Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses
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ItemPlanning as a democratic practice : antinomy and mediatisation( 2004)The thesis seeks to reconcile planning with its role as an aspect of democratic governance in liberal societies. Planning is directly considered as an instrument through which people seek to govern themselves. Planning problems are seen as analogous to the problems of democracy, using the idea of antinomy - that democracy contains internal contradictions between its various desirable precepts which tend to 'pull' against each other as irreducible dilemmas, requiring trade-offs to be made. Focusing upon democratic antinomy allows the essential qualities of a given democratic system, including planning, to be revealed. However, an assessment of the traditions of urban planning indicates that in practice and theory, planning has not dealt with the antinomy of democracy in any comprehensive fashion, leaving it impoverished in terms of its role and meaning in liberal democracy. The body of work loosely described as communicative planning, however, provides the basis for a reappraisal of planning as a democratic practice, based on the work of Jurgen Habermas, to account for the antinomy of democracy. Two central concepts of Habermas's work are focussed upon. Firstly, the idea of democracy as knowing and steering is used as an overall ideal. To know itself, a people must understand the challenges and opportunities it faces, and inclusively determine what outcome they wish to achieve. To steer, a people must have the capacity to act in the knowledge they inclusively developed. Secondly, however, Habermas suggests that the central impediment to democracy is mediatisation - the increasing influence of instrumental logics, such as law or money, upon the manner in which we manage collective affairs. The planning systems of The Netherlands and Singapore are used to ground the theoretical basis of the research, establishing that distinct planning systems can be characterised as particular resolutions of democratic antinomy. Further, these planning systems are used to establish that certain media do appear to be deployed in distinct ways in each system, and that this influences the 'communicativeness' of these systems. Building upon this grounding, the planning system of Victoria, Australia is subsequently examined in detail to demonstrate the manner in which media influence knowledge and steering in the chronically repeated processes of Victorian planning. This analysis, focussing on local planning, suggests that certain resolutions of democratic dilemmas are better, tested against the ideal of knowing and steering, and that the deployment of media in a planning system is integral to these resolutions of democratic dilemmas. It is concluded that communicative planning could be modified to include understandings of mediatisation, allowing it to address the practical difficulties of planning as an aspect of democratic governance.
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ItemDesiring docklands : Deleuze and urban planning discourse( 2003)This thesis is about urban planning processes associated with the Melbourne Docklands area, some 220 hectares of public land and water adjacent to the central city of Melbourne. More specifically, it is about how these processes make sense of the world and how this `making of sense' has worked to order the Docklands' landscape. More specifically still, it is about fundamental changes in the form and content of Melbourne Docklands planning discourse, between 1989 and 1999, which would seem to represent a radical departure from planning's `normal paradigm', the rational comprehensive model. The thesis draws on the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze to provide an account of these changes, considering how Deleuze's concepts provide a certain `orientation' for thinking about urban planning practice, one which directs thought towards immanent engagement with the virtual forces (of desire, of movement, of time, amongst others) underpinning the production of space. It examines how these forces are expressed in Melbourne Docklands planning discourse, with a view to understanding how the discourse `works' to support processes of social desiring-production and the exercise of control power under capitalism. In the analysis of this discourse, the thesis outlines an account of urban planning practice as flows of desire and capital. It will show how such discourse moved from a grounding in site, history and community, through an unbounded, ungrounded and dream-like phase of deterritorialization, to a process of reterritorialization with the production of new identities and desires. The thesis concludes with an examination of what this analysis entails for understandings of; urban planning practice; urban planning's relationship to capital; the exercise of power in urban planning; the 'discursive turn' in urban studies; the relationship between theories of space-time and urban planning; and the relevance to urban planning of certain key Deleuzean concepts.
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ItemDecentralization and spatial planning in Indonesia( 2003)Because of Indonesia's geography and history, centralisation and decentralisation policies have always played a dominant role in government policies. During President Soeharto's New Order regime, there was a blind faith that only the central government was capable of controlling the distribution of resources among the regions. However, this created an authoritarian attitude that led to the abuse of power and to acute corruption, collusion and nepotism (KEN), and to erratic and unsustainable land development. These problems eventually led to economic and political collapse and the resignation of President Soeharto. The new Habibie government could not resist a strong demand from the regions to have wider autonomy, which led to the issuance of new decentralisation laws in 1999 under the euphoria of demokmsi and reformasi. These laws aimed to devolve certain powers to the regions, including powers over land-use planning and development, and to boost their economic performance by making more fiscal resources available. The laws, which effectively came into force in January 2001 during the Abdurrahman Wahid government, resulted in controversies that have led to proposals for their amendment by the current Megawati government. This thesis investigates the implications of these various changes in decentralisation policy on spatial/land-use planning in Indonesia during the New Order era, the period of reform that immediately followed the fall of Soeharto, and the current era. While many aspects of spatial/land-use planning have been differently affected over this period of great change, nevertheless the present focus is on the phenomenon of chaotic and allegedly unsustainable land development to which the term desakota is commonly attached. The focus will further be on this process in the case of the Soreang corridor, Tatar Bandung, West Java. The rapid changes to the laws have had some unfavourable consequences. First, with their newly established powers, the rich regions have tended to embark on grandiose projects without considering the real needs and feasibilities of their regions, while the poor regions have attempted to boost their local tax base through the imposition of novel and destabilising local taxes and charges. Second, decentralisation of power has contributed to the emergence of 'decentralised' corruption. Third, the debate on whether the new decentralisation laws should be amended has focused more on the transfer of power rather than improved delivery of public services and empowerment of civil society. All these issues have been manifested on the ground in a more uncontrolled spatial and land-use structure - of which desakota is one manifestation-than in the previous era. The most important finding of this study is that spatial/land-use planning in Indonesia is the outcome of political decisions made by a combination of elite politicians and businessmen, strongly undermined by an acute KEN attitude, which has been embedded in the whole system of governance, as well as in society at large. This phenomenon developed, during the New Order centralisation era and still holds in the current decentralisation era. After a long history of centralistic and authoritarian government, it would be naive to think that a transformation towards democracy and reform could be achieved by simply issuing new laws. However, if all elements of Indonesian society, particularly the government, can learn from what has happened, the current proposal to amend the new laws could be a start towards a better system of governance for Indonesia in the future, with more systematic and sustainable development of Indonesia's resources, including its land resources. It is concluded that there is a need to amend these laws to give a clear delineation of authority not only between provinces and districts, but also between districts and villages. This process should not be separated from the empowerment of local communities in the villages to improve their political participation in the decision-making process, because they are the ones who will be affected by all decisions made on the ground. It should be recognised that KEN will not be overcome quickly, since it is now intricately interwoven with political and economic conditions in Indonesia. Increased transparency and the involvement of civil society in decision-making processes will provide a good start towards the effort to eradicate this attitude as well as in exercising demokrnsi and reformasi in Indonesia.