A Flat Ontology in Spatial Planning

Traditional planning theories stipulated time and again that government planning was the main element of progress, preventing society from becoming helpless, chaotic and ineffective (Dror 1968; Etzioni 1968; Friedman 1969; Faludi 1973). These views were, however, based on strong aspirations of modernity and the welfare state; worldviews that became increasingly challenged in the last half of the 20th century. This, not only in respect to the announcements of the end of the (political) project of the Enlightenment as such (Adorno, Horkheimer 1947; Lyotard 1979; Habermas 1984; Fukuyama 1989; Sloterdijk 2004), but also due to the pronounced failure of the welfare state (Vandenbroucke 1999; Svalifors, Taylor-Gooby 1999; Goodin 2003). These critics didn’t miss their effect on spatial planning, too. From the 1960s onwards, a continuous search began for a more engaged, dynamic and multi-perspective on planning: from procedural towards advocacy and participatory planning, from equity and regime approaches towards communicative and collaborative planning, from Marxian-inspired historic-materialistic views towards radical action and the focus on agonistic planning (Sandercock 1998). Each of these ideas still lingers on and, alternatively, in academia and/ or practitioners’ approaches. But each of these has also received fierce critics. Advocacy, participatory and equity planning remain framed within the existing power structures (Peattie 1968; Goodman 1972). They did not genuinely improve the quality of planning decisions that matter (Innes, Booher 2000) and met only a specific type of citizen with time and expertise (Flyvbjerg 1996; Van der Arend 2008). Procedural and collaborative planning were too focused on agreed processes and less on content (Wigmans 1982; v. d. Cammen, Bakker 2006). Moreover, they were considered to be too time-consuming, resulting in a so-called ‘Diktatur des Sitzfleisches’ (Weinrich 1987; Frissen 2007). Historic materialistic and radical action views on planning didn’t provide a realistic alternative, and were expected to be too agonistic to challenge the transformative and regressive powers of the state (Sandercock 1998). But, in our opinion, what is more important is that each of these well-meant and more socially engaged alternatives remained framed within a kind of vertical ontology: top-down, bottom-up or something in between (Boonstra, Boelens 2011). Such a vertical ontology disabled planning academics and practitioners from creating meaningful connections with the plural and volatile world in flux. Moreover, this vertical ontology allows a mutual blaming of ‘up there’ or ‘down there’ for any failed interactions ( Marston et al. 2005). Moreover, while staying in a vertical ontology, new emergent actors will not seriously come into play, and no justice is done to the social and cultural complexity that constitutes contemporary urbanity (Groth, Corijn 2005; Leitner, Miller 2007). Moreover, planners might lose connectivity to the very place where ideas are formed, innovative actions produced, and new alliances created and maintained (Marston et al. 2005). Against this backdrop, strategic and relational approaches also evolved in the planning scene. At first sight, these initiatives seem to bypass the ongoing vertical path dependencies and stress a more equal, horizontal footing in governance and inclusiveness. In reference to the more engaged experiences mentioned above, some introduced spatial planning as a more socio-spatial process through which a range of people in diverse institutional relations and positions come together and design plans and strategies for spatial change (see Healey 1997, 2007). From these inputs, notions of co-production, co-design, co-creation, co-commission, co-assess and co-delivery entered the planning scene (Governance International 2014). As an alternative to institutionalised and taken-for-granted vertical practices and routines – be it top-down or participatory from the bottom up – they stressed a redesign of policymaking not for citizens but by citizens in their role as local knowledge experts, responsible stakeholders, producers of mutually valued outcomes and/or contractors and even executers of spatial policy plans. It should blur the boundaries between public and private, producers and consumers, and emphasise the repeated informal interactions in order to include not only the views of the most articulate, but A Flat Ontology in Spatial Planning