Abstract
The Ashgate Research Companion to Planning and Culture is a research compendium that links planning and culture, offering great promise to researchers, educators, and scholars by encapsulating an authoritative review of research about planning with culture in mind. The editors have assembled a robust team of well-respected and experienced scholars from around the world to help frame some key issues. The volume is a reliable desk reference. A range of disciplinary perspectives are represented—geographers, planners, and architects feature alongside anthropologists, sociologists, and cultural studies specialists.
Greg Young, the principal editor, provides an invaluable introduction to the book. According to Young, there are three dominant approaches that characterize contemporary thinking about culture. First, culture is often framed in aesthetic terms, particularly in writings about the cultural economy and the creative city; second, culture is sometimes framed in anthropological and ethnographic terms, confronting the consequences of the colonial project and attempting to understand, describe, and defend a plurality and diversity of value systems, in particular, contrasting mainstream cultures against emergent, or insurgent, cultures; and finally, culture is framed as an evolving process that includes both sociospatial and behavioral representations, perhaps the most holistic of all three framings.
I highly recommend that readers spend time reflecting on Young’s introductory framing and apply it to situate their own approaches to the subjects under consideration. Unique to this framing is the aspirational goal of tackling the twin subjects of planning and culture together, a holistic approach that Young believes would be beneficial for the future evolution of planning practice. Young identifies six cultural factors that are intended to assist the readers in thinking about the impacts of culture on planning practices. They include “i) cultural diversity, ii) local place and global flows, iii) cultural and creative industries, iv) public space and citizenship, v) cultural planning and sustainability perspectives, and, vi) social and cultural theories and concepts of culture, history and heritage” (4). Shifting focus, Young also emphasizes the promise of planning to adapt and engage with different dimensions of culture, especially to minimize the negative consequences of neoliberal doctrines that have shaped government-sponsored planning in the past two decades. He alludes to healthy, yet unresolved tensions between the regulatory/managerial functions and the visionary/emancipatory aspirations of planning practice. The book is organized into six broad sections, each with its own preface. An aspect that will surely appeal to educators and students alike is the chapter-length case studies associated with each section. These case studies are intended to help readers contextualize their own understandings of the theoretical discussions contained within each section.
In the first section, “Global Contexts,” the chapters written by Watson and Ward critique contemporary planning practices, urging planners and policy makers to pay attention to the socio-spatial consequences of the diverse demographics in urban societies and the tendency of planning (despite its best intentions) to serve the interests of the power-elites. Miller’s chapter reviewing the history and theory of cultural policy makes for useful reading for the uninitiated. Miller criticizes the neoliberal tendency to appropriate cultural planning to serve the interests of creative industries without considering its social and environmental consequences. Newman and Thornley close out this section, examining governance in four global cities, New York, Paris, Tokyo, and Beijing. They argue that the enduring power of governance cultures and traditions influences and sometimes undermines strategic planning initiatives.
In section two, “Planning and Its Dimensions,” planning’s exclusionary tendencies (discussed in the first section) are amplified by authors Greed, Throgmorton, and Watson, who discuss the limits of planning theory. Greed takes aim at the tacit assumptions made by (mostly male) planners about universal and shared planning goals that have unintentionally excluded women, gays and lesbians, and transgender people from having equal and fair access to public spaces. Throgmorton uses the evolution and rise of the Tea Party movement in the United States to urge planners to remain cognizant of the political dimensions of planning practice in their everyday work. Watson rounds out this section by urging planners to consider the deep differences in the lived experiences of inhabitants in the Global South, locations where extreme wealth and privilege is often surrounded by dehumanizing poverty. The case study chapter by Searle describes the historic context and the process of planned redevelopments around the Sydney Harbor and urges readers to consider the nuanced ways in which planning protocols, cultural attitudes, and perceptions about planning and development, unspoken yet embedded value systems, and (previously discussed) governance cultures can thwart legitimate community efforts to downscale and humanize development along the water’s edge.
In section three, “Cultural Dimensions,” Stevenson’s chapter examines the connection between cultural planning and citizenship. She probes the claims that cultural planning can facilitate opportunity and foster a sense of citizenship, asking citizenship for whom, and under what terms. Stevenson’s chapter unpacks the different meanings of citizenship and wonders if cultural planning can be reclaimed to serve the cause of social justice, rather than being used as a clichéd term that emphasizes consumption and sometimes furthers social exclusion. O’Connor provides an overview of the policy discourses associated with the creative and cultural industries, while Ashworth reviews heritage planning extending from historic preservation planning to neighborhood revitalization. Sasaki finishes this section by examining the hybrid cultural planning approaches adopted by two Japanese cities—Kanazawa and Yokohama—each striving to expand local economic development.
Section four, “Planning Practices,” includes chapters by Evans, Pietrese, Dovey, Baycan, and Fusco Girard. Evans examines the relationships between cultural planning and sustainable development planning, speculating whether culture is indeed a fourth pillar of sustainability alongside environment, economy, and equity, noting that whenever cultural planning has been deployed by governments and through agency-led initiatives, it has taken on a kind of special event status that is de facto not sustainable beyond the life of a particular project or initiative. Pietrese continues this critique by arguing that the sustainable development planning project is trapped in a technocratic framework and overly preoccupied with metrics. Like Throgmorton, Pietrese urges planners to recast their work on urban sustainability through a radical democratic lens, thus making planning relevant again. Dovey’s chapter offers an elegant discussion about place identity, considering it in both objective and subjective terms. She argues that urban place identity is a useful framing as long as it facilitates the creation of spaces where such identity formations can adapt and evolve rather than being straitjacketed by zoning codes and design regulations. Baycan and Fusco Girard provide a systematic overview of the Slow City movement and discuss the role culturally infused planning can play, emphasizing the unique, the particular, and the spatial, articulating how Slow City proponents can resist the homogeneitic effects of globalization.
Section five, “Cultural Practices,” opens with a chapter from Low, who discusses the Rapid Ethnographic Assessment Procedure (REAP), a technique that can be used to improve park planning and management. Parks represent the most tangible public space that can be shared by a variety of individuals and groups. Successful park planning can go a long way in increasing access to public spaces by marginalized groups. Paddison and Nyseth, in their respective chapters, describe the processes by which cities and towns reinvent themselves to accommodate and adapt to globalization pressures. Both discuss the harms associated with the commodification of public spaces through privatization, place marketing, and unsavory commercial strategies of placemaking. Yet, they are hopeful that individuals and groups can reappropriate these spaces for more democratic and emotionally rewarding uses, at least for limited periods of time. Montgomery’s case study rounds out this section with a discussion of placemaking and the creation of designated cultural zones in Manchester and Sheffield in the United Kingdom.
The material in section six, “Cultural and Planning Dynamics,” includes chapters by Duxbury and Jeannotte, Bianchini, and Young, and a concluding case study chapter by Hillier. All these chapters focus on culture as an organizing principle for planning and governance. Duxbury and Jeannotte examine the role of dominant global organizations such as the World Bank, the United Nations (specifically UNESCO and UN-Habitat), and other nongovernmental organizations in framing and implementing cultural policies. Bianchini reviews the history of cultural planning and wonders if cultural planning can help revitalize public policy debates. Young’s chapter makes the case for a new cultural paradigm for planning and governance that is inclusive, reflective, and above all, holistic. Hillier uses the example of a “low-brow” cultural attraction, Margate’s Dreamland Amusement Park, receiving a heritage designation to explain how heritage planning has evolved and should continue to evolve to consider the lived experiences and ascribed meanings associated with particular sites. In Hillier’s conceptualization, heritage sites are nodes, sites that provide connectivity and linkages through time and space that are often nonlinear and dynamic.
The book concludes with an Afterword by Stevenson, one of the editors, who observes that efforts to articulate a cultural paradigm for planning need to confront issues of urban governance. She reminds us that the purpose of the book is to stimulate and stir conversations that push the envelope of planning discourse. She rightly says, “it is not enough to say that planning must take local cultures and circumstances into account” (434).
Any complex book project that aspires to provide a road map of the field inevitably has gaps and this book is no exception. Indeed, some of these gaps are acknowledged by the editors. Most obvious is the fact that this compendium explores culture and planning from the perspectives of authors educated in western/northern thinking about planning and culture. The omission of voices from those countries that are grappling with the imposition of western/modernist views about planning and culture limits the usefulness of this tome to a generation of scholars who think, plan, and engage globally. Another obvious problem is one that affects many edited books. Scholars feel the need to review historical concepts and literature, each imposing her or his particular interpretations in order to demonstrate one’s commitment to rigorous scholarship. While some repetition is desired, I believe that a stronger editorial hand could have helped streamline and focus the efforts of the individual chapter authors.
The book’s organization does not enhance the editors’ desire to treat the twin topics of culture and planning together. The format (four chapters per section) creates unforeseen problems because the placement of individual chapters sometimes feels a little forced. The thematic section labels are not very useful. However, if one goes beyond the section labels, then one would discover, as I did, that the individual chapters offer integrated treatments of planning and culture, as intended by the editors.
In my view, this book will help global planning educators and scholars continue a dialogue about how to think about the role of culture, specifically cultural planning and policy, in the context of rapid urbanization, demographic perturbations, and sociopolitical shifts that have resulted in hyperdiverse and sprawling city-regions. Young believes that the gaps and problems associated with current planning approaches can be enriched “through a greater integration and assimilation of culture in critical, ethical and reflective terms” (11). I agree wholeheartedly with this wish but I regret to observe that this book does not provide as much guidance as I would have liked to help me achieve these lofty goals.