Planning and Knowledge

"Planning and Knowledge is an important contribution to the understanding of contemporary politics and urban development. It highlights the dilemmas of an urban world that appears to be increasingly in the hands of technocrats seeking to depoliticise policy and practice". Rob Imrie, Goldsmiths, University of London

Mike Raco is Professor of Urban Governance and Development in the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London.

Federico Savini is an Assistant Professor in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Amsterdam, Department of Human Geography, Planning and International Development Studies.

Part I: Conceptual framings of technocracy

The rise of a new urban technocracy ~ Federico Savini and Mike Raco

Planning, knowledge and technocracy in historical perspective ~ Michael Hebbert

Part II: Public planning and bureaucracies in contemporary urban development politics

Dealing with tensions: the expertise of boundary spanners in facilitating community initiatives ~ Ward Rauws and Martine de Jong

Plurality of expert knowledge: public planners' experience with urban contractulism in Amsterdam ~ Tuna Tasan-Kok & Martijn van den Hurk

Local government in the face of crisis: changing public management of urban projects in Amsterdam ~ Thijs Koolmees and Stan Majoor

Captured by bureaucracy: street-level professionals mediating past, present and future knowledge ~ Nanke Verloo

Part III: Corporate knowledge and the land and property development sector

Anticipatory knowledge: how development consultants see the future ~ Rachel Weber

Towards an ‘information technocracy’: discourses of London’s post-referendum real estate markets ~ Nicola Livingstone

Finance as technocratic agent in urban development ~ Sabine Dörry

Planning professionalism in the face of technocracy: ethics, values and practices ~ Susannah Gunn

Part IV: private consultants and the delivery of public policy

Professional lobbying in urban planning: depoliticization or REpoliticization? ~ Aino Hirvola and Raine Mäntysalo

Advocates, advisors and scrutineers: the technocracies of private sector planning in England ~ Gavin Parker, Emma Street and Matthew Wargent

Localism and the reconfiguration of planning’s publics in the landscapes of technocrac ~ Sue Brownill

The politics of new urban professions: the case of urban development engineers ~ Jonathan Metzger and Sherif Zakhour

Part V: New constellations of actors and the management and governance of contemporary cities

Smart cities, algorithmic technocracy and new urban technocrats ~ Rob Kitchin, Claudio Coletta, Leighton Evans, Liam Heaphy and Darach Mac Donncha

Planning by numbers: affordable housing and viability in England ~ Antonya Layard

Transnational design and local implications for planning: project flights and landings ~ Davide Ponzini

Researching the best-practice: academic knowledge production, planning and the post-politicisation of environmental politics ~ Samuel Mössner and Catarina Gomes de Matos

Conclusions: The technocratic logics of contemporary planning ~ Federico Savini and Mike Raco