Planning and Knowledge: How New Forms of Technocracy Are Shaping Contemporary Cities

Description

This book uses an international perspective and draws on a wide range of new conceptual and empirical material to examine the sources of conflict and cooperation within the different landscapes of knowledge that are driving contemporary urban change. Based on the premise that historically-established systems of regulation and control are being subject to unprecedented pressures, scholars critically reflect on the changing role of planning and governance in sustainable urban development, looking at how a shift in power relations between expert and local cultures in western planning processes has blurred the traditional boundaries between public, private, and voluntary sectors.

Mike Raco is Professor of Urban Governance and Development in the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London. Federico Savini is an Assistant Professor in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Amsterdam, Department of Human Geography, Planning and International Development Studies.

"Planning and Knowledge is an important contribution to the understanding of contemporary politics and urban development. It highlights the dilemmas of an urban world that appears to be increasingly in the hands of technocrats seeking to depoliticise policy and practice". Rob Imrie, Goldsmiths, University of London