TOWARDS A POST-POSITIVIST TYPOLOGY OF PLANNING THEORY

The post-positivist domination of planning theory in recent years has rightly highlighted the social and political context of theories. Its impact through various guises including collaborative, postmodern and neo-pragmatic approaches has been significant. However, one area that has been immune to t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Planning theory (London, England) England), 2002-03, Vol.1 (1), p.77-99
Main Author: Allmendinger, Philip
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Critical theory
Foresters
Formulations
Heuristic
Landscapes
Nonlinearity
Normativity
Planning
Positivism
Postmodern philosophy
Postpositivism
Pragmatism
Regulatory theory
Social theories
Temporal logic
Theory Formation
Typology
Urban planning
Variance
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Summary:The post-positivist domination of planning theory in recent years has rightly highlighted the social and political context of theories. Its impact through various guises including collaborative, postmodern and neo-pragmatic approaches has been significant. However, one area that has been immune to these broad changes and interpretations is typologies of planning. Typologies provide heuristics for academics and practitioners that help map the landscape of ideas that influence a particular field. As such they are crucial to any understanding of a diverse theoretical area such as planning. This article seeks to develop a post-positivist typology for planning theory. My typology is based upon the broad themes of post-positivism including the belief that all theory is to greater or lesser degrees normative, a non-linear conception of time and progress and the introduction of spatial and temporal variance in any understanding of the formulation, interpretation and application of theory. The result is an approach that does away with two traditional planning theory dualisms – the procedural–substantive distinction and the theory–practice gap. It also provides a locally diverse and unique interpretation of planning theory at the national and sub-national scale that rejects the idea that local interpretation of theories and their application can be assumed to be consistent with ideas operating at a higher (often supra-national) scale.
ISSN:1473-0952
1741-3052
DOI:10.1177/147309520200100105