Questioning Planning, Connecting Places and Times: Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

Why do planners do what planners do? Are they moved by positivistic agendas set in stone in their manuals? Are they moved by a normative will to improve the ‘world’, the ‘dream of planning’ (Bertolini, 2009)? May their dreams blind them to the specificities of a situation? Or are they ‘normal’ human beings doing their job better or worse according to their particular interests, their idiosyncrasies, even the fashion or mood of the day? These are recurring questions that planning theory has been delving into for a few decades. Through this issue of plaNext, we want to suggest that it is high time to look back and discuss the many ideas and ‘buzzwords’ that have been used and misused, created and interpreted in, and by, planning theory.