What Town Planners Do
Exploring Planning Practices and the Public Interest through Workplace Ethnographies
By Abigail Schoneboom, Jason Slade, Malcolm Tait and Geoff Vigar
Published
Nov 28, 2022Page count
256 pagesISBN
978-1447365976Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Policy PressClick to order from North America, Canada and South America
Published
Nov 28, 2022Page count
256 pagesISBN
978-1447365990Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Policy PressClick to order from North America, Canada and South America
What Town Planners Do
Presenting the complexities of doing planning work, with all its attendant moral and practical dilemmas, this rich ethnographic study analyses how places are made through stories of four diverse public and private sector working environments.
The book provides a unique insight for educators, students and researchers into the everyday lives of planners and those in associated built environment occupations. This exceptional account of the micro-politics of a knowledge-intensive profession also provides an excellent resource for sociologists of contemporary work. The authors use team ethnography to push the methodological frontiers of planning research and to advance organisational ethnography into new areas.
Abigail Schoneboom is a Lecturer in Urban Planning at Newcastle University.
Jason Slade is a Lecturer in Planning at the University of Sheffield.
Malcolm Tait is Professor of Planning at the University of Sheffield.
Geoff Vigar is Professor of Urban Planning at Newcastle University.
1. Introducing Contemporary Planning Practice
2. Southwell — the Privatised Local Authority
3. Simpsons — the Values-Driven Global Consultancy
4. Bakerdale — a ‘Traditional’ Local Authority Commercialising Under Austerity Politics
5. OIP — the ‘regular’ planning consultancy
6. So, Just What Are Planners Doing?
