SPRINGER BRIEFS IN APPLIED SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY  POLIMI SPRINGER BRIEFS Emanuela Saporito Consensus Building Versus Irreconcilable Conflicts Reframing Participatory Spatial Planning 123 SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology PoliMI SpringerBriefs Editorial Board Barbara Pernici, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy Stefano Della Torre, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy Bianca M. Colosimo, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy Tiziano Faravelli, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy Roberto Paolucci, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy Silvia Piardi, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11159 http://www.polimi.it Emanuela Saporito Consensus Building Versus Irreconcilable fl Con icts Reframing Participatory Spatial Planning 123 Emanuela Saporito Politecnico di Torino Turin Italy ISSN 2191-530X ISSN 2191-5318 (electronic) SpringerBriefs inApplied SciencesandTechnology ISSN 2282-2577 ISSN 2282-2585 (electronic) PoliMI SpringerBriefs ISBN978-3-319-30827-2 ISBN978-3-319-30829-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-30829-6 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016940344 ©TheAuthor(s)2016 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpart of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission orinformationstorageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilar methodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publicationdoesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfrom therelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authorsortheeditorsgiveawarranty,expressorimplied,withrespecttothematerialcontainedhereinor foranyerrorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeenmade. Printedonacid-freepaper ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbySpringerNature TheregisteredcompanyisSpringerInternationalPublishingAGSwitzerland Preface Buildingfactsandmachinesisacollectiveprocess(…) a single person can create theses, dreams and sensations, butnotfacts. (Latour1998,p.53) Thisbookistheresultofatheoreticalinquiryintothenatureofadisciplineknown as spatial planning. It is about, in particular, an opportunity to reframe ethics and norms for planners, in face of an ever more plural, complex and fragmented urban society. By drawing on different, but still complementary, cultural traditions of spatial planning theory—from critical theories to communicative ones—this work outlines how apparently contrasting conceptions of participation in planning practices can coexist, particularly when coordinated locally through action with coordination of practical tasks. The interdisciplinary character of a theoretical framework as outlined in the following pages enhances, once more within the academic debate, the need for spatial planning to look at “foreign” disciplinary cultures, in search of concepts, tools, and norms able to interpret social, economic, and political events, as struc- tural components of urban transformation processes. This work, in particular, enhances the possibility of drawing even from the Sociology of technology and Science (StS) to get those epistemological tools needed to enter formalized pro- cedures, norms and methods, what we call “black boxes” (Latour 1998). The final aim is to provide an ever more heuristic perspective on how to guide planners to look for joint-action in plural and multi-logical contexts as the participative ones. Due to its interdisciplinarity, the content of this work has been discussed in conferencesandwithindividualscholarsfromtheadministrativescienceandpublic management field, to legal science, and other academic fields that are themselves reflectedintheneedtoreconsider,fromatradingzoneperspective,non-consensual settings for collective decision-making and actions. This major contribution of postdoctoral work on this manuscript was conducted at the Department of Urban v vi Preface Planning of the Polytechnic School of Turin. The intense multidisciplinary dis- cussionsamongsomanyexpertshavesupportedamorematureconsiderationofthe findingsofourcollaborativeworkthatwillbehelpfulinbetterframingfurtherlines of research. However, the core of the research work—of which this book is a selective elaboration—has been carried out mainly during a Ph.D. earning period at the Department of Urban Studies of the Polytechnic School of Milan and at the Department of History of Science at Harvard University. For these reasons, a special acknowledgment goes to Prof. Alessandro Balducci from PoliMi for his guidance and fundamental support and Prof. Peter Galison from Harvard, for his generous contribution to the discussion of this research. Emanuela Saporito Contents 1 New Challenges for Participatory Approaches in Spatial Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.1 Toward a Participative Conception of Urban Planning . . . . . . . . . 1 1.1.1 Rationalities in Planning: A Paradigmatic Revolution . . . . 2 1.1.2 Political Attitudes to Participation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.2 Contemporary Practices: Expertise and Handbooks . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1.3 Now What? Facing Criticisms to Participatory Planning. . . . . . . . 9 1.3.1 Questioning Issues of Legitimacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 1.3.2 Questioning Issues of Effectiveness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 2 Looking for a Way Out. Three Models of Participative Planning: The “Conflictual”, “Consensual” and “Trading Zone” Approaches. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.1 Dealing with Power and Rationality Dilemmas in Planning: A Methodological Choice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.2 A Conflictual Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 2.2.1 Agonistic Democracy and Plural Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 2.2.2 Planning as a Social Mobilization Practice: Towards the just City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 2.3 A Consensual Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 2.3.1 Managing Contentious Interdependences and the Role of Facilitative Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 2.3.2 Consensus-Building Approach and Collaborative Adaptive Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 2.4 A Trading Zone Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 2.4.1 A “Designing Perspective” for Participatory Practices . . . . 39 2.4.2 Trading Zones, Interlanguages and Boundary Objects: Interpretative Tools for Collaborative Action . . . . . . . . . . 43 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 vii viii Contents 3 A Case of Complexity in Urban Planning: The PII Isola Process in Milan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 3.1 Which Participation? The Controversial Story of PII Isola-Lunetta in Milan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 3.1.1 Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 3.2 The PII Isola Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 3.2.1 The Case Study Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 4 Rationalities at Work: How to Read the PII Isola Participatory Process Through Three Different Conceptual Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 4.1 Testing Participative Models at Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 4.2 The Conflictual Model at Work: Evaluating Outcomes. . . . . . . . . 73 4.2.1 Broad Perspective Considerations: Power Dynamics at Play. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 4.2.2 Local Perspective Considerations: Participatory Processes’ Outcomes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 4.2.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 4.3 The Consensual Model at Work: The Importance of the Method. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 4.3.1 The Fairness of the Process: Methodological Constraints. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 4.3.2 Consensus as Main Outcome: What Is the Role of Conflicts?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 4.3.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 4.4 The Trading Zone Model at Work: Starting from Interactions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 4.4.1 Evolving Trading Zones at Isola: The Master Plan as a Boundary Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 4.4.2 Stecca Degli Artigiani as a Trading Zone: Innovative Devices for Participative Urban Planning. . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 4.4.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 5 Reframing Participatory Spatial Planning: Critical Reflections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 5.1 The Third Way Between Conflict and Consensus: A “Trading Zone” Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 5.2 A Trading Zone Way for Planning in the Face of Complexity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 5.3 Reframing Participation in a Trading Zone Perspective . . . . . . . . 101 5.4 Final Critical Remarks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Introduction Background and Problem Statement This work originates from the very recent critical literature produced about communicative planning theory. Its ambition is to investigate ways to reframe the paradigm of participatory planning by enhancing its pluralistic and pragmatic ori- gins, while overcoming certain ambiguities concerning communicative rationality embedded in collaborative and deliberative traditions. The international debate within the culture of planning theory confirms on the one hand a widespread dissatisfaction toward contemporary participatory practice and,ontheother,theurgent needtobetter frameanevolutionaryanalysisofthese experiences. An entire cycle of participative experimentation, started in the mid-1990s and characterized by top-down initiatives programmed to set up inclusive planning practices with mainly redistributive aims, has now come to an end. In this respect pluraldecision-makingprocesses,organizedasconsensus-buildingcontexts,appear tobeconfinedto“liturgical”behaviorsorinstrumentalimplementationsofspecific deliberative techniques, according to sophisticated methodological taxonomies (LascoumesandLeGàles2007).Indeed,theseapproachesseemunabletopenetrate the formal planning process and to be consistent with more and more conflicting and complex social uses of the space: the focus is placed on the fairness of pro- cesses rather than on their outcomes (Palermo and Ponzini 2010). Participatoryandinclusiveapproachestospatialplanningpracticeshadthemerit of providing practical answers to legitimacy and efficacy issues in planning by relying on politicaland action models, conceiving the “intelligence of democracy” (Lindblom 1959, 1990) as a tool to inform public action and to address “social justice” in spatial transformations. Those approaches gave practical shape to what Friedmann defined as “planning rationality”, as the relationship between means (knowledge) and ends (actions), by bringing the so-called third-actor (Balducci 1991; Giusti 1995) within the traditional bargaining between market and public ix