When Strangers Become Neighbours: Managing Cities of Difference

Abstract Beginning with Healey's definition of planning as ''managing our co-existence in shared space'', this article asks what it means to manage our co-existence in cities of difference. The focus on difference is justified by referring to an emerging literature that identifies the issues and challenges involved in planning for multiple publics. The article elaborates four different ways in which multicultural or polyethnic cities and regions are a challenge to planning systems, policies, practices, and education and identifies four possible ways of responding to these challenges. One of these responses, political dialogue, becomes the focus of the final section of the article, a case study of a recent conflict in inner Sydney between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal residents over land use. Reflecting on the implications of this case study, a more 'therapeutic' approach to planning practice in certain contexts is recommended, and this is compared with existing models of communicative action.