Convened by:

Jonathan Rokem, The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London ([log in to unmask])
Camillo Boano, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London ([log in to unmask])

The relation between planning and politics has been central to the debate in urban geography and planning theory for decades (Hillier 2002; Gualini 2015; Metzger et al. 2016; Rokem and Allegra 2016). Broadly speaking, it has been suggested that considering the temporal and spatial context of planning intervention (and, more generally, of urban policies and politics) can blur the differences between dichotomies in understandings of urban democracy and state led planning practices (Silver et al. 2010; Purcell 2016). Within this debate the 'planning/politics nexus' is perceived as non-hierarchical set of interactions, negotiated within a specific historical, geographical, legal and cultural context.

The session’s underling argument is that we need to re-think the contested and conflictive practices of the material and immaterial 'planning/politics nexus' from a comparative perspective. In other words, on the surface different cities share and are developing growing similarities stemming from ethnic, racial and class conflicts revolving around issues of housing, infrastructure, participation and identity, amongst others. Our argument is founded on a joint critical reading of the growing literature on urban planning and politics from different urban settings with the aim of learning through differences, rather than seeking out similarities (Robinson 2011) as part of a general call to investigate difference in comparative urban research (McFarlane and Robinson 2012).

The session main objective is to bring together a selected group of international scholars engaging with comparative urban planning and politics. We are interested to explore the relational and contrastive value of comparisons across 'Northern' and 'Southern' contexts and especially cities from ‘South-Eastern’ non-conventional regions normally excluded from the academic debates, moving beyond the ‘North-Western’ theory producing usual suspects. In doing so, this session seeks to argue that it is timely to start learning from, and compare across different urban contexts to enrich our comparative imagination of the relation between planning and politics in an increasingly fractured global urban reality.

We invite papers that discuss and address (although not limited to) the following broad topics:

The session is convened by:
Dr. Jonathan Rokem (The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London) and Dr. Camillo Boano (The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London).

Interested session participants should contact Jonathan Rokem ([log in to unmask]) and Camillo Boano ([log in to unmask]) by Friday 12th February 2016 to indicate their interest in participating in the session. Please include your affiliation, a proposed title and a 250-word abstract.

All session presenters must register for the conference.

Location: Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) and Imperial College London
Dates: 30 August to 2 September 2016.
Conference website: http://www.rgs.org/WhatsOn/ConferencesAndSeminars/Annual+International+Conference/An nual+international+conference.htm

References cited

Gualini, E. (2015). Conflict in the City: Democratic, Emancipatory—and Transformative? In Search of the Political in Planning Conflicts. In. Gualini (eds.) Planning and Conflict: Critical Perspectives on Contentious Urban Developments, RTPI Library Series, London and New York, Routledge. pp. 3-36.

Hillier, J. (2002). Direct action and agonism in democratic planning practice. Planning futures: New directions for planning theory, 110-135.

McFarlane, C. and Robinson, J. (2012) Introduction - Experiments in Comparative Urbanism, Urban Geography, 33 (6): 765–773. 

Metzger, J. Soneryd, L. & Hallström, K. (2016) ‘Power’ is that which remains to be explained: Dispelling the ominous dark matter of critical planning studies, Planning Theory: Published online before print January 12, 2016, doi: 10.1177/1473095215622502.

Purcell, M. (2016) For democracy: Planning and publics without the state, Planning Theory, Published online before print January 12, 2016, doi: 10.1177/1473095215620827

Robinson J. (2011) Cities in a world of cities: the comparative gesture, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 35(1): 1-23.

Rokem, J. and Allegra, M. (2016) Planning in Turbulent Times: Exploring Planners’ Agency in Jerusalem. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, (forthcoming).