The premise of this volume is that the concepts of neoliberalism
and neoliberalisation have largely been overlooked in planning
theory as well as in the analysis of planning practice, despite the
common deployment of these terms in the social sciences. Combining
a number of specially commissioned chapters with insights from
papers presented to a recent conference session of the Association
of American Geographers in Boston, the book is dedicated to filling
this significant lacuna in the study of planning.
What the case studies explored in these chapters from Africa,
Asia, North America and Europe have in common is that they all
reveal the uneasy coexistence of planning, defined as state
intervention for the betterment of our built and natural
environment, and neoliberalism, whose belief in the superiority of
market mechanisms at organizing land use dictates a concomitant
belief in the inferiority of its opposite, state intervention.
Planning may, if anything, be seen as an obstacle to neoliberalism,
an inconvenience destined to be rolled back or even annihilated
through neoliberal practice. Combining neoliberal and planning in
one phrase, then, seems awkward at best, and at worst an outright
oxymoron. The very existence or epistemological possibility of
neoliberal planning may appear to be a total surrender of state
planning to market forces, or in other words, the simple acceptance
that the management of buildings, transport infrastructure, parks,
conservation areas etc. "beyond" the profit principle has reached
its limits in the 21st century. In this case, planning practice is
relegated to the position of a mere facilitator of market forces,
be it moderate or authoritarian.
In spite of these contradictions and outright impossibilities,
planners operate within, contribute to, resist or seek to mitigate
an increasingly neoliberal mode of producing spaces and places, one
that has resulted in the revival of profit-driven changes in land
use. This book describes, analyzes and elucidates the incongruity
between serving private, profit-driven interests and the planning
system 's purported goal of improving the built environment shared
by the public. It does so through case studies covering an array of
planning issues in a range of national contexts. The authors lay
bare precisely how spatial planning functions in a culture of
market triumphalism, and how planners respond to the overriding
profit principle in land allocation. Yet the book also provides
exemplars of public-spirited, not-for-profit developments.
General
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