The$Art$ofPlanning - University of California, Berkeley

The Art of Planning

IURD, UC Berkeley April 30, 2013 Sigmund Asmervik, professor em Oslo,Norway [email protected]

01.05.13 The Art of Planning, UC Berkeley

A Journey from MathemaLcs to Rhetoric And new book: The Art of Planning To listen, read, speak and write a story, about 20 years wrestling with the concept of plannning theory



We are all practitioners

I question the well-established preconception of the dichotomy between theory and practice in planning. How do the so-called practitioners and persons in academia work? They read and write, they are listening and speaking. The products are written documents, maps and diagrams, and oral presentations to different and varied audiences. It is much the same.

Three books

•  Donald A. Schön: The Reflek2ve Prac22oner (1983) •  José Luis Ramíres: Crea2ve Meaning, A contribu2on to human-‐scien2fic theory of ac2on (1995)

•  Stephen Toulmin: Return to Reason (2001)


Stephen Toulmin

Return to Reason In 2001, the book Return to Reason, wriXen by Stephen Toulmin, was published, and had a second print run already in 2003. This tells us something about the relevance of this book. To me Toulmin is an interesLng philosopher who for more than 40 years has argued for a posiLon which slowly seems to be gaining acceptance. But it has taken a long Lme. When he published his best known book, The Uses of Argument in 1958, it was called both anL-‐scienLfic and anL-‐logical. But this book was also re-‐published in an updated version in 2003.


Stephen Toulmin

Already in his thesis, Reason in Ethics, published in 1949, a book that was in print for 37 years, Toulmin stated clearly that quesLons relaLng to ethics are important and relevant to the field of philosophy. Toulmin had a unique and challenging situaLon as a student in Cambridge in the early 1950s where he aXended the lectures of Ludwig WiXgenstein at the same Lme as he was fascinated by the Oxford-‐based philosopher and historian R.G.Collingwood. 01.05.13 The Art of Planning, UC Berkeley

Stephen Toulmin

The apparently insuperable gap between historians and philosophers during the first half of the 20th century, is to me the most important issue in Return to Reason. According to Toulmin, WiXgenstein commented on “History” in this way: ”What is history to me? Mine is the first and only World.” Could it be said more clearly by one of the most influenLal philosophers in the 20th century? Philosophy should search for context independent logical relaLons and was best expressed by mathemaLcal proposiLons. On the other hand, it is hard to think of wriLng about history not being context-‐dependent.


Stephen Toulmin

Let us take a closer look at some points of interest in Return to Reason. One is that Toulmin, not surprisingly, leans on Aristotle to a very large degree. In many ways the book is coloured by the importance of where and when and there and then, which is a way of poinLng out the importance of context-‐dependency as opposed to context-‐independency. Toulmin prefers the concept situa2on dependent to context-‐dependent. 01.05.13 The Art of Planning, UC Berkeley

Stephen Toulmin

Toulmin advocates the development of a construcLve coexistence between logic and rhetoric, towards a contemporarily relevant rhetoric posiLon that looks forward. This, he claims, has to be based on raLonality to achieve a posiLon based on wisdom and ethical consideraLon.


The Ra2onal and the Reasonable

In his conclusions he writes: “These pracLces begin with intelligent analyses of the factual soil from which our problems spring, but such acLons bear fruit only when they are guided by ideals that make raLonal assessments stepping stones to reasonable decisions.”


Four areas of interest

1. Wholeness and the fragment 2. Borders in mind and space 3. The art of rhetoric 4. Risk society


“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in”. (Leonard Cohen 1992)


The wholeness and the fragment

Aready at the turn of the 19th century Georg Simmel (1858 -‐1918) had warned about the chaoLc metropolis in his seminal arLcle on the metropolis and mental life. He spoke of mono-‐raLonality as being a mental condom that protects us from being raped by the metropolis The American translaLon avoids the strong language: “Intellectuality is thus seen to preserve subjec2ve life against the overwhelming power of metropolitan life”.


Chaos theories

During the 1980s, chaos theories appeared as a possible tool that could be used to understand the complexity of our ciLes. These kinds of idea and theory led me to ask the quesLon of whether city planning was more a quesLon of self-‐regulaLng and self-‐referencing systems than the tradiLonal idea of designed form. •  We are dreaming of wholeness, but the power is in the fragments.

•  But acLon is always part of the whole!


Genesis 1, 31

31 And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning was the sixth day”


Genesis 11,9

9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because Lord did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did theLord scaXer them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”


”Oh, to sin is to trespass. To trespass is to cross a boundary. To cross a boundary is to break a definiDon. To break a definiDon is to create. To create is to be different. To be different is to sin.To sin is to live in self reference”. (Gunnar Olsson,1991)


From naming and categorizaLon to borders in towns and ciLes Naming and categorizaLons create borders and limits in mind and environment, and there are limits to what we can do without creaLng limits. As individuals we funcLon by disLnguishing between what is similar and what is dissimilar. We interpret categories and borders all the Lme when we choose from among alternaLves.


We live with metaphors

Johnson and Lakoff remind us about the way we live with metaphors and how they play a crucial role in how we name and categorize. They point out that many of the metaphors are very closely linked to our bodily experiences. We look at our body as a “container”. A gravity experienced by our bodies helps us to understand up and down, within and outside, heavy and light and wide and narrow.


“God is a concept by which we measure our pain.” (John Lennon 1970)


RHETORICS

The art of language and power If we go all the way back to Aristotle we will language and communicaLon theories have their roots in the three pillars of ethos, pathos and logos. All texts from 1900 on, both in public relaLons and in all sorts of criLcal theories have connecLons to these three pillars.


The rhetoric power of large projects

Flyvbjerg has expressed how he has experienced the significance of the rhetoric in megaprojects: Strategic misrepresentation appears to be a euphemism for lying, and Flyvbjerg confirms that is exactly what it is. “We use this very strange term, strategic misrepresentation, because it makes it possible to talk about it. If I call it a lie in my lectures, people are furious, and I get hate mail.”


“Because something is happening here. But you don’t know what it is. Do you, Mister Jones ?” (Bob Dylan 1965)


Risk society

From dreaming of heaven on earth to planning to avoid hell All the way from Engel’s descripLons of the very bad living condiLons in large UK ciLes around 1850 up to the planning ideals in the mid1970s, the main goal of planning was to create beXer standards of living for the lower classes in the industrialised world. Or in other words, to create heaven on earth. Much of this perspecLve was developed by the wriLngs of Ulrich Beck, a German sociologist and professor at the University of Munich, who wrote RisikogesellschaN in 1986. This was translated and published in English in 1992 under the Ltle: Risk Society, Towards a New Modernity.


Three raLonaliLes

Also a textbook? •  Instrumental raLonality

•  CommunicaLve raLonality

•  The raLonality of power 01.05.13 The Art of Planning, UC Berkeley

The Art of Planning, UC Berkeley

We already know it!

I can not teach you anything you not already know.

01.05.13

The Art of Planning, UC Berkeley

Terms and Concepts

All were there Green lungs The term Rolig in Norwegian og Swedish

01.05.13


Speaking and writing

If we examine the core of the activity, planning is primarily an oral phenomenon. Of course we both have and need planning acts, written studies and printed planning documents. But the crucial decisions take place through discussion, argument and voting. This is not so different from other public activities, such as political negotiations, baptism rituals, weddings and funerals. Courtroom proceedings are also mainly oral phenomena.

To speak or to write

•  Redundant or «copious» •  Close to the human life world •  AgonisLcally toned •  EmpatheLc and parLcipatory rather than objecLvely distanced

•  HomeostaLc •  Context-‐ dependent and context-‐independent language

(Ong 1982)


The relation between the speaker and the listener Who has the power, the one who speaks or the one who

listens? The one who writes or the one who read? This relation is very instructively and beautifully told in the

parable of the sower in the Bible: “A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed,

some fell by the wayside; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it.

And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture.

And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it; and choked it. But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and bore fruit a hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried: He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” (The Bible Luke 8: 5-8)


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Thank you! [email protected]


The$Art$ofPlanning - University of California, Berkeley

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