Abstract
Prof. V. Assche’s and his associates’ “reflection” on my essay is a welcome surprise to me. It is welcome because it shows that there are people who care enough about planning and planning theory to mourn their passing. It surprised me in blending agreement with blame for positions I did not take.
My essay observed no “stockpile of problems in the planning discipline,” but it does address one problem for planning: when the best that someone knowledgeable -Tim Chapin, review editor of the Journal of the American Planning Association (JAPA)- can say about it is “Planning is a fuzzy field” (Chapin, 2015). This hardly seems adequate for informed theory and research in a discipline, or useful education and effective action in a practice. Isn’t it a problem if we have no idea what we are theorizing about, what we are teaching, and what we are practicing?
I seem to suggest that “planning and planning theory … lose their unity and validity”—not necessarily—only if unity and validity are incompatible with variation and diversity, which of course they are not. Acknowledging that planning as a fuzzy field combines diverse recognizable practices reinforces its integrity and enhances planning theories’ validity. V. Assche and colleagues do this: when they refer to “planning as spatial planning,” they agree with me, not talking about “planning,” but about spatial planning as a recognized planning practice. Spatial planning is explicitly the subject of their subsequent discussion, none of which is incompatible with my essay’s account of spatial planning theories and practice.
What follows in their Comment is an attack on modernism, of which I am clearly accused: “Alexander … in the grip of this magical modernism.” This identification is unwarranted since there’s nothing to support it. I don’t say or believe what V. Assche and colleagues attribute to me, and never subscribed to modernism as presented here, in which few have believed since the 1950s.
A crucial piece of evidence refuting V. Assche and colleagues’ charge of modernism is one of my central points: planning as diverse knowledge-centered practices. The concept of knowledge-centered practice (which I think I introduce here to the planning literature) is not modernist because it originates in science-and-technology studies, which deconstruct modernist objective science as postmodernist co-construction of knowledge. Spatial planning, then, as a knowledge-centered practice does not claim to be a science; rather, spatial planners contribute their expertise (as added value) to the co-construction of knowledge that is participative planning.
Where my critics are right is that I don’t share their enthusiasm for postmodernism: neither a modernist nor a postmodernist, I describe myself as a post-postmodernist (Alexander, 2000, 2015). So I won’t take issue with V. Assche and colleagues’ discussion of modernism, which is irrelevant, nor with their rhetoric (“the multiplicity of Love” “reflexivity … inventing and reinventing planners’ roles … new landscapes of risk and opportunity”) that follows.
V. Assche and colleagues believe “that each community and each perspective require rejuvenation …confrontation with basic assumptions and key concepts”: I couldn’t agree more. That is why I offered the ideas in my essay, which trouble them because they upset prevailing basic assumptions and key concepts they have leapt to defend: the unity of planning on the one hand, and its vagueness on the other, so that everyone plans and anyone can be a planner.
I also agree with their “forgotten distinctions” and have explored these too—see, for example, Alexander (2005). None of them is incompatible with or contradicts my essay’s basic propositions, which are as follows:
“Planning” is really a set of diverse planning practices.
This set includes generic “planning” practice, which is universal: everyone plans, anyone can be a (generic) planner, and be more or less successful. “Planning” is context-free and lacks a defined subject, so anything said about it must be at a general and abstract level, making norms problematic for real life. Generic planning is the subject of much of what we call planning theory, or theory of planning.
This set includes diverse knowledge-centered (something) planning practices, which are societally recognized, named, and institutionalized, for example, spatial planning.
Real planning practices are also diverse. Enacted planning practices vary, engaging diverse participants (planners and others) in particular situations. Enacting and learning about contextuated planning practices produces knowledge—for example, generalized as spatial planning theories and methods—that is applied in (something, for example, spatial) planning practices.
What my essay tries to do is to understand what the “planning” and planning practices are that we all (including the commentators) argue about. V. Assche and colleagues’ response reads as if they disagree. But if planning is not a set of knowledge-centered practices, what is it? If planning is only abstract generic “planning” practice, what is it in reality that we are theorizing about, teaching, and enacting in practice? If spatial planning is not a knowledge-centered practice, what makes someone a spatial planner when someone else is not, and how can we tell a good spatial planner from a bad one?
Perhaps they object to my trying to define planning and planning practice in the first place. Some of their rhetoric implies this (though contradicted by their “distinctions”) and, taken to its logical conclusion, demands an inspiring metaphor encapsulating planning, like Zen’s “one hand clapping.” I encourage them to pursue this approach, and look forward to a postmodern Koan for a planning in which we can believe. Meanwhile, I hope my suggestions can serve as a working hypothesis for understanding planning practice and to explore their implications.