'Trading zone' is a concept introduced by Peter Galison in his social scientific research on how scientists representing different sub-cultures and paradigms have been able to coordinate their interaction locally. In this book, Italian and Finnish planning researchers extend the use of the concept to different contexts of urban planning and management, where there is a need for new ideas and tools in managing the interaction of different stakeholders. The trading zone concept is approached as a tool in organizing local platforms and support systems for planning participation, knowledge production, decision making and local conflict management. In relation to the former theses of communicative planning theory that stress the ideals of consensus, mutual understanding and universal reason, the 'trading zone approach', outlined in this book, offers a different perspective. It focuses on the potentiality to coordinate locally the interaction of different stakeholders without requiring the deeper sharing of understandings, values and motives between them. Galison’s commentary comes in the form of the book’s final chapter.

This book addresses the on-going crisis of informality in rapidly growing cities of the global South. The authors offer a Southern perspective on planning theory, explaining how the concept of conflicting rationalities complements and expands upon a theoretical tradition which still primarily speaks to global ‘Northern’ audiences. De Satgé and Watson posit that a significant change is needed in the makeup of urban planning theory and practice – requiring an understanding of the ‘conflict of rationalities’ between state planning and those struggling to survive in urban informal settlements – for social conditions to improve in the global South. Ethnography, as illustrated in the book’s case study – Langa, a township in Cape Town, South Africa – is used to arrive at this conclusion. The authors are thus able to demonstrate how power and conflict between the ambitions of state planners and shack-dwellers, attempting to survive in a resource-poor context, have permeated and shaped all state–society engagement in this planning process.

Today, urban scholars think of cities and regions as evolving through networks of human associations, technologies, and natural ecologies. This being the case, planners are faced with the task of navigating a profoundly material world. Planning with and for humans alone is unacceptable: in the unfolding of urban processes, non-human things cannot be ignored. This inclusive vision has consequences for how planners envision the connections among norms, technologies and life-worlds as well as how they design and implement their plans. The contributors to this volume utilize a variety of examples – ecologically-sensitive, regional planning in Naples (Italy); congestion pricing in New York City; and public participation in Europe, among others – to explore how planners engage a heterogeneous and restless world. Inspired by assemblage thinking and actor-network theory, each chapter draws on this "new materialism" to acknowledge, in quite pragmatic ways, that spatial politics is a process of becoming that is inseparable from the materiality of urban practices.

All over the world societies are facing a number of major problems. New developments, challenges and opportunities cause these issues and yet cases tell us that traditional spatial planning responses and tools are often insufficient to tackle these problems and challenges. Situated Practices of Strategic Planning draws together examples from across the globe – from France to Australia; from Nigeria to the United States, as it observes international comparisons of the strategic planning process. Many approaches and policies used today fail to capture the dynamics of urban/regional transformation and are more concerned with maintaining an existing social order than challenging and transforming it. Stewarded by a team of highly regarded and experienced researchers, this book gives a synthetic view of the process of change and frames future directions of development. It is unique for its combination of analysis of international case studies and reflection on critical nodes and features in strategic planning. This volume will be of interest to students who study regional planning, academics, professional planners, and policy makers.

This book aims to identify ways of overcoming the limitations of the communicative tradition in understanding participatory spatial planning. Three conceptual models that offer different perspectives on public and civic participation in complex urban planning processes are presented and reviewed: the consensual model, which conceives of planning as a collective decision-making practice geared toward consensus building and conflict resolution; the conflictual model, which views planning as a social mobilization practice addressed at empowerment of marginalized groups; and the trading zone model, which reframes collaborative planning as a coordination activity with respect to practical proposals in the presence of unstable and conflicting rationalities and values. The controversial story of the Integrated Intervention Program “PII Isola Lunetta” in Milan is examined through the interpretative lenses of these models, with detailed interpretation of how each model performs in the field. The book concludes by offering critical reflections on the reframing of participatory spatial planning, highlighting the value of trading zones/trading languages and boundary objects as tools for understanding and addressing collaborative practices in complex and conflictual urban planning processes.

Within the most recent discussion on smart cities and the way this vision is affecting urban changes and dynamics, this book explores the interplay between planning and design both at the level of the design and planning domains’ theories and practices. Urban transformation is widely recognized as a complex phenomenon, rich in uncertainty. It is the unpredictable consequence of complex interplay between urban forces (both top-down or bottom-up), urban resources (spatial, social, economic and infrastructural as well as political or cognitive) and transformation opportunities (endogenous or exogenous). The recent attention to Urban Living Lab and Smart City initiatives is disclosinga promising bridge between the micro-scale environments, with the dynamics of such forces and resources, and the urban governance mechanisms. This bridge is represented by those urban collaborative environments, where processes of smart service co-design take place through dialogic interaction with and among citizens within a situated and cultural-specific frame.

The Routledge Handbook of Institutions and Planning in Action contains a selection of 25 chapters prepared by specialized international scholars of urban planning and urban studies focusing on the question of how institutional innovation occurs in practices of action. The contributors share expertise on institutional innovation and philosophical pragmatism. They discuss the different facets of these two conceptual frameworks and explore the alternative combinations through which they can be approached. The relevance of these conceptual lines of thought will be exemplified in exploring the contemporary practices of sustainable (climate-proof) urban transition. The aim of the handbook is to give a boost to the turn of institutional analysis in the context of action in changing cities. Both philosophical pragmatism and institutional innovation rest on wide international uses in social sciences and planning studies, and may be considered as complementary for many reasons. However, the combination of these different approaches is all but evident and creates a number of dilemmas. After an encompassing introductory section entitled Institutions in Action, the handbook is further divided into the following sections: Institutional innovation Pragmatism: The Dimension of Action On Justification Cultural and Political Institutions in Action Institutions and Urban Transition