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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ItemThe effects of participation on attitudes regarding socio-environmwntal sustainability within local planning in the Philippines( 2001)Local planning in the Philippines is characterised by low levels of participation, which is also consistent with low levels of political participation observed between the middle class and the poor. Furthermore, elitist planning and decision-making is accompanied by a preponderant use of planning guidelines and techniques imposed by central government agencies on local planning bodies - further discouraging participation. I have observed that this traditional, topdown mode of planning does not promote what I call socio-environmental sustainability in local planning. This includes sense of ownership of the plan and planning process by the community, inclusiveness, people empowerment and sustainable planning outcomes among other things. On the other hand, participatory planning promotes them. In this study, I argue that participatory rather than non-participatory planning approaches promote socio-environmental sustainability. The study was based on a survey undertaken between two groups of respondents - those who participated in a series of land use planning workshops and those who did not - within the case study area, which is a rural town in eastern Philippines. The methodology involved the use of probability sampling techniques, questionnaire and interviews. The findings suggest that experience in participatory planning increases socio-environmental sustainability within local planning in the Philippines. Specifically, ownership is manifested through non-acceptance of plans made from the top. It is also evident, as participants would rather claim primary responsibility for land use and environmental planning than just leave it entirely with the local government. The study also shows that participation has a restraining effect on the power of the elite who had a propensity to manipulate the planning process for their ends. Furthermore, participation also elicits more responsible decision-making by authorities that indicate the potential influence people may have on political leaders. The favourable attitude towards participatory approaches and their positive effects, which were also observed to have resulted from the experience of participation, can be attributed to the role of participation in informing, educating, developing convictions or consciousness raising necessary to liberate communities from traditional, elitist ways of planning and decision-making as well as largely unresponsive, ineffective and irrelevant plans.