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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Planning for Community
A comprehensive exploration of community planning that integrates today’s social and economic issues with policy and governance considerations
In Planning for Community, distinguished regional and local planner Phil Heywood delivers an insightful examination of the accelerating impacts of social, environmental, and economic changes on community life and organization. He explores the ways in which these changes can be anticipated, planned for, and managed as he reviews and evaluates the nature and challenges of place and interaction faced by traditional and emerging local communities.
The book includes discussions of the values, aims, and methods of community planning and the key operations in each of the fields of housing, work, transport, health, and environment. It should also inspire and assist readers to become more involved and influential in the lives of their local and wider communities.
Readers will also find:
- A thorough introduction to methods of inclusion and empowerment enabling effective community management
- Comprehensive explorations of the ways the values of prosperity, liberty, social justice, and sustainability link to practical community problem-solving
- Practical discussions of the values, methods, activities, design, and governance shaping community planning
- Comprehensive, well-grounded, and effective treatments of policy development and practice
Planning for Community is an excellent resource for professionals, activists, academics, and students seeking a comprehensive and readable guide to community planning.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Preface
Acknowledgements
1 Promises and Problems of Community Life
Introduction: the organisation of the chapter
Contemporary challenges to community life
The roles of communication and collaboration
Applications of communication in community planning
Collaboration in practice
Conclusions
Endnotes
References
2 The Lives of Local Communities
Scope and scales of community
Social, economic and organisational characteristics of local communities
The strategies of social justice
Planning places
Community participation and governance
Conclusion: the durability of local communities of place and contact
Endnotes
References
3 Communities of Interest and Interaction
Introduction: scales of community organisation and issues
Cities as communities
Regional communities
National communities
Supranational political communities
Global communities
Integrating the many levels of community planning
Conclusions: mixed scanning for integrated community planning
Endnotes
References
4 Human Values and Community Goals
Value formation
The value of prosperity
The value of liberty
The values of social justice
Values for sustainable communities and environments
Relations among community values
The impacts of prosperity
The impacts of liberty
Social justice impacts
The demands for sustainability
Conclusions: how values can combine to solve problems and shape creative plans
Endnotes
References
5 Ways and Means
Introduction: the roles of art, science and craft in community planning
Art and creativity in planning
The creative roles of the written word
Creating wholeness within new and existing communities
The contributions of Christopher Alexander (1936–2022)
Planning as a craft
The four phases of planning
The logic of scientific discovery
Mistakes, problem‐solving and human and social progress
Critical rationalist approach to planning
Common ground between scientific and planning method
Planning as craft and applied science
Political control and community participation
Conclusions: values‐based methods for value fulfilment
Endnotes
References
Appendix
6 Activities and Actions
Introduction: the organisation of the chapter
The relations among values, activities and land uses
The contributions of systems thinking in managing activities
Activity systems analysis in practice
Conclusions: defining needs and exploring options for activity systems
Endnotes
References
7 Homes and Communities
Introduction: the contributions of shelter to family and community life
Challenges of population change in meeting global and local needs for shelter
Impacts and contributions of changing technology
Funding shelter
Balancing demands with supply for shelter
Conclusions: future directions for shelter
Endnotes
References
8 Facets of Community
Introduction and organisation of the chapter
Levels and justifications for community intervention
The planning and organisation of work
Education: the place of learning in community life and development
The planning and delivery of health services
Conclusion: the many facets of community
Endnotes
References
9 Places, Spaces and Community Design
Introduction: organisation of the chapter
Places and their properties
Communal, collective and private places and spaces
The language of design and the vocabulary of space and place
Place‐making: designing to make life
City shapes
Conclusion: bringing places to life
Endnotes
References
10 Community Governance and Participation
Governance, government and community participation
Roles and responsibilities in governance and participation
Issues of freedom and order
The roles of negotiation and partnership in resolving conflicts
The development and evaluation of policies, proposals and community initiatives
Service activities of local government
Scales of community and their roles in governance and control
Conclusion: the contributions of participation and governance to community life
Endnotes
References
11 Conclusions: Community Planning Today and Tomorrow
Introduction: organisation and intentions of the chapter
Themes, roles and future directions: inclusion, negotiation, adaptation and invention
The future of community planning
Endnotes
References
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 2
Table 2.1 Forms of local community governance.
Chapter 3
Table 3.1 Types and characteristics of different scales of communities in th...
Table 3.2 Bases and spheres of activity of global communities.
Chapter 4
Table 4.1 Examples of survival needs and values of self consciousness.
Table 4.2 Relationships among four community planning values
Chapter 5
Table 5.1 Comparison of phases of cabinet making and planning processes.
Chapter 7
Table 7.1 Community size and types of appropriate housing provision (develop...
Chapter 8
Table 8.1 Generalized factors of demand and supply for goods, services and j...
Table 8.2 Workplace locations: influences and outcomes.
Table 8.3 Support provisions for employment nodes.
Table 8.4 Model of standard educational provisions in a developed country.
Table 8.5 Global health trends: challenges and responses.
Table 8.6 Health provisions, locations, indicative scales, links and governa...
Chapter 10
Table 10.1 Contrasting community planning implications of liberty and order....
Table 10.2 Applications of negotiation and partnership in achieving communi...
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1 Lorinzetti's allegory of good government.
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1 The scope and levels of community planning.
Figure 3.2 Norman Creek Greenway: Athletics track, cycle path and creek corr...
Figure 3.3 Saturday Morning at the creekside skatepark.
Figure 3.4 Team training in Greenway playing field with playground and creek...
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1 Four value sets in community planning.
Figure 4.2 Planting day at Bingara's living classroom.
Figure 4.3 The living classroom in its rural setting.
Figure 4.4 Mixed uses, an aerial view of the living classroom.
Figure 4.5 Cycle of human use of natural resources.
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1 David Hockney's
The Diver
, painted in California in 1978.
Figure 5.2 Evaluation in the action – reflection spiral. (a) Review in the a...
Figure 5.3 Traditional (Baconian) view of scientific method (1616–1932).
Figure 5.4 Models of scientific and planning method.
Figure 5.5 Generation of planning problems and objectives.
Figure 5.6 Generalised planning process.
Figure 5.7 Community planning process.
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1 Perceptions, analysis and causation in planning.
Figure 6.2 Relations between Realms in Metropolitan Spatial Structure – the ...
Figure 6.3 A model of garden design.
Figure 6.4 Values, activities and land uses in the creation of shelter. ...
Figure 6.5 Simplified model of transport system.
Figure 6.6 The journey to work sub system.
Chapter 7
Figure 7.1 Conversion of former Richlands High School teaching block for 26 ...
Figure 7.2 Rear view with patio garden spaces, conversion of former Richland...
Figure 7.3 Earnshaw Haven, single‐storey, medium‐density affordable rental d...
Figure 7.4 Tony and Judy, affordable housing residents at one of BHC's inner...
Figure 7.5 Hartopp Street apartment block, communal landscaped interior gard...
Figure 7.6 Hartopp Street interior of two‐bedroom apartment block, high‐dens...
Figure 7.7 Musk Avenue, Kelvin Grove, 12 storey, affordable rental apartment...
Figure 7.8 Masters Street, Newstead inner city apartment block under constru...
Figure 7.9 Fitzgibbon outer suburban green field site previously owned by Qu...
Chapter 8
Figure 8.1 The work system.
Figure 8.2 The learning system.
Figure 8.3 The health system.
Chapter 9
Figure 9.1 Kolkata water space at Puja Festival after installation of Metrop...
Figure 9.2 Kolkata, inner city street scene awash with clean water for Puja ...
Figure 9.3 Types and roles of community, collective and private spaces.
Figure 9.4 Brisbane's post office Square. Photograph by author.
Figure 9.5 Stonehenge. Reproduced under the terms of Creative Commons Licens...
Figure 9.6 Swayambhunath temple and forecourt, Kathmandu.
Figure 9.7 Acropolis of Athens.
Figure 9.8 Alhambra Palace, timeless elements in community design: rhythm an...
Figure 9.9 The delights of enclosed and secluded spaces: Court Of The Lions,...
Figure 9.10 The Jewish Memorial Museum and associated spaces in Berlin. ...
Figure 9.11 Temple, ceremonial way and avenue of the animal gods, entrance t...
Figure 9.12 Temple of Hatshepsut, processional way and forecourt.
Source:
Mo...
Figure 9.13 Tiananmen Square, Beijing.
Source:
Yo Hibino / Flickr.
Figure 9.14 Tolga Village Enhancement: new street signage and historic fig t...
Figure 9.15 Tinaroo Community Plan, showing village centre, lake front acces...
Figure 9.16 Community planning workshop with local residents.
Source:
Reprod...
Figure 9.17 Creating a culture of appreciation: Atherton community sculpture...
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1 An integrated system of health governance and delivery.
Figure 10.2 The global context: six levels of governance and participation....
Guide
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright
Preface
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Index
Wiley End User License Agreement
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Planning for Community
Phil Heywood
Copyright © 2024 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per‐copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750‐8400, fax (978) 750‐4470, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748‐6011, fax (201) 748‐6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permission.
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data:
Names: Heywood, Phil, author.
Title: Planning for community / Phil Heywood.
Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : John Wiley & Sons, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023032339 (print) | LCCN 2023032340 (ebook) | ISBN 9781394175710 (paperback) | ISBN 9781394175727 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781394175734 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Community life. | Communities—Planning. | Community organization. | Community development—Planning.
Classification: LCC HM761 .H493 2023 (print) | LCC HM761 (ebook) | DDC 307—dc23/eng/20230802
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023032339
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023032340
Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Image: © qwertfak/Adobe Stock Photos
Preface
In the decade since the publication of the first edition of this book as Community Planning: Integrating Social and Physical Environments, reasons to plan for the social, economic and physical wellbeing of communities have multiplied at a remarkable rate. These changes include the rapid growth of urban populations, the increased levels and urgency of global migration, the threats posed to established environments by disasters of flood and fire triggered by climate change, the problems of health, work and travel resulting from mutating pandemics and the collapse of consensus and confidence in democratically elected governments in many societies throughout the world. All of these demand better and more effective ways to plan and manage community life, and the scales of these needs range from the local to the supranational. Community planning has never been more challenging nor more needed.
This second edition is therefore designed to meet the needs not only of students of urban and regional planning, but also of practitioners and activists in the wide range of activities making up community life, including housing, health, education, transport, design and governance. In the contemporary world of increasing interaction, none of these activities can be satisfactorily planned in isolation.
Running through the whole book are the twin themes of planning to fulfil human values and to advance personal and community inclusion. The role of human values is essential to provide secure and stable foundations for reaching valid decisions in a world where rapid changes in ideas, technology, politics and policies are dominating the fields of health, productivity, well-being and prosperity and powerfully impacting contemporary community life. Values-based community planning can offer reliable methods to shape the necessary well-informed choices, while involving both long established and recently arrived members and fellow citizens in developing these shared futures. Planning approaches explored throughout this book therefore link widely acknowledged values, goals and objectives to appropriate activities to shape desired future outcomes and environments. In times when rising standards of education are increasing the levels and intensity of public debates, widespread social inclusion, which has always been politically and morally desirable, is also becoming practically essential.
A further theme running throughout the book is the need for mixed scanning to understand and integrate the mix of scales of both place and time to promote realistic and responsible community life. In times when instantaneous global communications and unprecedented rates of untested innovations demand systematic evaluation, mixed scanning, comparing impacts at local and wider scales and over immediate and long-term time horizons, has become esssential for good planning and decision making.
Successive chapters consider these themes. Chapter 1, Problems and Promises of Community Life, reviews the promises, problems, trends and influences shaping contemporary community life. In Chapter 2, The Life of Local Communities, their evolution, characteristics and current challenges are considered both in the developed nations of North America, Europe and Australia, and throughout the world. Chapter 3, Communities of Interest and Interaction, extends these discussions to include the increasingly significant communities of interest emerging at urban, regional, national, supranational and even global scales. The central issues of the driving values of community life, transcending time and place, and including prosperity, justice, liberty and sustainability are explored in Chapter 4, Human Values and Community Goals. This leads on to the discussions, in Chapter 5, Ways and Means, of the contributions of values of art, craft and science to developing creative, inclusive and practical planning methods. The application of these methods to the key activities of housing, health, work, education and movement follows in Chapters 6–8.
The overarching fields of both design and politics are critical to the effective delivery of sound and imaginative plans for all of these activities. Chapter 9, Places, Spaces, and Community Design, reviews and explains the challenges and methods of placemaking at scales from the neighbourhood to the metropolitan region, illustrated by examples drawn from classical, historical and contemporary contexts. The crucial issues of social inclusion, devolution, accountability and governance are examined in Chapter 10, Community Governance and Participation. Finally, Chapter 11, Conclusions, Community Planning Today and Tomorrow, summarises the book's themes and identifies the major contributions that community planning can make at scales ranging from the daily experience of the neighbourhood to the increasing impacts of the global community. The overall intention of the book is to encourage and empower readers to play ever more effective roles in shaping beneficial lives for individuals and communities at many scales.
Phil HeywoodBrisbaneApril 2023
Acknowledgements
Of all stages of writing, acknowledgements are among the most satisfying. There are major psychological rewards in recollecting and recording the contributions of family, friends and associates whose assistance has shaped much of the life and form of the work, recalling the many moments of illumination, intellectual companionship, good advice and thoughtful encouragement which have been shared over the years.
First thanks are due to the friends and colleagues whose ideas and insights have made major contributions to my thinking. To John Taylor and Jon Allison, organisers and companions of numerous explorations through towns, cities, countryside and the worlds of ideas go my deep appreciation of their enquiring minds and reflective and creative spirits. To the late Ian Crowther, accomplished regional planner, I am grateful for a lifetime of friendship and examples of practical goodwill and idealism. Chris Buckley, most enlightened of planning practitioners and a good companion on planning delegations to Timor Loro S'ae and on urban rambles and explorations around South east Queensland, has provided a heartening example over many decades of how a clear mind and a good heart can combine to make a better world. I am equally grateful for the examples set by Fiona Caniglia and Vanessa Bennett, whose insight, flair and skills of community development and policy formation continue to advance social inclusion throughout these times of rapid change. Appreciation and thanks are also due to generations of students and community activists in England, Nigeria and Australia for their energy and imagination. They have not only enriched my teaching and work in community development but also contributed greatly to the ideas to be found in this book.
The overall scope, logic and writing of both editions have benefitted from the generous time and commentary of a number of family members, friends and colleagues, who have reviewed numerous drafts of chapters and sections. Between them, my wife Sheila and daughters Lucy and Eileen have read every word of both original and revised texts and have applied their knowledge of the fields of community health and policy, social development, problem solving and appreciative inquiry to improve its relevance. Lucy has read numerous drafts and provided invaluable insights on all chapters, particularly concerning the strong bonds that should link community planning and her own field of community development. Eileen's keen insights have kept me alerted to the crucial questions of what matters now. The advice of my old colleague, Peter Roberts, Founding Director of the United Kingdom's Homes and Communities Academy, combining empathy and insight, proved invaluable in clarifying intentions and structure. Anna Hassett, Anne and Brian Hudson and Laurel Johnson have provided valuable commentary at different times and on many aspects.
Several others have made particular contributions of knowledge and research. My lifelong friend, John Leatherdale, has kept me up to date with recent developments in English Neighbourhood Planning. David Cant, founding CEO of the Brisbane Housing Company, has not only assisted with commentary, information and photographs for the chapter on Homes and Communities, but also provided an inspiring example through his energetic leadership of that organization from 2003 to 2018. Landscape Architect John Mongard's trail-blazing work on place making throughout Australia has helped inform much of the content and many of the illustrations of Chapters 4, Human Values and Community Goals, and 9, Place, Space and Community Design. Thanks also go to my son-in-law Dean Saffron for his photographic skills. The talented contributions made by Jessica Chatwin, Justine Lacey, Mark Conlan, and Sherry She to research, analysis and presentation of information for the 1st edition, remain invaluable, transforming sketchy ideas and information into clear diagrams and figures.
In addition, Wiley and I are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copyright material:
John Mongard Landscape Architects (JMLA) for
Figure 4.2Planting Day at Bingara's Living Classroom.
Figure 4.3. The Living Classroom in its rural setting.
Figure 9.14, Tolga Village Enhancement: new street signage and historic fig tree;
Figure 9.15, Tinaroo Community Plan, showing village centre, lake front access and conservation and revegetation areas;
Figure 9.16Community planning workshop with local residents;
Figure 9.17, Creating a culture of appreciation: Atherton community sculptures, plan and vistas;
to the Brisbane Housing Company for
Figure 7.1 Conversion of former Richlands High School teaching block for 26 affordable rental dwellings, with small front garden spaces, nearing completion, 2009.
Figure 7.2 Rear view with patio garden spaces, conversion of former Richlands High School teaching block for 26 affordable rental dwellings, nearing completion, 2009
Figure 7.3 Earnshaw Haven, single-storey, medium-density affordable rental dwellings, with small back garden spaces
Figure 7.4 Tony and Judy, affordable housing residents at one of BHC's inner-Brisbane high-density, mixed-tenure rental complexes
Figure 7.5 Hartopp Street apartment block, communal landscaped interior garden space high-density medium-rise affordable rental dwellings
Figure 7.6 Hartopp Street interior of two-bedroom apartment block, high-density, medium-rise, affordable rental dwellings
Figure 7.7 Musk Avenue, Kelvin Grove, 12 storey, affordable rental apartment block, interior of one-bedroom apartment, with view towards city centre.
Figure 7.8 Masters Street, Newstead inner city apartment block under construction with city centre in background
Figure 7.9, Fitzgibbon outer suburban green field site previously owned by Queensland Housing being developed for mixed rental and purchase medium-priced and affordable dwellings, using 2008 Commonwealth Fiscal Stimulus funding;
John Hill and Creative Commons for Figure 9.7, The Acropolis, and 9.10, The Jewish Memorial Museum in Berlin.
and to Catherine Oakley for Figures 9.8, Alhambra Palace and 9.9, Court of the Lions.
Finally, my heartfelt thanks go to Todd Green, Executive Editor, and his colleagues Amy Odum, Kelly Gomez, Monica Chandra Sekar and Jeevaghan Devapal in the editorial and production staff at Wiley, whose insight and guidance have made the revision and writing of this extensively updated 2nd edition both constructive and rewarding.
Phil Heywood, Brisbane, April 2023
1Promises and Problems of Community Life
Introduction: the organisation of the chapter
Part One, Current Cascades of Change, examines the ways that a number of accelerating social and economic factors are creating insistent needs for more imaginative and effective community planning. These pressures include:
accelerating innovations in information and communications;
economic fluctuations;
expanding transport technologies;
radical administrative reorganisation;
major political change;
destabilised international relations;
changing mindsets
: increasing relativism and loss of intellectual self‐confidence.
Part Two, Community Life and Change, relates these challenges to contemporary community life and outlines potential planning responses.
Part Three, Competing Interpretations of Community Structure and Change, delves into differing interpretations of the nature of communities based on the competing priorities of order, productivity, control and cooperation.
Part Four, The Roles of Collaboration, reviews how these themes illuminate the ways that people and organisations can cooperate in planning their communities and leads to Conclusions applying these roles to the practices of collaborative planning.
Part One, Current Cascades of Change
The justification for planning today extends beyond the age‐old desire to create a better world. New urgency is being injected by threats to our continued security as a successful and sociable species posed by increasingly volatile conditions in the physical, economic and political environments. Because the best solutions to many of these challenges are themselves contested, finding solutions will demand inclusive discussions to shape new agreements concerning values, actions and distribution of costs and benefits. Coordinated responses will have to match and manage impacts resulting from a wide range of powerful drivers, including climate change triggering spiralling environmental instability; increased personal and social mobility; economic uncertainty; impacts of technological change; globalisation of production and information exchange; and most recently, the spiralling impacts of mutating global pandemics. Coherent and responsive planning is also needed to ensure that the solution to one problem does not come at the cost of creating unmanageable impacts on others.i
Because sustainable solutions in free societies must ultimately be built upon communication and collaboration, planning to meet these challenges should involve bringing together not only various technical experts, service providers and business interests but also community members and leaders. This is true across the world – as much, for instance, in the flood‐prone villages of the Sundarbans of the Ganges delta, as in the socially and ethnically divided communities of inner cities throughout the ‘rust belt’ areas of the United States and England's industrial north (Ghosh 2004; Leeds University School of Sociology and Social Policy 2019; Haldane 2021).
COMPONENTS OF CHANGE
The last four decades can be viewed as a period of widespread accelerated change, or ‘punctuated equilibrium’ during which a number of very rapid transformations have coincided and interacted to create revolutionary situations across numerous systems (Gould 1988). These global trends have exerted potent impacts on the everyday lives of local communities. In the physical environment, climate change is producing threatening rises in sea levels, exerting far‐reaching and mounting effects on coastal systems in low‐lying areas and affecting ecosystems, crop production, human health, freshwater resources and settlement safety and planning (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2014; Flannery 2020; National Aero Space Administration (NASA) 2021). Economically, the cumulative over consumption and production that resulted in the 2007–2008 Global Financial Crisis are producing continuing instability. In politics, the massive global shifts in the balance of power triggered by the end of the cold war are creating continuing instability and mass flights of refugees from places such as Syria, Ukraine and Afghanistan, seeking refuge throughout the world. In human health, the Covid‐19 pandemic has resulted worldwide in nearly 15 million deaths (World Health Organisation 2022), restricted social interaction and discouraged previous trends towards high‐density concentrations of living and work spaces.
These converging crises in our physical, social and economic environments pose challenging questions for community life and planning worldwide.
Earlier fears concerning border wars between Western and Communist power blocks in Europe, America and Africa have been re‐ignited by new crises of invasions of bordering countries by continental powers, including Russia's invasion of Ukraine and constantly repeated claims by mainland China over the territory of Taiwan. Escalating local riots, reprisals and killings in communities throughout Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas add to the sense that new, more inclusive approaches are needed to enable communities to live together in harmony with each other and with their neighbours. Earlier fears of a new ‘clash of civilizations’ (Huntington 1996) have been renewed by rising tides of international terrorism and global competition between the USA and China, and the European Union and Russia. As a result, in times of unprecedented physical mastery and invention, humanity is stalked by escalating threats of disasters resulting from failures to collaborate in the face of external changes or even to coexist in cooperative communities, locally, regionally, nationally or globally.
Solutions will require not only continued innovation but also improved collaboration at all scales of community, which often involves challenging mutual adjustment. Where widespread frustration, anger and social resentments flare among people having to face disruptions to their accustomed patterns of life, policy making and leadership will be required to recognise, manage and assuage these reactions. People will need help and tools to adjust their traditional lifestyles to accommodate the ‘shock of the new’. Prominent among the roles required of sensitive and sustainable community planning will be assistance to individuals and communities to identify and manage changes that may seem to arrive without adequate warning or fully understood causes. In each of a number of arenas, discussed below, the forces of entropy, pulling things apart, will have to be matched by conscious integration to hold them together.ii In such situations, communities of all scales will need to develop their capacities to interpret rapidly changing conditions; to agree collaborative responses to radically changing circumstances; and to evaluate options for unintended consequences – in short, to plan.
ACCELERATING INNOVATION IN INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS
Remarkable recent advances in information and communications technology (ICT) have made the contemporary world a place of instant and universal communication and greatly expanded the potential scale of communities of association. Consequences, both benign and damaging, have been widespread and far reaching. On the positive side, ‘Glocal’ awareness, transcending communities of place, is stimulating widely occurring and loosely linked initiatives. These include carbon reduction schemes adopted by many individuals, local communities and governments throughout developed countries (see, for example, Australian Government Department of Energy, Science, Industry and Resources 2021; lcarb 2022; Transition Towns 2022). Such networks of environmental and social activism are also making good use of instantaneous internet and email links to assemble powerful coalitions of public, political and media opinion formers to champion or oppose actions on global issues. One such campaign in the early years of this century successfully contested the proposed extension by the World Trade Organization of the global financial market into critical fields such as local land ownership (Monbiot 2004).iii
Both local and larger‐scale initiatives can be influential. Where contact is daily and direct, communities remain more intensively linked, but where they are widespread and open‐edged to draw in newcomers, they frequently become even more influential and may transcend boundaries to help bolster actions in remote local societies. For instance, in the United Kingdom, these have given rise to the development and advocacy of new strategies to help cope with the impacts of global environmental change on food, water and energy systems and security worldwide and in advancing the role of science and research networks in a wide range of issues (Environmental Change Institute 2022).
However, potentially negative impacts of instant global communications are at least as significant. They include manipulation of social media platforms to interfere in the elections and political lives of targeted countries and regimes; the rampant spread of worldwide movements promoting hate speech and misinformation and the ultimately even more serious threat of the use of mass surveillance techniques by repressive governments to destroy the civil rights and personal freedom of their own citizens. Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election, which gave rise to a Congressional investigation, made use of the global reach and proneness to manipulation of social media, using the latest developments in global communications (Wikipedia 2022). Equally damaging on a more general, less targeted basis is the use of these same media to promote conspiracy theories and hate speech, associated with the worldwide ‘Alt Right’ movement (Grinnell College 2022). Ultimately, most serious of all is the rapidly expanding capacity of mass surveillance to subject every moment of individuals’ lives to the scrutiny of potentially repressive governments. The People's Republic of China, for instance, is currently introducing a system of social rewards and punishments based on the evidence of compliance with state policies as indicated by the results of this kind of surveillance (Human Rights Watch 2022; CBN News 2019). Active community advocacy and empowerment at all scales are needed to ensure that prudent regulations prevent the latest developments in communications technology from being used to fuel such abuses. Now, more than ever, the price of individual freedom will be eternal vigilance over abuses of centralised power.
ECONOMIC FLUCTUATIONS
Economics has become one of the most contested fields of knowledge and interpretation in the lives of local communities. The prevailing view of the mid‐twentieth century that mixed and managed economies could and should balance demand and supply to produce full employment and avoid inflation (Galbraith 1972) was challenged by the militant ideas of supply‐side economics associated with monetarist theorists like Milton Friedman (1968, 2008). Arguing that ‘a rising tide will float all boats’ the monetarists advocated prioritising aggregate economic growth over working to promote individual wellbeing and just distributions of wealth. That orthodoxy has now itself been challenged by the effects of prolonged world economic recessions and bouts of massive localised unemployment, triggered by financial crises and global pandemics. In mixed economies where recurrent government funds and credibility are required to bolster private sector financial institutions and transactions, opportunities may also arise for well‐organised communities to play larger roles in shaping their own destinies. In the wake of pandemics and spasms of the global economic system, support from central government funding can be channelled to tackle local problems like shortage of affordable housing and to stimulate local economies to combat future challenges.
Another example of the potential to use economic levers to achieve beneficial results – in this case, at the scale of the global community – comes from the 2021 Rome Summit of the G20 group of the world's most economically developed nations, which committed all members to ambitious programmes to combat climate change, apply taxation incentives, increase development aid and promote anti‐pandemic vaccination – all requiring concerted action by or with communities at a variety of scales from the local to the global (Guardian 2021a).
EXPANDING TRANSPORT TECHNOLOGIES OF SEA AND AIR
Movement of goods and people is also undergoing dramatic change. The container revolution of the last 40 years both revolutionised the spatial patterns of port cities throughout the world and advanced the international division of labour by promoting routine long‐distance exchange of manufactured products. From Baltimore and San Francisco to London and Rotterdam, dock locations moved downstream to new deep‐water locations, freeing large swathes of old central area docklands for new commercial and residential development, and often triggering gentrification in their neighbouring communities.
International airports have also recently gone through dramatic phases of development, rationalised by concepts such as the Aviopolis and the Aerotropolis (Kasarda 2009). These developments have seen very large and often privatised airport expansions in cities as diverse as Tokyo, Bangkok, Los Angeles, Amsterdam and London. They have become major elements of the regional settlement pattern and increasingly significant centres of employment. Many have also generated new regional shopping centres and large direct factory outlets (DFOs), which compete with established metropolitan shopping centres, resulting in disruption of regional transport systems and daily spasms of major traffic congestion. At the same time, their noise and traffic impacts have caused often bitter conflicts over proposals for new runways, flight paths and night‐time curfews.
Prior to restrictions imposed by the spread of Covid‐19, international trade and travel were binding together global networks ever more securely by stamping out such giant footprints in key locations across metropolitan regions, often on the fringes of long‐established urban and rural communities. As the prospect of recurrent and constantly mutating global pandemics restricts the attractions and ease of international movement that had reached their peak in the first two decades of this century, the continued growth of these related developments appears increasingly uncertain. Careful community consultation and planning will be required to negotiate sustainable outcomes. These will have to balance the needs and concerns of existing local and regional communities with the uncertain future of spaces originally dedicated to unlimited expansion of supersonic communications. Community planning can make important contributions to the management of these impacts and spaces, and these are discussed in more detail in Chapter 10, Community Governance and Participation.
MAJOR POLITICAL CHANGE
In many places, the established order has been splintering and re‐forming. Centralised and politically regulated command economies, such as the Communist regimes of the former USSR and Eastern Europe, have failed, due as much to internal rigidities and inefficiencies as to external competition. Meanwhile, in the market and mixed economies of the West, Monetarist attempts to maximise profits by replacing political decision by market mechanisms have often resulted in severe disparities of wealth, social injustices and macro‐economic spasms, making market capacities for self‐regulation and social efficiency look increasingly questionable (Monbiot 2004; Pinketty 2019). Throughout democracies, mixed economy mechanisms developed in the last century by Keynes are again being widely advocated and adopted in current times of economic uncertainty and are increasingly re‐emerging as the most satisfactory way to combine economic efficiency with social justice.
However, even within such balanced regimes, sectionalism, fragmentation and populism have disrupted the established mid‐twentieth‐century order of a fraternal Left in constructive dialogue and debate with a freedom‐seeking Right. The cause of representative democracy itself has ebbed and flowed, advancing in Europe and Latin America, scarcely holding its own in the face of the repeated challenges of populism in much of North America and throughout Asia, and collapsing in many parts of Africa. Meanwhile, in the rapidly growing number of new ‘millionaire’ cities (with populations of more than one million) that now accommodate a third of the world's population (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2018), local and regional systems of governance have struggled to meet the demands and manage the impacts of rapid urbanisation or to produce effective systems of urban management. They have been constantly haunted by the spectre of militant and self‐entitled populism that poses threats of degeneration into autocracy, whether in Brazil, Hungary, Russia, the Philippines, or the USA.
IMPACTS OF DESTABILISED INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
International relations have also exerted powerful impacts on the lives of local communities. The collapse of the Soviet Union and allied regimes ended the cold war's icy deadlock between communism and capitalism, which had dominated international relations for much of the twentieth century. However, a brief ‘new world order’ of economic and military dominance by the USA was scarcely proclaimed before it was violently challenged by a potent combination of international terrorism, resurgent Russian nationalism and Chinese global ambitions. In Africa, the tragic conflicts of the early 1990s between Hutus and Tutsis in Ruanda and Burundi unleashed waves of ethnic violence that continued more than two decades later to challenge community life across central Africa, extending into the Congo Basin. Meanwhile, in Europe, the EU has worked hard to minimise or contain long‐standing inter‐communal hostilities in the Balkans and build new continental solidarity but is now having to face serious challenges from resurgent Russian militarism.
Outbreaks of bitter inter‐communal violence have occurred in all parts of the world – among Serbs and Bosnians in Europe; Russians and Chechnyans in the Caucasus region; Han Chinese and the local Uiger and Tibetan peoples in Xian Jiang and Tibet; left‐ and right‐wing groups in Latin America; militarists, democrats and ethnic minorities in Myanmar; Christians and Muslims in Nigeria, the Caucuses, Sulawesi and Timor Loro Sae; and most recently between Russia and its western neighbours in the Ukraine. Meanwhile, in this fracturing and conflict‐ridden situation of an unstable and multipolar world, the United Nations has found itself challenged to maintain its global roles of reconciliation, negotiation and leadership. The inescapable bonds between global and local communities, daily demonstrated by the mounting instability that results from political and military repression and the effects of climate change, are beyond the current capacities of any single national government to control or resolve. As a result, waves of refugees are being driven across borders, continents and oceans, to compound the challenges facing community planning in neighbouring and host regions throughout the world (Dantas et al. 2021). The evidence that, for good or ill, we are all, individually and communally ‘members one of another’, presents the most vivid challenges and opportunities for community planning at all scales. Local and regional communities have essential and creative roles to play in planning and shaping solutions.
CHANGING MINDSETS
The scope and effectiveness of our actions are much influenced by the mindsets and philosophical assumptions of our times. For three millennia, in the western world, there have been well‐differentiated philosophical arguments among the great traditions of idealism, rationalism and empiricism. Meanwhile, in the East, Buddhist and Daoist contemplation have provided alternatives to Confucian pragmatism. Both sets of ideas have recently been radically challenged by a welter of assertive new ideas of the late twentieth century, conveniently labelled ‘Post Structuralism’. ‘Deconstruction’ has become a favourite debating technique and ‘Meta narratives’ a potent challenge.iv
Nevertheless, as the air clears, it becomes apparent that the long‐standing Western traditions of empiricism (of knowledge through experience), idealism (the power of original thought and communication), and rationalism (the checking out of ideas against observations) are all alive and vigorous. They are of great, often decisive, importance for the way that societies choose to shape the lives and forms of their communities.
Empiricism thrives in the arguments of the American Pragmatists who continue to assert the experience that ‘handsome is as handsome does’ and that ‘mental knives are what won't cut real bread’ (James, in Passmore 1980). In development planning, this often results in policies that focus on immediate, tangible and available rewards and outcomes rather than pursuing underlying values or considering long term consequences. Immediate material solutions like urban freeways and airport shopping complexes are often favoured, not delving deeper to weigh the underlying values or interests that are being served.
Elsewhere, the contrasting contributions of values and ideas have been maintained in the neo‐idealism of European thinkers like Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault who employ paradox and contradiction to question conventional empirical interpretations and power relations (Foucault 1963, 1972, 1980, 1981) and ‘deconstruct’ received truths (Derrida 1976, 1993, 1995) in order to pursue such values as social justice, equity and diversity. In this, they find common ground with critical rationalist theorists like Karl Popper (1972) in justifying values‐based problem‐solving and questioning approaches to activities such as community planning, though their style is often very different, relying on paradox rather than deductive logic. Socially engaged Critical Rationalists span contrasting streams of the logics of scientific discovery and social progress. They provide a powerful and persuasive explanation of both scientific method and social engineering to justify the technological optimism of the mid‐twentieth century, postulating an upward spiral of individual problem recognition, conjecture, refutation and re‐hypothesising, that is very relevant to community planning – see Chapter 5, Ways and Means (Popper 1972; Magee 1973).
On the other hand, the more idealist Frankfurt School of Critical Method emphasises the importance, not only of individual values, interests and hypotheses but also of interaction amongst individuals to create communicative action (Habermas 1987) also involving recognition of the rights of others (Honneth 2022). As a result, they advocate the crucial roles of discussion, recognition and exchange among equally privileged participants around a notional ‘policy table’, whereby both knowledge and proposals for action can be resolved in open exchange among interested parties. They term this process Communicative Action (Habermas 1971, 1987, Habermas et al. 1996). This leads them to advocate both general and specific approaches to community planning, which range from participatory processes involving recurrent discussions around actual tables to the conservation and creation of new physical public open spaces to promote opportunities for continuing community debate to enable the reality of community participation. Together, these two wings of Critical Rationalism – the individual and the communicative – provide an effective basis for problem‐solving and inclusive community planning.
These ideas can be related to concepts, programmes and choices of action in everyday life. American Pragmatism (Passmore 1980) emerges as the champion of material mastery and physical evidence, advancing and celebrating both mass production and individual consumption. One variant of this view has served to generate such widespread material and individualist outcomes as high‐capacity freeway systems, low‐density suburbs, walled estates and patrolled shopping centres, favoured and justified on the basis that they promote material progress and serve individual preferences. There are other, more theoretical contributions that Pragmatism has to offer:
recognising the importance of improving material living conditions;
developing and justifying evidence‐based policy; and
respect for the evidence of people's recorded choices and commitment to confirming popular support for programmes and proposals in regular democratic elections.
Critical Rationalism, associated with Karl Popper (1947, 1972, 1989), places such ideas within a social context and emphasises progressive problem‐solving to keep pace with the inevitable effects of social and physical changes and challenges. Potential contributions to community planning include:
practical and purposeful approaches to social change;
encouraging people to question existing situations, voice individual opinions and test ideas in open challenge;
encouragement of all members of pluralist societies to be part of continuing social debates.
This approach, discussed further in Chapter 5, Ways and Means, generates inclusive, cyclical and open‐ended methods that allow communities to contribute to planning to meet the continually emerging new challenges of current times.
Communicative Action places methods of individual problem‐solving within their social context. A number of distinctive characteristics of life in the twenty‐first century favour this ‘communicative turn in planning theory’ (Healey 2007). These include:
the global reach of universal and instantaneous communications;
the worldwide spread of education and knowledge; and
the insistent demands of previously excluded groups to have their interests taken into account in allocating opportunities and resources.
Communicative Action is therefore particularly relevant to contemporary community planning and has a number of important contributions to make, including:
a coherent and convincing rationale for community engagement;
a powerful and fertile source of objectives – through participation and discussion – to guide the process;
inclusion of community members in information collection and review;
insights into key aspects – such as the importance and role of specific public spaces and structures;
diminishing mounting dangers of excluded dissidents and unrecognised groups developing resentments against those seen as parts of an oppressive establishment or a ‘deep state’.
Contemporary philosophical thought, encompassing contending views of meaning, method and purpose can be harnessed to make valid contributions to the similarly wide field of community planning. Insights can be obtained into the wide range of values and beliefs prevalent in our diverse communities. Unexpected situations can be matched and understood by recognising their underlying values and concepts to help shape acceptable and appropriate solutions. Innovative problem‐solving, employing the active involvement of energetic individuals, can be encouraged and integrated. People's innate capacities for communication can be harnessed in festivals, discussion groups, speakers’ corners and the potentially democratic and inclusive conversations of the internet. Rather than a confusing babble of personal insights, contemporary philosophy can be interpreted as an enriching symphonic performance, combining many different themes and instruments, each with its own distinctive contribution.
Part Two, Community Life and Change
ADMINISTRATIVE REORGANISATION
Community administration, too, has experienced great changes. While new technologies of transport and production have been increasing the scale of business, tax revolts and commercially dominated mass media have been advocating the advantages of smaller government (Osborne and Gaebler 1992). The appropriate balance between public interest and market‐driven development is increasingly contested, and community governance is experiencing great pressures and undergoing significant challenges (Pinketty 2013). These uncertainties are now being compounded by the mounting impacts of climate change and the needs for government and voluntary sector leadership in managing the spreading difficulties posed by recurrent mutations of Covid‐19. Fresh attention is being focussed on planned and decentralised forms of settlement and governance.
A parallel revival of interest in the distributive capacities of regional planning and support for the growth of secondary centres has resulted from the difficulties of congestion and liveability associated with the growing scale of urban settlement in recent times (Roberts 2014). In the European Community, this has taken the form of support for decentralisation, infusing new life into existing communities by injecting funds from above (Balchin et al. 1999). Even the awkward departure of Britain from the European Community can be seen as a much‐improved alternative to the resort to violence and war formerly practiced by European powers for over a millennium whenever they have failed to resolve such misunderstandings and differences peacefully. Elsewhere, in the USA's Oregon and Canada's British Columbia, top‐down principles have been combined with bottom‐up participation to create regional governments with strong planning and implementation powers (Heywood 1997).
The many challenges and collapses faced by the ‘economy of risk’ of recent decades may well prompt more collaborative attitudes of the private sector towards public participation in economic management, resulting in resumed and reinforced roles for governments and communities in public administration. Such alliances between communities and government, as those being promoted by the UK's Homes and Communities Agency, for instance, could become far more significant in the next few years. One example is Manchester Place, a partnership between Manchester City Council and the government's Homes and Communities Agency that aims to speed up the supply of new homes across the city, by combining Manchester City Corporation's planning programme with national government support and commercial investment and development (Place North West 2015). More recently, in Australia, City Deals are a partnership between the three levels of national, state and local government and communities to work towards shared visions for productive and liveable cities. The aim is to align planning, investment and governance to accelerate growth and job creation, stimulate urban renewal and promote economic reform. The 2021 City Deal for Brisbane, for instance, included a sum of $A3 million for a new indigenous art centre (Australian Government, Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development 2022). In housing, too, the private sector is generally demonstrating active interest in providing affordable housing across Australia in return for Commonwealth government support (AHURI 2022).
Contemporary challenges to community life
Communities consist of groups of people who experience and acknowledge significant links, expectations and responsibilities towards each other. They do not need to be neighbours, but they do need to share neighbourly feelings that may be based on shared spaces, interests or realms of interaction. Nevertheless, ‘community’ may mean different things at different scales and to different people. ‘Friendly association’ is the most all‐embracing of its many meanings, encompassing such alternatives as ‘all the people in a particular district’, ‘a group of people living together as a smaller social unit within a larger one’ and ‘ownership and participation in common’. Friendly association both promotes and is in turn promoted by community life. Through the self‐expression that links people and groups, personal energies can be combined to create communities and cities and maintain their infrastructure of roads, aqueducts and ultimately global communications systems. Through collaboration in production, art, science and technology, settlements that benefit from friendly association and shared values can gain the strength and capacity to transform their environments into places of lasting achievement and beauty. Though there are different views as to whether cities originated through enforced association within containing walls or through cooperation based on mutual aid (Kropotkin 1939), it is clear that at different times, both may have been involved and that their recent rapid growth to accommodate more than half of all humanity (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2018) has depended in part on networks of association, exchange and collaboration. These are most sustainable where they are voluntary, mutually advantageous and pleasurable. Depictions by their artists of the life of very early cities of more than 3000 years ago, like Heraklion and Akhetaton, are full of scenes of people singing and dancing together (Desroche‐Noblecourt 1976), just as paintings of medieval cities like Lorenzetti's ‘Vision of Good Government’ and ‘Vision of Bad Government’ in the thirteenth‐century Siena show repeated acts of quiet neighbourliness and mutual appreciation (see Figure 1.1).
Figure 1.1 Lorinzetti's allegory of good government.
Source: Ambrogio Lorenzetti / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain.
Nevertheless, even the most successful cities and communities inevitably bring people into enforced and sometimes unwanted contact with others who do not share their original culture, interests, religion or even language. City life also creates situations where fear, hostility or exploitation can create conflict or the subjugation of whole groups as servants, serfs or slaves. Communities where friendly association has been lost may become dangerous places where vulnerable individuals and groups suffer random assault or systematic exploitation. As a result, the fostering of community life to support and sustain healthy societies requires careful planning and management that will involve choices and decisions about which values and interests will be pursued. These may vary from decisions, for instance, to adopt the elaborate caste systems of traditional Hindu society (Naipaul 1979) or to develop more voluntary networks like those advocated by Mahatma Gandhi and practiced by the craftsmen and artisans of medieval and Renaissance Tuscany (Heywood 1904; Putnam 1993; Hibbert 1979).
The early decades of the current millennium present particularly acute challenges to the invaluable role of communities as places where change can be assimilated and the shock of the new absorbed into a continually re‐adjusted balance. Challenging conflicts of communal beliefs and interests have been fostered by the increased individual mobility and personal power of the modern era. These influences have, in turn, been amplified by the global reach of mass media, publicising the attractions of the world's prosperous regions to the most remote corners of all continents. Flights from war, persecution, famine and the increasing likelihood of enforced mass migrations resulting from sea level rises caused by global warming may involve many hundreds of thousands – and even millions – of people worldwide, presenting both challenges and opportunities for the creation of vibrant and inclusive new communities (Dantas et al. 2021). We are thus facing a future where the capacity of communities to integrate newcomers will become even more essential.
CURRENT TRENDS
Tools and capacities to build such inclusive new communities have been much assisted by developments of mass education and technological reach throughout the twentieth century, climaxing, as we have seen, in the digital revolution of the cell phone with its instantaneous access to the global internet. Most societies now aim to provide some sort of formal primary education for their children. The universal reach of global communications has brought informal education to every village, however poor or remote. Individuals in all parts of the world now have the confidence and the capacity to communicate their ideas, needs and aims with each other and with power holders. As a result, we are experiencing the potential for education to become a major focus and growth point for community life at all scales. An encouraging special case of this is the re‐shaping of the two‐millennia‐old role of public libraries to become welcoming hubs for community inclusion in local and global information systems, dedicated to providing access for otherwise isolated individuals to a universe of information and knowledge.
FAILING AND THRIVING COMMUNITIES
By contrast, vivid failures to manage or accept cultural diversity peacefully and positively are all too common. Cases like the Los Angeles’ 1992 riots, Serbian extermination camps during the Bosnian War of 1992–1995, Ruandan massacres of 1994–1996, those in Mumbai in 1993 and 2008, Russia's First and Second Chechen Wars of 1994–1996 and 2004–2006 and the Sydney anti‐migrant riots in 2007 have become recurrent themes of contemporary life (Robertson 1999; Wikipedia 2014). More recently, police shootings and deaths in custody of African Americans in the USA, black citizens in England and indigenous people in Australia, contributing to the world‐wide Black Lives Matter movement, are a daily reminder of the need for more inclusive community planning (Black Lives Matter 2021). The plight of the Myanmar Rohingya, Karen and other ethnic communities in that country is a further daily reminder of the toxic and often fatal consequences of situations where community understanding and tolerance have been allowed to break down or be overthrown by military regimes. Thousands of individuals and families suffer, and no one benefits (Concern Worldwide US 2021). In such situations, the global stakes for community building are very high.
Less dramatic but more widespread achievements of cooperation and mutual aid help to balance such failures of community life. Examples such as the Mondragon Workers Cooperatives, Bangladesh's Grameen Bank (see Boxes 1.2 and 1.3) and the international community development schemes of organisations like Oxfam, World Vision and World Bicycle Relief have brought increased personal autonomy and essential physical and social resources such as clean water, education and personal mobility to countless small communities throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America. Because human societies depend upon harnessing skill, ingenuity and creative talent in networks of exchange and development, the long‐term imperatives of cooperation and voluntary collaboration have always reasserted themselves, overcoming and outlasting explosions of violence and conflict. Individual prosperity and fulfilment ultimately rely on these networks of trust, which in their turn rest upon the friendly associations of community life.
These collaborative realities have great significance for community planning. Interpersonal and ‘bottom‐up’ methods of developing policies and plans are equally effective and more durable and resilient than ‘top‐down’ and imposed ones. Model societies in the spirit of such social ‘Guardians’ as Plato (1980), More (1516/1965), Marx and Engels (1846, 1990), and Skinner (1974
