Planning & Policymaking Practice:

some reflections

Idalina BaptistaSir Nigel Mobbs Research Fellow, Ph.D.

University of Oxford, UK

May 18, 2010, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK

Workshop for the research project “Globalisation, climate change and urban governance:balancing the scales for both efficient and pro-poor urban futures – The case of Brazil and UK”

Some reflections on...

1. How can we bridge the production of theory on the practice of planning & policymaking across contexts?

2. How are planning & policymaking understoodin specific contexts of urban governance?

3. What are the future prospects forthe practice of planning & policymaking?

1. Theory Production

In Journal of the American Planning Association,71(2):147-158, Spring 2005.

How do urban policies and the planning apparatus produce the ‘unplanned and unplannable’? (p.156)

Some issues...

• What does it mean to locate the productionof theory in Brazil?

• What does the UK have to learn with Brazil?

• What can we learn from the favela asa flexible mode of urbanization?

2. Understandings ofPlanning & Policymaking

Stages in the development of an Urbanization Plan or a Detail Plan(blueprint development plans), Portugal

Some issues...

• Formal vs. StrategicTraditional vs. Alternative/Exceptional modesExpertise vs. Community involvementTop-down vs. Bottom-up

• Informality as a mode of planning(production of the ‘unplanned and unplannable’)

• ‘Citizen’ consumer vs. ‘Right to the city’ (participation)(legalization/right to participate vs. participation in property markets)

• Enclaves(gentrification vs. ’integration’ of urban poor)

3. Practice Prospects forPlanning & Policymaking

Collaborative rationality

• No optimal solution forwicked problems

• “collaborative planning is more likelyto generate feasible and legitimate decisions than traditional decision making” (p. 7)

• “all the affected interests jointly engage in face to face dialogue, bringing their various perspectives to the table to deliberate on the problems they face together” (p. 6)

• “conditions to be aimed at, though they can never be completely achieved” (p.6)

• “collaborative processes can lead to changes in the larger system that help make our institutions more effective and adaptive and make the system itself more resilient” (p. 10)

Some issues...

• Planning & Policymaking rationalities(wicked problems, non-linear situations, uneven development)

• ‘Building to code’ / exceptions to regularity

• Models and best practices... or something else?

What skills for planners/policymakers?

Thank you!