Planning Theory

This article conceptualizes two interrelated constellations of effects produced by practices of power in New Zealand planning. These are symbolic violence and institutional victimization. This article contends that acts of submission and obedience become symbols of violence when the state’s planning regimes allow no elements of choice, or freedom to resist, for those acted upon. This is compounded further into institutional victimization when the oppressors are also the final practicable, or actual, arbiters of appeal. We provide evidence that suggests this is a regular occurrence in New Zealand and, further, is indicative of a wider ranging consequence of modern governance that Foucault called governmentality. In New Zealand, the provision of a theoretically consultative statutory planning process obscures the actual rationality of exclusion underlining many of its planning practices.

As a contribution to the theorization of the planning process, this article gives a brief account of the probit model and its applications to Hong Kong; a review of the literature on the use of development control data in planning research; advances the argument for the use of statistical methods that do not operate on aggregate sampling data; and demonstrates the applicability of the probit model in development control studies. Possible applications discussed are the identification of factors for predicting success in planning applications, measurement of zone separation, assessment of the effectiveness of the planning system in tackling externalities, verification of economic theories of the behaviour of planning authorities and evaluation of public participation.

The legitimization of planning has, in the period since the Second World War, rested on the proposition that the state’s intervention in land and property development is necessary to safeguard the public interest against private and sectional interests. What constitutes the public interest has always been contentious but its value as a legitimizing concept has increasingly been called into question in the recent past for the reason that it cannot be given operational meaning either by those who make policy or by those who evaluate it. The purpose of this article is to explore the ‘public interest’ justification of planning and whether it has outlived its usefulness in an increasingly fragmented society. Following an introduction, the argument is presented in three stages. First, we explore the concept of ‘interests’ in the modern period. Second, we consider the way in which the ‘public interest’ has been regarded in the planning literature. Third, an evaluative framework is established which distinguishes deontological as well as consequentialist conceptualizations of the public interest through which we seek to demonstrate that it remains the pivot around which debates concerning the role and purpose of planning must revolve.