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Planning and Urban development: 1970s-2010s. Patsy Healey SAPL, Newcastle University UK SURF/SPRU Workshop April 25 th 2012. Three Questions!. How ‘cities’ and the ‘urban’ were imagined How the ‘environmental challenge’ was imagined Prevailing theories of transformative change.
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Planning and Urban development: 1970s-2010s Patsy Healey SAPL, Newcastle University UK SURF/SPRU Workshop April 25th 2012
Three Questions! • How ‘cities’ and the ‘urban’ were imagined • How the ‘environmental challenge’ was imagined • Prevailing theories of transformative change
1970s ‘Crises’ • The crisis of confidence in Britain’s future place in the world – as above • A crisis in the British economy, as our industrial base lost competitiveness in relation to the rest of then world • A crisis of confidence in the paternalist practices of the British state – with demands for more people-centred and participative policy practices. • The crisis of welfare state provision –rising expectations, reduced public finance and all kinds of delivery weaknesses • The oil crisis – and its impact on economic and social life • The environmental crisis – promoted by a growing movement inspired by Rachel Carson, Edward Goldsmith et al. • A crisis in the development industry , following the late 1960s/early 1970s boom and collapse. • See O’Connor’s trenchant analysis in The Fiscal Crisis of the State (O’Connor 1973)
How ‘cities’ and the ‘urban’ were imagined: three messages: • Environmental dimensions of urban contexts were noticed but treated in very limited ways • It takes time for new ideas to get ‘leverage’ in the various arenas which need to change for a material change to happen. • Old practices live on from earlier eras and need explicit attention before they shift.
How the ‘environmental challenge’ was imagined • As a surface upon which human life played out, with what we would now call particular ‘affordances’ of climate, geology and biology which varied from place to place. • As a set of resources available for exploitation, with only slowly dawning realisation of the dangers of over-exploitation, or unbalanced exploitation. Such realisation was strongly countered by the belief in ‘technofix’. • As an inheritance to be conserved, particularly as an expression of ‘our heritage’. • A strong ‘health and safety’ concern, reflected in regulatory practices, for reductions in the pollution of air and water systems.
Prevailing theories of transformative change • The ‘crisis’ theory of change – does it need challenging? • The significance of structure/agency interactions – the importance of micro-practices • Interactions between episodes, governance processes and governance cultures – non-linear (see diagram)
