Researching the best-practice: academic knowledge production, planning and the post-politicisation of environmental politics

This chapter critically approaches the role of academic knowledge. This plays a crucial role in the process of development, identification, and evaluation of the so-called ‘best-practices’ of urban planning worldwide. The chapter takes this focus in order to problematise the normative force that academic knowledge can have and argues that it may contribute to the post-politicisation rather than to contest and reframe practices of urban planning. To substantiate the arguments, the chapter draws on the city of Freiburg in Germany. Despite its severe problems and challenges related to social justice and social equality, this city is widely hailed as a best-practice for sustainable urban development in much of the contemporary academic literature on this issue.