Planning Practice

Critical Perspectives from the UK

Jessica Ferm, John Tomaney

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351203296
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

Planning Practice: Critical Perspectives from the UK provides the only comprehensive overview of contemporary planning practice in the UK. Drawing on contributions from leading researchers in the field, it examines the tools, contexts and outcomes of planning practice. Part I examines planning processes and tools, and the extent to which theory and practice diverge, covering plan-making, Development Management, planning gain, public engagement and place-making. Part II examines the changing contexts within which planning practice takes place, including privatisation and deregulation, devolution and multi-level governance, increased ethnic and social diversity, growing environmental concerns and the changing nature of commercial real estate. Part III focuses on how planning practice produces outcomes for the built environment in relation to housing, infrastructure, economic progress, public transport and regeneration. The book considers what it means to be a reflective practitioner in the modern planning system, the constraints and opportunities that planners face in their daily work, and the ethical and political challenges they must confront.

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1 Introduction

Contexts and Frameworks for Contemporary Planning Practice

John Tomaney and Jessica Ferm

Introduction

Historically, planning practice occurred on behalf of the state within relatively closed national borders and in a context where technocratic modernism gave planners and planning authorities a high degree of power to shape private enterprise in order to achieve their objectives. In many democratic societies in the Global North, they were criticised for the way they exercised their power. Faga (2010: 235) suggests:

From the 1930s to the 1950s, master builders, such as New York’s Robert Moses, envisioned great plans and built them with little debate or discussion. Many of these plans were highly disruptive, displacing people and neighborhoods for the sake of highways, infrastructure, and new development. The community did not have a voice in these planning decisions, and those who tried to speak up were quickly and effectively silenced.

(see also Caro, 1974; Jacobs, 1961)

In the UK, similar criticisms were levelled at planners by sociologists who saw large scale post-war planning programmes concerned with ‘slum clearance’ and ‘comprehensive redevelopment’ as overriding the interest of local communities in the cause of modernisation (Dennis, 1970, 1972; Davies, 1972). The experience of planning practice in the comprehensive redevelopment of cities gives weight to the criticism that planning has not always operated with a strong sense of the wider public interest (Caro, 1974; Jacobs, 1961).

The untrammelled power of planning has long gone. Today, local (and central) government planners operate in systems of governance “in which boundaries between and within the public and private sectors have become blurred” (Stoker, 1998: 17). At the urban and regional scale, government is institutionally, economically and politically constrained, and increasingly, local and regional governments are compelled to act with other players to deliver development within multi-level governance systems. Across the Global North, the local state is enrolled in urban growth machines or local growth coalitions (Logan and Molotch, 2007; Stone, 1989) which are concerned with “blending public and private resources” in ways that enhance corporate power (Peters and Pierre, 2012: 74) and raise important questions about accountability and democratic control.

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The aim of this book is to chart the terrain of contemporary planning practice and the complexities planners face in the regulation and management of land use and the production of the built environment. The contemporary practice of planning involves multiple actors. These include professional planners, in the public and private sectors, but also developers, citizens, corporations, non-governmental organisations, politicians, the media and others. It occurs in specific historical, legal and cultural contexts. It is shaped by – and contributes to – the transformation of social and economic structures. At the same time, planning practice is affected by shifts in academic understandings, which are themselves embedded in the broader societal contexts within which they are produced and consumed. Planning practice is embedded within and interacts with forms of private enterprise that reflect particular varieties of capitalism. It is a political activity that mobilises, mediates and regulates interests in the use of land and property. Planning practice occurs in a context in which transformation of the built environment is accelerating and the very purposes of planning are subject to ideological challenge both from the neo-liberal right, where it is often seen as a damaging constraint on private interests, and from the left, where it is viewed as an instrument of corporate interests. The practice of planning occurs in a political climate where its value is openly challenged. Processes of decentralisation and devolution mean that planning occurs increasingly within structures of multi-level governance.

The planner is critically concerned with identifying, animating and mediating between different interests in the development process, giving rise to the need for multiple skills. In the late 1980s, Thomas and Healey (1991) identified five role models for planners as social reformer, public bureaucrat, intermediator, policy analyst and urban development manager. A critique of planners, particularly their technocratic approach, led to a substantial body of research around communicative planning and notions of public participation (Forester, 1999; Healey, 1997). As Ted Kitchen (2007: 241) writes in his book Skills for Planning Practice:

I have seen during my professional lifetime a substantial shift in thinking away from the idea that planners know best by virtue of the fact that they are the planners and it is their job to know the best, and towards the idea that planning is about adding value to the ways people experience places by working with them to improve those places.

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This conception of the planner as a ‘deliberative practitioner’ (Forester, 1999), communicator and collaborator (Healey, 1997) contrasts with other depictions of the planner that have emerged in literature on the relationship between planning and property. Early critique suggested that planners are willing collaborators in the capitalist project in order to enhance land values and increase the competitiveness of their localities (Smith, 1986, 2002), thereby supporting the urban growth-machine (Logan and Molotch, 2007). A more nuanced view of planners has emerged since, however, portraying planners as “parties to a structural dilemma” who can use their regulatory power to “decommodify space and extract broad based benefits” (Wolf-Powers, 2005: 381). The crafting of land use plans by local authority planners in order to increase the scope for planning gain when departures from the plan are subsequently allowed was documented by Edwards (1990). However, the dependence of planners on private development to secure social and community benefits has increased substantially as public funding for infrastructure and public services has decreased, so that we are now, Rydin (2013) argues, in an era of ‘growth-dependent planning’. Whereas planners may previously have acted primarily to enforce controls that shield lower-yielding activities from market forces, they are now left with little option but to support the principle of the highest and best use, with the aim of securing as much public benefit as possible from the property-led development that takes place. Despite this, public sector planners still have a strong sense of public service and working for the ‘greater good’ (Clifford and Tewdwr-Jones, 2013). One of the aims of this book is therefore to work towards a theory (or theories) of planning practice which navigates these different conceptions of planners and planning practice, in the context of the global processes of economic, political and environmental change, the austerity state and a hostile ideological framework in the UK within which planners work.

Planning developed as a profession during the 20th century with distinctive forms of education and accreditation, associations, hierarchies and, latterly, ethical statements. However, since planning as a practice is a political activity and occurs within a framework of legislation that is constantly changing, planning education necessarily shies away from arming its students with knowledge that is likely to be out of date once they graduate. Students who study planning are often only exposed to the very real challenges and dilemmas of planning practice when they start working in the field. In addition, many of those working in or impacted by planning have had no formal planning education at all. Even those graduates with accredited planning degrees will find that there are contrasts between the theory of planning and planning practice itself, between how people think planning is done and how it actually is done.

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The aim of this book is to explore some of these contrasts, and to reflect upon the challenges and dilemmas that confront contemporary planning practice and its practitioners. In doing so, we reflect on the adequacies and limitations of existing theories of planning practice, and point to future directions for theoretical inquiry. In this chapter, we consider the contemporary social, economic, political and ideological contexts within which planning occurs. First, we look in general terms at the contemporary global contexts and challenges to planning practice, identifying some ideological and structural conditions that frame the space for planning. Second, we pay particular attention to the frameworks within which British planning occurs. Third, we set out the contemporary case for planning and what this means for the profession and practitioners. One emerging theme is that the case for planning is by no means widely agreed. Finally, we outline the remainder of the book, which comprises a series of chapters that address the different dimensions of contemporary planning practice.

Frameworks of Planning Practice

The practice of planning occurs in an intellectual and political atmosphere where its very value is called into question. The notion that planning is a hindrance in the promotion of economic development is suggested by both academics and policy-makers. Edward Glaeser argues in The Triumph of the City (2012) that planning restrictions, such as the protection of historic landmarks, zoning regulations, building height limits and Green Belts, have impeded the development of cities, which are the prime sources of potential productivity improvements in the economy. Local land use policies are blamed by some economists for raising the cost of land purchases and the prices of residential and commercial property and impeding urban growth in places as diverse as Boston and New York, the Randstad and the UK, while cities such as Houston which have abandoned zoning are offered as success stories of urban development (Cheshire and Hilber, 2008; Cheshire and Shepperd, 2002; Glaeser, 2012; Glaeser and Ward, 2009; Robert-Nicoud and Hilber, 2013; Vermeulen and van Ommeren, 2009). Some political scientists view planning not as a rational means of mediating conflicting interests in the use of land, but as a vehicle for professional, bureaucratic and vested interests (Pennington, 2002, 2005). Another version of this argument suggests that society and economy are now too complex to plan, and that the planning profession is founded on ‘hubris’ (Cheshire, 2006; Webster and Lai, 2003).

Alongside the ideological challenge to planning, accelerating processes of economic and social change are transforming the context within which it occurs. Increasing global movements of people, firms, commodities, capital, culture and ideas are transforming cities and regions. Powerful global cities, which contain the command and control functions of the world economy, can coexist with shrinking post-industrial cities within the same national boundaries. The sources of capital in cities and regions in the Global North are increasingly diverse, originating in China, the Gulf, South East Asia and elsewhere. The privatisation of state assets, including land and infrastructure, is a powerful attractor for such investment, and the funding, financing and planning of urban development becomes increasingly complex.

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The free flow of people and resources is made possible by the growing integration and deregulation of international markets, which are said to be characteristic of a neo-liberal age, founded on “the belief that open, competitive and unregulated markets liberated from all forms of state interference represent the optimal mechanism for economic development” (Brenner and Theodore, 2002: 350). Growing international integration, deregulated markets and financialisation of urban development were the proximate causes of the global financial crisis and the ensuing Great Recession. In the Global North, the costs of stabilising the banking sector, together with declining state revenues, have increased the fiscal stresses on governments and engendered large-scale retrenchment. Schäfer and Streeck (2013: 9–10) argue: “governments, at the prodding of ‘financial markets’, jointly try to turn the tax and debt state that existed before 2008 into an austerity or consolidation state defined by balanced budgets and a (gradual) decline in public indebtedness”. Austerity now provides an enduring framework within which planning is practised. This means diminished public resources and capacity to shape the development of cities and regions, forcing the adoption of new approaches to funding and financing urban growth in which planners are embroiled. Faltering growth is the background to the early signs that the long movement towards globalisation may be slowing, or even reversing, in response to rising populism.

Longer-term planning pressures arise from population changes. Migration, both internal and across borders, is transforming cities and regions, and poses new challenges for planning practice. Population growth places new stresses on the built environment, and planners now engage with increasingly diverse communities. Elsewhere, cities and regions may contain an ageing population, which has implications for the future fiscal health of governments, and for the design of public services and the planning of settlements. Endemic forms of ill-health such as obesity are distributed unevenly within and between cities and regions, and place new strains on them. Environmental and resource pressures also pose challenges for planning practice. Most obviously, climate change requires new approaches to the production and management of the built environment. This is closely tied to concerns about the way we produce and consume finite resources. The future of cities depends on the production and management of energy, minerals, water, waste and food, all of which are subject to conflict on a global and local scale. The practice of planning occurs within a testing and rapidly changing context. The complexities of the development process, the proliferation of actors involved in it and the multiplying social, economic and environmental pressures at play in cities and regions, together with the ideological assault on planners and their practice, mean that the case for planning cannot be assumed.

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Frameworks of Planning Practice in the UK

The main focus of this book is planning practice in the UK, where the global processes described in the previous section take on a particular character. The UK is a multi-national state – comprising England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – which recently has been transformed through processes of devolution and no longer appears to be a very united kingdom. Planning itself occurs within frameworks of Parliamentary democracy, a body of common law, judicial action, and the evolving relationships between central and local government. The Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and associated legislation established the state’s right to regulate land use, and the permission of a local planning authority is required before any development can occur. Decisions are made case-by-case, primarily on the basis of whether or not the proposed development is in accordance with the local ‘development plan’. The development plan is not legally binding, so although it might indicate areas where specific land uses and densities are preferred, developers are permitted to make a case for departure from the plan in their planning application. Hence, planning in the UK is often referred to as ‘discretionary’. This differs from the system of zoning in the US and Japan, for instance, where zoning...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Planning Practice
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Boxes
• Biographies
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction: Contexts and Frameworks for Contemporary Planning Practice
• 2 Devolution and Planning
• Part I Practices of Planning
• Part II Changing Contexts for Planning Practice
• Part III Planning in Practice
• Index