Compromise Planning : A Theoretical Approach from a Distant Corner of Europe

The purpose of the book is to elaborate a planning theory which departs from the plethora of theories which reflect the conditions of developed countries of the North-West. The empirical material of this effort is derived from a country, Greece, which sits on the edge between North-West and South-East, at the corner of Europe. No doubt, there is extensive international literature on planning theory in general from a bewildering variety of viewpoints. The interested professional or student of urban and regional planning is certainly aware of the dizzying flood of books, articles and research reports on planning theory and of their never-ending borrowing of obscure concepts from more respectable scientific disciplines, from mathematics to philosophy and from physics to economics, human geography and sociology. He or she probably observed that there is a growing interest in theoretical approaches from the viewpoint of the so-called “Global South”. The author of the present book has for many decades faced the impasse of attempting to transplant theories founded on the experience of the North-West to countries with a totally different historical, political, social and geographical background. He learned that the reality that planners face is unpredictable, patchy, and responsive to social processes, frequently of a very pedestrian nature. Planning strives to deal with private interests which planners are keen to envelop in a single “public interest”, which is extremely hard to define. The behaviour of the average citizen, far from being that of the neoclassical model of the homo economicus, is that of an individual, a kind of homo individualis, who interacts with the state and the public administration within a complex web of mutual dependence and negotiation. The state and its administrative apparatus, i.e., the key-determinants and fixers of urban and regional planning policy, bargain with this individual, offer inducements, exemptions, derogations and privileges, deviate unhesitatingly from their grand policy pronouncements, but still defend the rationality and comprehensiveness of the planning system they have legislated and operationalized. It is by and large a successful modus vivendi, but only thanks to a constant practice of compromise. Hence, the term compromise planning, which the author coined as an alternative to all the existing theoretical forms of planning. This is the sort of planning, and of the accompanying theory, with which he deals in this book. It is the outcome of experience and knowledge accumulated in a long personal journey of academic teaching in England and Greece, research, and professional involvement.  

Front matter

Dedication

Foreword

Preface

About the book

Table of contents

About the author

Acronyms

Table of diagrams, figures and text-boxes

Ch.1 Introduction – Defining the problem

Prologue

1.1 Spatial planning

1.2 Space

1.3 Structure of the book

References

PART I: Review of theories

Ch.2 Planning theories: Typologies and overcrowding

Abstract

Prologue

2.2 Urban planning under attack

2.3 Planning theory typologies: Theories in, of, for, on and about planning and Faludi’s legacy

2.4 Planning theory yes, but what about practice?

2.6 Yiftachel’s typology

2.7 The “communicative” challenge

2.8 Planning theory as textbook material

2.10 An inheritance of confusion

2.11 Towards a more lucid categorization of theories?

2.12 An effort to simplify the prepositional game: Currents of ideas and types of planning

Epilogue: An opening for a theory of compromise planning?

References

Ch.3 Mainstream theories: The rational and communicative currents

Abstract

Prologue

3.1 The rational current

Key-words

3.1.1 The heritage of rational planning

3.1.2 Rationalism and its critics

3.1.4 Statutory planning and its rational foundations

3.1.5 Planning, power and the state

3.1.6 Planning’s “scientific” methods and techniques

3.1.7 Systems thinking

3.1.8 Rational planning abandoned, but for how long?

Key-words

3.2.1 Communicative and collaborative planning 

3.2.2 Conceptual foundations

3.2.3 The role of plans and the public interest

3.2.4 Objections to, and weaknesses of, collaborative planning  

3.2.5 Uneasy similarities of communicative and rational planning

3.2.6 Complementarities and integration of theories

3.3 Pragmatism

Epilogue

References

Ch.4 Theoretical challenges: The radical current and Southern theory

Abstract

Prologue

4.1 The radical current

Key-words

4.1.1 The radical turn

4.1.2 Planners, activism and transformative planning

4.1.3 Ethics and justice

4.1.4 Planning for development

4.1.6 Militant planning for change

4.1.7 Movements: Feminism and “othering”

4.1.8 Agonism and antagonism

4.2 Southern theory

4.3 Neoliberalism

Epilogue

References

Ch.5 The “climate” current: Environmental concerns in the Anthropocene age

Abstract

Prologue

Key-words

5.2 Environment, sustainability, and first steps towards a climate current theory

5.3 Risks and resilience

5.4 Being in the Anthropocene age

5.5 A Greek example

Epilogue

References

PART II: Greece as a case study

Ch.6 Greece: On the edge of North and South – A historical perspective

Abstract

Prologue

6.1 Independence and dependence, nationalism, and the Bavarians

6.2 National lands, first development efforts, bankruptcies and defeats

6.3 Social classes, Greeks of the diaspora, emerging elite and cities

6.4 The Asia Minor disaster and the influx of refugees

6.5 Second World War, German occupation, and Civil War

6.6 Development and reconstruction

6.7 Stability, affluence, and renewed crisis

Epilogue

References

Ch. 7 The state as a crucial parameter for the interpretation of planning

Abstract

Prologue

7.1 The formation of the nation state

7.2 The size of the state

7.3 Legislation

7.4 State, populism and patronage

7.5 Societal attitudes and the state-society nexus

Epilogue

References

Ch. 8 The Greek planning system: A case study at the tip of the Balkan peninsula

Abstract

Prologue

8.1 The legacy of the past and its impact on planning

8.2 First steps of town planning

8.3 Ground-breaking town planning legislation in the interwar period

8.4 The unfinished decade of the 1960s and the emergence of regional planning

8.5 Athens

8.6 Regional development

8.7 Network of urban centres

8.8 Planning legislation in the 1970s and 1980s and the Operation of Town Planning Reorganization

8.10 Legal quandaries

8.11 European Union

8.12 Resuscitation of regional spatial planning in the 1990s and new planning instruments

8.13 The apogee of external pressure after the economic crisis and the parallel system of planning  

8.14 The rational and hierarchical edifice of Greek planning  

8.15 Spatial planning, environment and natural disasters  

Epilogue: New challenges and the danger of déjà vu    

References

Part III: A theory of compromise planning

Ch.9 Planners, knowledge transfer, planning culture: Looking for a new theory

Abstract

Prologue

9.1 A personal journey

9.2 A précis of conditions in Greece and imported planning tools

9.3 The profile of planners

9.4 The culture of planning and the Greek peculiarity

9.5 Greece: A sui generis case?

9.6 Compromise, collaboration, pragmatism and improvisation

9.7 Basis for a theoretical model 

Epilogue

References

Ch. 10 Compromise planning and homo individualis

Abstract

Key-words

10.1 The solace of pragmatism

10.2 A native Greek theoretical debate

10.3 Homo economicus and homo socialis 

10.4 Critical realism, places and fables

10.5 More homines, structure and human agents

10.6 The person next door: Homo individualis

10.7 Bac? to the task of building a planning theory: The Greek planning model

10.9 Spatial planning

10.10 Rationality and exceptionalism

10.11 The theorist and the theoretical model

References

Ch.11 Conclusions: The parallel worlds of planning - Variants of compromise

Abstract

11.1 Janus-faced compromise

11.2 The state and its pivotal role 

11.3 The ugly face of planning and hopes for the future

11.4 The construction of a theoretical framework

Epilogue

References

Index