Milad Rajabi AAU-CPH SPG3

Reflections for SPG3

In my reflections for today, it will briefly mention what we heard in Daniel Galland´s lecture. After that I would mention
two of the sup-literature text because I thing they were relevant how a Planner should work and try handle problems
following the subject “Power and conflict”. I am not mention the main literature today because Daniel Galland went
really detailed thru it all.

In this lecture, Daniel Galland goes through many of the vital things in the main literature within Post-
positivist theories of planning. We talk a lot about the individual thinking about the practical planning
theory and how different people is think in a planning matter. After that, Daniel talks about how the
relation between researcher and fields seen from a post-positivist perspective, so that we can form a clear
insight into it after reading the literature. We look into how important role of the communicative planner is
about creating a clarity to one's client and not just show them a certain direction. It´s more about the client
having a clear view of things and make them discovery and achieving a personal growth. Here we came
across examples of Danish ways, where we involve the local community and use the hearing-process to
form a clear overview of people's opinions and knowledge of the planning issues. Then we had some good
assignments in which we got into Healey’s text and the five methodological.

The most exciting thing about this lecture, which I personally think was about dealing with power and
conflict. Because we often see today that planners do not get complete free frameworks especially in
connection with these theories we review through this course. In the world of reality, the planner are often
hired and “forced” to do what needs to be done by the company there hired them and therefore are
unable to be neutral. In large cases, the planner is actually more of a kind of middle-man between the
developers and the affected citizens on which they have to create a harmony between them in order for
the overall plan to succeed and everyone to be satisfied. These forms of power and conflict are also
mentioned in other words in the two secondary literature by Innes, J.E.

In the text “Collaborative policymaking”, some general theories and concepts are presented to understand
how a dialogue between the actors can create better planning. These include, among other things, diversity
in interests and interdependence. These interests are then be transformed into a single interest. The “total
interest” must be found in the authentic dialogue, of which it is important that the actors understand that
they are dependent on each other, and that dependence can lead to an advantage for both of them (Innes,
2003, p. 42). Furthermore, some new relationships and friendships are formed between the actors that can
ensure good cooperation in the future. This does not mean that their interests will change, but it can
change the tone markedly for the planning meeting, so that the actors have a more respectful conversation
(Innes, 2003, p. 43). In addition, the project's dialogues resulted as instructive for the actors, if the
dialogues were open enough to allow the actors to debate and discuss their issues (Innes, 2003, p. 44). In
this way, the actors as Innes and Booher describe with double-loop learning, could reassess their values
and possibly achieve new action plans for the project (Innes, 2003, p. 45). The last result that the project
got out of authentic dialogue was i.a. creativity, in terms of brainstorming and scenarios where actors
began to think outside the box, rather than in their own lanes (Innes, 2003, p. 46).

In addition, you can also use "Consensus Building" which is a method for which you can better process the
controversial societal problems that lie in the many interests of the many actors. Here the different actors
divided into discussion groups which interests are discussed and once everyone agrees, there may be a final
decision (Innes JE, 1996, p. 461), which is very similar to the communicative model which Fainstein
described, and inspired by Habermas ideology of communicative rationality. The application of the method
is examined in the article in eight cases, where it is concluded that the plans and policies as well as
Milad Rajabi AAU-CPH SPG3

guidelines that were prepared, follow T.J. Kent 'description of what a "general planning" entails. Including
being comprehensive in the form of all the city's functions, clarifying the interrelationships and functioning
only at the general level, the details of which are only determined later in the process (Innes J, E. 1996, p.
469). All this, which has been mentioned, helps to guide a planner to be able to both solve and plan
projects, which is an extremely important role.