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May 2008
We are hoping to begin work on a disorientation guide, similar to that produced by PN in North America, aimed at student's entering planning courses in the UK, and others beginning to engage with the planning system. We are on the look out for offers of help with this so if you're interested contact Andy. In the meantime keep an eye out for further details here soon.
pnuk ran a roundtable discussion on 'the politics of academic practice in planning' at the planning research conference at Queen's University, Belfast (18-20 March). You can read contributions from Bob Colenutt and Libby Porter here.
January 2008
Following
our event in Sheffield on
July 17, 2007 we have been discussing how to try and develop
the network. You can read or join in with this discussion
on our wikispace.
At the moment
one of the most useful ways seems to be to use the website
to develop resources to
support critical thinking and debate about alternatives
to the dominance of narrow economistic thinking in planning
today.
As
a result we have decided to develop two projects, each
intended to support the other and to build up a set
of resources that will be useful for both teachers,
students, researchers, practitioners and activists involved
in planning. The two projects are described below:
What's
Left?
This
was the question we used to frame our recent discussions.
There was a shared feeling that there was an absence
of effective resources for countering the dominant rationalities
of our time. This is a feeling that is shared across
the political left and is a particular problem in a
climate where planning and related issues are once again
high on the political agenda "What's left?"
can be understood as a project aimed at developing critical
analysis of the state we're in, exploring the pessimism
of our collective intellect. There is a need for discussion
and debate about the current state of planning, joining
up to wider questions about the state of the world,
and planning's position within it. PNUK should become
a focus for that discussion, linking to other projects
and campaigns that share an interest in challenging
the injustices and inconsistencies that sustain the
neoliberal order of things. This project must seek to
discover the contradictions within that order, and therefore
to analyse the bases from which alternatives might spring.
It must also provide the bases for acting and responding
to the challenges of the current conjuncture. View our
What's Left? pages.
Alternatives
It has become
almost a cliché to invoke the roots of planning
as a progressive social movement. In fact the radicalism
of the early reformers is often appropriated in decidedly
reactionary ways. Perhaps the greatest strength of that
early movement, however, was its capacity to imagine
that the world could be made better by planned intervention.
In neoliberal times the mantra of TINA (there is no
alternative) has become dominant. Now at the end of
history we are told there is no choice but to let the
market shape the future. For nearly thirty years this
ideology of the right has ruled with disastrous implications
for society and the environment. Images of alternative
worlds have become scarce; belief that alternatives
are possible has become a rare commodity.
There is,
however, a growing challenge to this. Concerns over
social mobility, housing and climate change all suggest
a coming crisis of neoliberalism. There is a need to
explore the optimism of our will, to examine the possibility
of better futures and to imagine how planning can contribute
to shaping them. Powerfully articulated alternatives
can help to challenge the dominance of TINA and exploit
the contradictions created by climate change, or acute
housing shortages.
The early
planning movement made links between housing and land
campaigners and was successful in generating a vision
of better places and better lives. Today planning has
been abandoned by many progressive groups but it retains
the capacity to act as a nexus between progressive movements,
for example on environmental and social issues. PNUK
should try to bring these together and generate alternatives
that can tell persuasive stories about a society and
a planning system that put people's wellbeing and the
environment ahead of the false promises of economic
growth. View our alternatives
pages.
If you have
any publications you wish to make available through
the site, or any other ideas for taking this part of
our work forward then please contact
us
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