From stage-managed planning towards a more imaginative and inclusive strategic spatial planning

Planning systems have changed little from the traditional models of the 1970s. They focus mainly on maintaining the existing social-spatial order rather than challenging and transforming it. This is done through a focus on carefully stage-managed processes with subtly but clearly defined parameters of what is open for debate suspending alternative ways of interpretation. These systems fail to capture the dynamics and tensions of relations coexisting in particular places. We argue for a more imaginative and inclusive strategic spatial planning. Core issues for this strategic planning are: imagination to broaden the scope of the possible, social justice, and legitimacy. In the tradition of empowerment planning, co-production, as a mobilizing practice of collective political organization, is introduced. For us, the emancipatory narrative of co-production fulfills a legitimating function. All this calls for a transformative agenda and must revolve around the construction of great new fictions that create real possibilities for different futures. Our three core issues force planners to extend their thinking into other epistemological worlds.