Published in:

Journal of International Urban and Regional Research

2001: Vol. 24: 4: 907-923

DEBATING DOMINANCE AND RELEVANCE:

NOTES ON THE ‘COMMUNICATIVE TURN’ IN PLANNING THEORY

Oren Yiftachel & Margo Huxley^[1]

During the last decade, a growing number of planning theorists have taken a 'communicative turn' (Healey 1996), in describing and theorising urban and regional planning. A rapidly growing amount of work drawing on Habermasian, ethnographic and related frameworks has prompted some to articulate the emergence of new forms of 'collaborative' or 'deliberative' planning (Healey 1997; Forester 1999, respectively), and to declare the ascendancy of a 'new paradigm' (Innes 1995), or the existence of 'consensus' among scholars about key theoretical and methodological questions (Mandelbaum 1996).

In what follows, we wish to question some of these claims by advancing two main arguments. First, that communicative planning, despite its marked contribution to the understanding of planning, is but one in a number of recent approaches to theorise planning. Second, that some aspects of the communicative approach are problematic as a theoretical basis for planning, mainly because they draw attention away from the underlying material and political processes which shape cities and regions.

We will also observe a persisting confusion in planning theory, linked to the inability of theorists to agree on two fundamental definitions: what is 'theory' and what is 'planning'. In our work, we define 'planning', after Lefebvre, as the public production of space; that is, all policies and practices which shape the urban and regional environment under the auspices of the modern state.

The central subject of this essay -- 'theory' -- can also be defined in many ways. We lean towards the meaning identified by Raymond Williams (1983: 316-318) of theory as "an explanatory scheme" (p. 316), or in the words of the Oxford English Dictionary, "suppositions explaining a phenomenon; a sphere of speculations and concepts as distinguished from that of practice". To be sure, analysis can never be neatly separated from normative and ethical assumptions, though we stress the explanatory, conceptual, analytical, deconstructive and critical aspects as the main 'pillars' of the theorising endeavour, without which the prescriptive and normative aspects of theory are often shallow and ineffective (see also Fainstein, 2000; Yiftachel, 1989).

Recent Theory Debates: 1970s Revisited?

Shadows of the early 1970s have started to creep over the planning theory discourse in recent years, characterised by two main features. First, a particular approach is making claims for constituting the central paradigm. In the early 1970s it was Andreas Faludi and like-minded theorists who claimed that rational decision-making is the 'only' planning theory, and that it should 'envelope' all other theories of/in planning (see, Faludi, 1973: 8; Alexander, 1992).

Second, the field is increasingly occupied by theoreticians who down play the embeddedness of planning within concrete sociopolitical processes and relations. The current tendency, as it was in the early 1970s, is to generalise about planning as a procedural field of activity, somehow removed from the messy political and economic realities of urban and regional development. There is (again) a sense of searching for the right decision-rule -- be they rational-comprehensive or rational-communicative -- as an end in itself.

John Forester's work (1989, 1993) was an early and significant marker of the 'communicative turn', applying Habermasian and ethnographic frameworks with a 'critical-pragmatic' approach to the study of planning practice. While privileging the realm of communication, Forester maintained a watchful analytical eye on the power structures shaping the 'communicative infrastructure' within which planning outcomes are often determined. Subsequent work drawing on Habermasian and pragmatist perspectives has concentrated on visions of enlightened discursive communities shaping their futures through fair and democratic communicative practices.

This prescriptive vision has spurred the imagination of planning theorists who hoped that by focussing on the daily, the local and the subjective, the task of constructing 'applicable' and normative theoretical knowledge will be made possible, without the need to resort to narrow instrumental rationality or rigid positivism. This development also came at a time when the entire modernist epistemology was seriously challenged, particularly by feminist, postmodernist and multicultural scholars. Here Iris M. Young's post-structuralist, feminist and multicultural work (1990) quickly became influential, mainly for effectively challenging the (modernist) myth of a homogeneous public, and for breaking out of the narrow distributive definition of social justice.

The promise of communicative action was thus two-fold: it could 'liberate' planning theorists from the need to study the depressing realities of planning in increasingly polarised societies, as well as engage them in poststructuralist and multicultural discourses on the nature of knowledge, ethics and justice.

A considerable number of planning theorists thus laid down their social atlases, census tables, political manifestos and investment guides, and reached for the microphones, tape-recorders, pens and note pads. This new tool kit was now needed for listening and registering the daily interactive work of planning professionals. The works of Patsy Healey, Jean Hillier, Charles Hoch, Judith Innes, Helen Liggett, Tom Stein and Tom Harper, Seymour Mandelbaum, Tore Sager, Jeff Throgmorton, to name just a few, began to follow the communicative-pragmatic logic, accumulating evidence about speech, narratives, professional profiles, consensus-building and negotiation.

The growth in this school of thought has reached the stage where claims are made about a 'consensus' among the 'community' of planning theoreticians, on key theoretical and methodological questions, such as the need for normative theory, the relevance of agency over structure, and the interest in studying practice (Mandelbaum 1996). This claim is echoed in other commentaries, most notably by Hoch (1996) and Healey (1996, 1997). Further, Innes (1995: 183) proclaims the emergence of a 'new paradigm' of superior intellectual and theoretical relevance, whose main proponents:

"differ from their predecessors, who did primarily armchair theorizing... the new theorists do grounded theorizing based on richly interpretive study of practice... they apply intellectual lenses new to planning... Their work gained the attention of both academics and practising planners because it is accessible and interesting...".

However, we wish to doubt some of these claims, by posing a number of key questions, as follows.

A Dominant Planning Paradigm?

A brief look at planning and urban and geographic journals over the last decade will show a multitude of theoretical approaches being employed. In fact, the field seems to display a remarkably healthy state of (postmodern?) heterogeneity. Within this pluralism, some theoretical directions have become prominent in recent years (in addition to communicative, 'collaborative' or multicultural planning) including, but not limited to, 'regulation' (Painter and Goodwin 1995; and examples in Judge et al 1995) and 'regime' theories (Fainstein, 1995; Feldman 1995; Lauria 1997, Leo 1997; Newman and Thornley 1996), as well as the plethora of theories on difference, identity and ethnic territoriality (Jacobs 1996; Sandercock, 1998a; Yiftachel 1995)

Not all of these theoretical sources are found in the pages of planning journals, but here lies the problem in claiming a paradigmatic status. Theorisation of planning and development often occurs outside the boundaries institutionalised as 'the planning discipline', typically in geography, economics, political science, ethnic, racial and gender studies. Even within the planning discipline, the definition of 'theory' is often quite arbitrary, being confined to what self-proclaimed theorists happen to be doing. But there is nothing less or more theoretical in planning studies which generalise, for example, on the impact of gender, ethnic or racial relations on urban development, than in studies dealing with communication or rationality. The main difference does not appear to lie in their respective ability to account for the making of cities and regions, but perhaps in their inclusion/exclusion within the circles defining what constitutes 'planning theory'.

Therefore, Mandelbaum's 'consensus' and Innes's 'new paradigm' render invisible the diversity of theories employed in the field. Their generalisations are achieved by bracketing away debates about the substantive objects of planning practice, and by concentrating solely on the discourse defined institutionally, but somewhat arbitrarily, as 'planning theory'.

Explaining or Prescribing?

Most theories appearing in the planning literature have been normative and prescriptive. As such, they cover only one part of the theorisation endeavour -- "the largely programmatic ideas of how things should be" (Williams 1983: 317) -- rather than explaining of why things are as they are. Planning practitioners' objections to 'theory' stem from another meaning noted by Williams: "theory [in this sense] is used derogatorily just because it explains and (implicitly or explicitly) challenges some customary action" (p. 317).

But even Habermas's work identifies three inter-related aspects of critical, analytic and normative theorising, which should combine to generate effective praxis (a theoretically informed practice, Habermas, 1987). Without the necessary work of critique (identifying problems and the implications of prevailing norms and conditions); and analysis (explaining how the problems were created), the normative dimensions of theory (indicating what to do to bring about change) become somewhat hollow and often ineffective prescriptions (see Fainstein 2000). The need for explanatory theory as a basis for praxis is succinctly highlighted by Michael Zigzun, a black civil rights activist (quoted in Sandercock 1998a: 85):

Theory is necessary to figure out what's really going on. People always want to be saviours for their community. It's like they see a baby coming down the river and want to jump and save it. We need to stop being so reactive to the situation that confronts us. Saving babies is fine for them, but we want to know who's throwing the goddam babies in the water in the first place.

Theorising without Critical Distance?

The recent wave of communicative planning theories has mainly focussed on a normative, inward-looking question: "how can we make planning practice better?" This normative agenda is of course professionally worthy, but it provides a precarious foundation for the theorisation of the phenomenon of urban and regional planning. We suggest that a broader analytical approach which examines the causes and consequences of planning policies from a critical distance, may be a more appropriate 'vista point' to account for the shaping of cities and regions.

Why is this approach important? Mainly because it can candidly examine the conventional view of planning as an intrinsically progressive public endeavour. As Flyvbjerg (1998) recently showed 'rationality' in planning is often determined by power. Similarly, McLoughlin (1992), Yiftachel (1995, 1999), Huxley (1994, 1997) and Marcuse (1994) have shown that planning authorities and planners often act regressively, exerting domination and causing inequalities in what had been termed 'the dark-side' of planning (Yiftachel, 1994, Flyvbjerg, 1996). We may thus need to reconceptualise (that is, re-theorise) planning as a 'double-edged sword', able to either facilitate and enhance 'rational' and progressive development, or conversely, repress, fragment and control subordinate groups.

But this reconceptualisation requires a critical distance, that is, the positioning of the researcher outside the internal discourse of planning, free from a-priori faith in the profession's supporting ideological apparatus. The faith in planning characterises most literature in the field, preventing scholars from examining critically, not just the conduct of planners vis-a-vis their clients, and not just the optimisation of outcomes by rational evaluation methods, but the taken-for-granted assumptions about the progressive and rational promise of planning.

In other words, only by treating the public production of space as a contingent political phenomenon (and not as a desired or cherished intervention), and only by recognising that 'planning principles' are often used to rationalise oppressive policies, can we advance towards a robust understanding of the societal endeavour we label 'planning'. This is precisely the purpose of critical theory: testing professional concepts, models and 'gospels', against their 'real world' material and discursive consequences. This cannot be achieved without 'stepping outside' the cosy and self-assuring professional discourse.

Can Urban Planning Theory Ignore the Production of Space?

Much of the influential literature on planning, especially in North America, treats planning as a generic, procedural activity (see: Faludi 1973; Forester 1989; Friedmann 1987; Innes 1995; Mandelbaum 1996). This approach tends to focus on (important) notions of democracy, decision-making, citizen empowerment and the limits to state intervention.

In contradistinction to this, we treat planning as a specifically spatial practice that is related to the state and the production of space. Under this view 'planning' could not be theorised in abstraction from the activities, organisations, substantive objects being 'planned'. The point is that, if we are to make any sense of the debate around 'planning', we have to be clear about what we are studying: urban/regional/environmental changes that are carried out by, or in relation to, the state's power and resources. Planning theory which continues to overlook the direct relevance of spatial processes, is akin to medical theory which ignores the human body, or educational theory which down plays school curriculum.

Leading planning theories have underplayed this context and in the process lost much of their explanatory and prescriptive potence. Here it is somewhat ironic that Habermas's work forms a broad theoretical foundation of the new 'communicative turn', because as David Harvey (1996: 354) notes: "Habermas has... no conception of how spatio-temporalities and "places" are produced and how that process is integral to the process of communicative action and of valuation".

Given this context, most critical approaches to understanding planning, cities and urbanisation, the spatial dimensions of difference and disadvantage, power and regulation, have recently developed in other fields, mainly human geography, sociology, politics, architecture and law (see: Smith, 1994). Unfortunately, they have remained at a distance from mainstream planning literature, especially in the dominant USA academic scene (see McLoughlin 1994). This has come at a substantial cost: a detachment of planning theories from the actual subject areas: the material development processes which shape the home, the city, the region, the territory and the state.

But the immediate relevance of spatial processes cannot be ignored for too long. Recently, two leading theorists who had been among the main proponents of generic (as opposed to urban/spatial) planning: Andreas Faludi and John Friedmann, have both made what may be described as a 'spatial turn'. The first, in his suggestive theory of 'planning doctrines', portrays 'spatial organisation' as one of the key conceptual and material bases for planning (see: Faludi 1996). The latter makes a similar shift by highlighting the importance of studying 'the production of the urban habitat' in a rejuvenated planning theory, and by acknowledging the lack of due reference to this aspect in his earlier work.

It may be high time for a 'spatial turn' among other leading theorists, in order to create a shared theoretical discourse directly relevant to the actual practice and material consequences of planning. Needless to say, focussing on 'the production of space' does not obscure the importance of decision-making and communications for the analysis of planning, rather it firmly incorporates the spatial and political-economic embeddedness often overlooked in past theories.

What Now?

Rather than searching for 'a' or 'the' planning theory based in some notion of the scholarly primacy, a more productive task for theoreticians and practitioners alike may be to critically examine planning itself. That is, on the one hand to ask questions about the genealogy of the practices and the power/knowledge discourses gathered under the heading of 'planning'; and on the other hand, to understand the role of planning as a state-sanctioned strategy for the creation and regulation of space, populations and development. To be sure, we do not advocate an exclusive approach or a dichotomous interpretation of structure vs. agency or material vs. communication. We see most theorists as using elements from a variety of epistemological approaches, and seek to regain a healthy diversity in the field.

It may be noted that despite its relative low profile in the main arenas of planning theory, the material-critical approach is alive and kicking in planning/spatial/urban studies, including the recent critical works of authors such as Beauregard (1995), Dear (1995), Dear and Flusty (1998), Fainstein (1995, 2000); Fischler (1995); Flyvbjerg (1998), Friedmann (1998), Judge et al (1995), Lauria (1997); Neuman (1998), Sandercock (1998a, 19998b), Twedwr-Jones and Allmendinger (1998).

This partial list demonstrates the rich and diverse theoretical work taking place about the nature of planning, its practice and effects, beyond the communicative perspective. We encourage theorists to continue in this nascent momentum, shrug aside claims about the dominance and greater relevance of one approach, and explore wider and deeper in theorising the public production of space.

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^[1] This is a drastically abridged version of a paper delivered at the third Oxford Theory conference, April 1998. A substantianlly fuller version can be found in Huxley, M. and Yiftachel, O. (1999) 'New Paradigm or Old Myopia? Unsettling the Communicative Turn in Planning Theory' Planning Theory 19 (forthcoming). We thank Raphael Fischler, Bob Beauregard, and John Forester for their comments on earlier drafts.