Collaborative Planning in Perspective

TLDR

The article reviews the 1997 book *Collaborative Planning: Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies*, offering a personal overview. It explains the book’s genesis and discusses the criticisms it has attracted. The author recounts formative experiences, summarizes the book’s core ideas, and critiques its treatment of context, process, social theory, power, institutionalist analysis, and normative biases. The author urges continued focus on the complexity and diversity of urban governance contexts and the necessity of understanding situated governance dynamics for practical action.

Abstract

This article presents a personal review by the author of Collaborative Planning: Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies, published in 1997. It explains how the book came to be written and makes some comments on the various criticisms it has attracted. The first section introduces key experiences that fed into the book followed by a brief summary of the key ideas that underpin its arguments. In reviewing the critiques, the article focuses in particular on the treatment of `context', the emphasis on `process', the use of `social theory', and `power', and the development of `institutionalist' analysis. This is followed by a comment on the normative biases in the work. In conclusion, the author makes a plea for continuing attention to the complexity and diversity of urban governance contexts and the importance for practical action of grasping the particularities of situated governance dynamics.