The Routledge Handbook of Planning Theory

Planning theory is core to understanding how planning and its practices both function and are constantly evolving in our globalizing world. Planning and its many roles in relation to agency and governance have changed profoundly over the last few decades; so have the theories, both critical and explanatory, about its practices, values and knowledges. The wider world and the planning disciplines will undoubtedly change even further over the next few decades. Drawing on the top thinkers in planning theoretical thought this Handbook seeks to identify the cutting edge of contemporary planning theory so as to identify new emerging trajectories. This will provide the reader with key insights into not just contemporary planning thought, but potential future directions of both planning theory and planning itself.

The Routledge Handbook of Planning Theory is organized around three sections: contemporary planning practices, how values are constructed in planning, and theories of planning frameworks. The Handbook presents the views of the most important and challenging thinkers in planning thought. Each chapter will have these innovative scholars explore their own specialized areas of theory so as to conceptualize their contemporary positions and to speculate how these positions are likely to further evolve and change as new challenges emerge. The Handbook will provide scholar and practitioners with a clear view of the current established state, as well as the latest exploratory perimeters of knowledge in planning theory.

Michael Gunder FNZPI is an Associate Professor at the School of Architecture and Planning, University of Auckland. From 2011-2015, he was Managing Editor of Planning Theory and remains an Editor. His research draws on poststructuralism to analyse the ideological dimensions of built environment public policies and related narratives.

Ali Madanipour is Professor of Urban Design and a founding member of the Global Urban Research Unit at the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University, United Kingdom. His four volume edited collection, Planning Theory, was published in 2015 in Routledge’s Critical Concepts in Built Environment series.

Vanessa Watson is professor of planning in the School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics at the University of Cape Town (South Africa), holding a PhD from University of Witwatersrand, and is a University Fellow. She is a founder and on the Board of the African Centre for Cities at UCT.