Table Of ContentSPRINGER BRIEFS IN APPLIED SCIENCES AND
TECHNOLOGY POLIMI SPRINGER BRIEFS
Emanuela Saporito
Consensus Building
Versus Irreconcilable
Conflicts
Reframing
Participatory Spatial
Planning
123
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Emanuela Saporito
Consensus Building
Versus Irreconcilable
fl
Con icts
Reframing Participatory Spatial Planning
123
Emanuela Saporito
Politecnico di Torino
Turin
Italy
ISSN 2191-530X ISSN 2191-5318 (electronic)
SpringerBriefs inApplied SciencesandTechnology
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Preface
Buildingfactsandmachinesisacollectiveprocess(…)
a single person can create theses, dreams and sensations,
butnotfacts.
(Latour1998,p.53)
Thisbookistheresultofatheoreticalinquiryintothenatureofadisciplineknown
as spatial planning. It is about, in particular, an opportunity to reframe ethics and
norms for planners, in face of an ever more plural, complex and fragmented urban
society. By drawing on different, but still complementary, cultural traditions of
spatial planning theory—from critical theories to communicative ones—this work
outlines how apparently contrasting conceptions of participation in planning
practices can coexist, particularly when coordinated locally through action with
coordination of practical tasks.
The interdisciplinary character of a theoretical framework as outlined in the
following pages enhances, once more within the academic debate, the need for
spatial planning to look at “foreign” disciplinary cultures, in search of concepts,
tools, and norms able to interpret social, economic, and political events, as struc-
tural components of urban transformation processes. This work, in particular,
enhances the possibility of drawing even from the Sociology of technology and
Science (StS) to get those epistemological tools needed to enter formalized pro-
cedures, norms and methods, what we call “black boxes” (Latour 1998). The final
aim is to provide an ever more heuristic perspective on how to guide planners to
look for joint-action in plural and multi-logical contexts as the participative ones.
Due to its interdisciplinarity, the content of this work has been discussed in
conferencesandwithindividualscholarsfromtheadministrativescienceandpublic
management field, to legal science, and other academic fields that are themselves
reflectedintheneedtoreconsider,fromatradingzoneperspective,non-consensual
settings for collective decision-making and actions. This major contribution of
postdoctoral work on this manuscript was conducted at the Department of Urban
v
vi Preface
Planning of the Polytechnic School of Turin. The intense multidisciplinary dis-
cussionsamongsomanyexpertshavesupportedamorematureconsiderationofthe
findingsofourcollaborativeworkthatwillbehelpfulinbetterframingfurtherlines
of research.
However, the core of the research work—of which this book is a selective
elaboration—has been carried out mainly during a Ph.D. earning period at the
Department of Urban Studies of the Polytechnic School of Milan and at the
Department of History of Science at Harvard University. For these reasons, a
special acknowledgment goes to Prof. Alessandro Balducci from PoliMi for his
guidance and fundamental support and Prof. Peter Galison from Harvard, for his
generous contribution to the discussion of this research.
Emanuela Saporito
Contents
1 New Challenges for Participatory Approaches
in Spatial Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Toward a Participative Conception of Urban Planning . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.1 Rationalities in Planning: A Paradigmatic Revolution . . . . 2
1.1.2 Political Attitudes to Participation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.2 Contemporary Practices: Expertise and Handbooks . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.3 Now What? Facing Criticisms to Participatory Planning. . . . . . . . 9
1.3.1 Questioning Issues of Legitimacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.3.2 Questioning Issues of Effectiveness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2 Looking for a Way Out. Three Models of Participative
Planning: The “Conflictual”, “Consensual”
and “Trading Zone” Approaches. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1 Dealing with Power and Rationality Dilemmas in Planning:
A Methodological Choice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2 A Conflictual Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.2.1 Agonistic Democracy and Plural Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2.2 Planning as a Social Mobilization Practice:
Towards the just City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.3 A Consensual Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.3.1 Managing Contentious Interdependences
and the Role of Facilitative Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.3.2 Consensus-Building Approach and Collaborative
Adaptive Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.4 A Trading Zone Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.4.1 A “Designing Perspective” for Participatory Practices . . . . 39
2.4.2 Trading Zones, Interlanguages and Boundary Objects:
Interpretative Tools for Collaborative Action . . . . . . . . . . 43
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
vii
viii Contents
3 A Case of Complexity in Urban Planning: The PII Isola
Process in Milan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.1 Which Participation? The Controversial Story of PII
Isola-Lunetta in Milan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.1.1 Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.2 The PII Isola Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.2.1 The Case Study Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4 Rationalities at Work: How to Read the PII Isola
Participatory Process Through Three Different
Conceptual Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.1 Testing Participative Models at Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.2 The Conflictual Model at Work: Evaluating Outcomes. . . . . . . . . 73
4.2.1 Broad Perspective Considerations: Power Dynamics
at Play. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.2.2 Local Perspective Considerations: Participatory
Processes’ Outcomes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4.2.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
4.3 The Consensual Model at Work: The Importance
of the Method. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.3.1 The Fairness of the Process: Methodological
Constraints. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.3.2 Consensus as Main Outcome: What Is the Role
of Conflicts?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.3.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.4 The Trading Zone Model at Work: Starting
from Interactions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
4.4.1 Evolving Trading Zones at Isola: The Master Plan
as a Boundary Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.4.2 Stecca Degli Artigiani as a Trading Zone: Innovative
Devices for Participative Urban Planning. . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
4.4.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5 Reframing Participatory Spatial Planning: Critical
Reflections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.1 The Third Way Between Conflict and Consensus:
A “Trading Zone” Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.2 A Trading Zone Way for Planning in the Face
of Complexity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.3 Reframing Participation in a Trading Zone Perspective . . . . . . . . 101
5.4 Final Critical Remarks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Introduction
Background and Problem Statement
This work originates from the very recent critical literature produced about
communicative planning theory. Its ambition is to investigate ways to reframe the
paradigm of participatory planning by enhancing its pluralistic and pragmatic ori-
gins, while overcoming certain ambiguities concerning communicative rationality
embedded in collaborative and deliberative traditions.
The international debate within the culture of planning theory confirms on the
one hand a widespread dissatisfaction toward contemporary participatory practice
and,ontheother,theurgent needtobetter frameanevolutionaryanalysisofthese
experiences.
An entire cycle of participative experimentation, started in the mid-1990s and
characterized by top-down initiatives programmed to set up inclusive planning
practices with mainly redistributive aims, has now come to an end. In this respect
pluraldecision-makingprocesses,organizedasconsensus-buildingcontexts,appear
tobeconfinedto“liturgical”behaviorsorinstrumentalimplementationsofspecific
deliberative techniques, according to sophisticated methodological taxonomies
(LascoumesandLeGàles2007).Indeed,theseapproachesseemunabletopenetrate
the formal planning process and to be consistent with more and more conflicting
and complex social uses of the space: the focus is placed on the fairness of pro-
cesses rather than on their outcomes (Palermo and Ponzini 2010).
Participatoryandinclusiveapproachestospatialplanningpracticeshadthemerit
of providing practical answers to legitimacy and efficacy issues in planning by
relying on politicaland action models, conceiving the “intelligence of democracy”
(Lindblom 1959, 1990) as a tool to inform public action and to address “social
justice” in spatial transformations. Those approaches gave practical shape to what
Friedmann defined as “planning rationality”, as the relationship between means
(knowledge) and ends (actions), by bringing the so-called third-actor (Balducci
1991; Giusti 1995) within the traditional bargaining between market and public
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