts who combined over a period of some ten years to counter the proposals of the City Corporation and British Rail. The latter are described as being “united in frugality” with “a minimalist conservation ethic”. The historic station and its surroundings were destined for demolition and redevelopment for housing. Now the station is an iconic feature of modern Manchester, reincarnated as the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry.

Leary's account of the reconstruction of the area's identity is set in terms of Lefebvre's Spatial Triad: an exploration of the relationship between spaces of representation (as perceived by different actors and networks), the representation of spaces (in policy and development plans) and spatial practice (the actual physical and social uses of an area). Lefebvre's basic proposition is that the production of new urban space involves the interaction of “strategies of power” and “counter-plans” or “counter-projects”, i.e. conflicting spaces of representation. Leary argues that this is core territory for the urban planner and that such analysis sheds light on the relationships between physical, institutional and social dynamics that are all too often treated separately, to the detriment of planning practice. The use of the framework encourages practitioners to engage with different kinds of urban knowledge and perspectives.

Meirav Aharon-Gutman brings a city-wide case study from Israel to add to our consideration of conflicting kinds of urban knowledge. The construction of the city of Ashdod on the shores of the Mediterranean began in the late 1950s. Based on a modernist blueprint, its layout reflected spaces of representation founded on perceptions of the city as efficient living machine. Such a city was designed to create the efficient citizen. Into this world flowed waves of immigrants from North Africa, South America and the former Soviet Union. Aharon-Gutman describes the effects of spatial practice by these new residents on the fabric of the town. They created, and continue to create, spaces of representation for ways of life and community that allow them to draw on their cultural experience in what is often “a real war for existence” in the face of economic hardship and competition. Thus, for instance, we are transported to a “shopping centre” incorporating the informality, illegality, unpredictability, diversity and community activity of a bazaar. The evolution of other areas demonstrates a series of different identities created by their user communities, despite the retention of their basic physical structures and layout. It is a vivid illustration of the transience and mutability of twentieth- and twenty-first-century urban landscapes.

The Interface section also picks up the theme of the relationship between urban heritage and economic development. This time however, the focus is on Chinese experience. As Healey has emphasised in earlier editions of this journal, there is reason to “treat with critical caution the battery of ‘vision’ concepts and ‘exemplar experiences’ that circulate all too rapidly within the international sphere” (Planning Theory and Practice 7(4)). However, such concepts do have transnational currency and their assumption of new and, sometimes subtly, different lives within different contexts, can be illuminating as well as seductive. Thus, for instance, Mee Kam Ng, in her introduction, quotes the assertion of Charles Landry, coiner of “creative cities”, that cultural resources are “the raw materials of the city and its value base.” But what processes decide whose culture and whose values influence the development of the city and, in doing so, the nature of citizenship?

Like Ashdod, Shengzhen is also a new city of migrants, having grown from 0.31 million residents in 1978 to between 8.5 and 13 million today (depending on whose statistics are used). The development of the official interpretation of heritage suggests that it is valued both as a significant determinant of place making by the city government and as a city marketing tool. In this context the concept of living heritage is being developed: valued buildings and monuments of recent years (less than 10 years old) are being designated as heritage buildings. As discussed elsewhere in this volume, the question of how such values are identified and how contested values are resolved must be a key area of planning research and a key question for practice. In Shanghai, where immense development pressures are impacting on a rich built heritage, within some of the densest urban areas in the world, such questions are generating an argument for incrementalism: a view of the nature of urban functions as too complex and too inherently valuable to be easily replaced and recreated. The role of planning as mediation of space and making of place is beautifully illustrated as being both essential and inescapably problematic.

These case studies are a rich context against which to consider Ernest Alexander's reflections on the evaluation of planning outcomes. He argues that evaluation simply cannot function without reference to “some form of contingent and context-specific norms”. Indeed this was the compelling message of the recent study of spatial planning outcomes evaluation in England that was carried out by Wong et al. (2008) on behalf of the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Royal Town Planning Institute. As Alexander explains, different contexts give different answers to the question “what is this planning for?” Evaluations are not purely rational processes but have tangible, conflicting, political drivers and consequences. Wong et al.'s proposed solution was the explicit recognition of both local objectives and the interactive interpretation of indicators in the design of evaluation frameworks. Frameworks that allow interactive interpretation and dialogue as the basis of policy assessment and review offer a compromise between the inherently political, value-driven processes of planning and its drive to create consensus around functional representations of space. This supports Alexander's conclusion that evaluation should enable all relevant stakeholders to discuss “what is planning for” in their specific spatial jurisdictions.

At the same time, Karina Sehested's examination of the role of the planner (in this case, in Denmark) raises issues that are likely to be familiar to practitioners in the United Kingdom at least. Certainly, they will recognise the characteristics of management by objectives, contract management and financial framework agreements that have increasingly dominated their role both within local authorities and wider strategic partnerships. Sehested explicitly sets out to explore how urban planners themselves not only interpret their role in the face of change but also how they themselves shape this changing role. In doing so, she attempts to reveal the underlying attitudes and values of a particular cohort of Danish planners: in this case, all educated as “urban architects” with 15 to 25 years of experience in planning. Their views of how the role of the planner has changed over that time emphasise the move from comprehensive planning and regulation of land use towards goal setting in complex, politicised contexts and the coordination of actors. This resonates strongly, for instance, with UK planning policy's increasing emphasis on “visioning” and integration over the same period. However, Sehested also explores to what extent they cast themselves as “professional strategist”, “manager”, “market planner” or “process planner” in relation to the broad range of planning tasks they face. The result is “hybrid planners”: professionals assuming most or all of these roles in their working lives. Each role represents contrasting sets of values: professionalism, municipal democracy, market efficiency and inclusive democracy. These have corresponding knowledge areas, networks and behaviours. Indeed, the breadth and complexity of roles involved suggests that, increasingly, professionalism in planning depends on team-building around specialist roles and skills. Even where professional and communications resources are not an issue, however, Sehested suggests that the pace and nature of change demands that planners urgently need to undertake “more strategic network participation” in order to coordinate their roles.

This volume has ensured that the contribution of football to planning outcomes now seems very clear to me: football discussions and activities acted as networking tools that enabled communication across other networks and coalitions and were inclusive of many identities. While I do not intend to explore the values that are associated with a passion for football or allegiances to a team, it seems fair to suggest that these tools also acted effectively to exclude, whether consciously or not. Conscious awareness and exploration of different identities, conflicting values and consequences for unequal influence on the outcomes of planning is, however, a critical challenge for the “hybrid” twenty-first century planning community, in both practice and research.