Planning Theory for Environmentally Sustainable Planning
Abstract
Attitudes to land use planning have been changing significantly over the past decade, reflecting a widening concern regarding environmental sustainability. Planning theory is still struggling to respond to these claims and to incorporate environmental concerns. The traditional technocratic rational planning approach (notwithstanding its claims to comprehensiveness) is not only clearly inadequate, but exacerbates the problem. However, we argue that planning theory does not need what deep ecology and bio-egalitarian approaches recommend: a Kuhnian radical paradigm shift and a new ultimate moral principle. We critique this radical position on the grounds that it cannot claim to be ethical, it can not be socially legitimated, and thus, it will not achieve the desired end of an environmentally sustainable world. We argue that what planning theory does need to deal with the challenge of sustainability is a more moderate neo-pragmatic/incremental approach, reflectively chosen principles, a normative ethical basis for justification, and an authentic moral vision. These desiderata can be readily incorporated into the emerging 'communicative action' paradigm, making it the most promising response to the environmental challenge.References
Armstrong-Buck, S. (1986) Whitehead's metaphysical system as a foundation for environmental ethics. Environmental Ethics, 8:241-259.
Beadey, T. (1994) Ethical Land Use: Principles of Policy and Planning. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Beatley, T. (1995) Planning and sustainability: The elements of a new (improved?) Paradigm. Journal of Planning Literature, 9:383-395.
Collingwood, R.G. (1963) The Idea of History. London: Oxford University Press. Daniels, N. (1985) Two approaches to theory acceptance in ethics. In Copp, D. and Zimmerman, D. (eds.) Morality, Reason and Truth. Totowa, NJ: Rowal and Allenheld, pp. 120-140.
Devall, B. and Sessions, G. (1985) Deep Ecology: Living as If Nature Mattered. Salt Lake City: Gibbs M. Smith.
Feyerabend, P.K. (1993) Against Method. London: Verso.
Friedmann, J. (1987) Planning in the Public Domain: From Knowledge to Action. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Friedmann, J. (1993) Toward a non-Euclidean mode of planning. Journal of the American Planning Association, 59:482-485.
Goodman, N. (1965) Fact, Fiction and Forecast. 2nd ed. New York: BobbsMerrill.
Harper, T.L. and Stein, S.M. (1993) Response to Charles Hoch's commentary. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 13:93-95.
Harper, T.L. and Stein, S.M. (1994) Neo-pragmatism and planning. Paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning in Phoenix, AZ.
Harper, T.L. and Stein, S.M. (1995a) Contemporary procedural ethical theory and planning theory. In Hendler, S. (ed.) Planning Ethics: A Reader in Planning Theory, Practice and Education. New Brunswick. NJ: Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers University, Ch. 3.
Harper, T.L. and Stein, S.M. (1995b) Out of the post-modern abyss: Preserving the rationale for liberal planning. Journal of Planning Education and Research. 14:233-244.
Harper, T.L. and Stein, S.M. (1996) Post-modern planning theory; The incommensurability premise. In Mandelbaum, S.J., Burchell, R. and Mazza, I. (Eds.)Explorations in Planning Theory. New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers University, Ch. 20.
Harper T.L. and Stein, S.M. (forthcoming) Incrementalist planning in post-modern society: A normative justification. Planning Theory.
Healey, P. (1993) Planning through debate: The communicative turn in planning theory. In Fischer, F. and Forester, J. (eds.) The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning. London: Duke University Press, pp. 233-253.
Hendler, S. (ed.) (1995) Plamling Ethics: A reader in Planning Theory, Practice and Education. New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers University.
Innes, J. (1995) Planning theory's emerging paradigm: Communicative action and interactive practice. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 14: 183-189.
Jacobs, H.M. (1995) Contemporary environmental philosophy and its challenge to planning theory. In Hendler, S. (ed.) Planning Ethics: A Reader in Planning Theory, Practice and Education. New Brunswick. NJ: Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers University, Ch. 8.
Kuhn, T.S. (1970) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Leopold, A. (1933) The conservation ethic. Jotlrnal of Forestry, 31:634-643.
Leopold, A. (1949) A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Livingston, J. (1985) Moral concerns and the eco-sphere. Alternatives, 12:3-9.
Livingston, J. (1986) Ethics as prosethics. In Hanson. P.P., Bradley, R. and Duguid, S. (eds.) Environmental Ethics: Philosophical and Policy Perspectives. Burnaby, BC: Simon Fraser Institute for the Humanities, pp. 69-82.
Martin, E. and Beatley T. (1993) Our relationship with the Earth: Environmental ethics in planning education. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 12:117-126.
Naess, A. (1973) The shallow and the deep, long range ecology movement, summary. Inquiry, 16:95-100.
Naess, A., (1992) The encouraging richness and diversity of ultimate premises in environmental philosophy. Trumpeter, (Spring), 53-62.
Nielsen, K. (1991) After the Demise of the Tradition: Rorty, Critical Theory and the Fate of Philosophy. Boulder, Co.: Westview Press.
Odum, E.P. (1974) Environmental ethic and the attitude revolution. In Blackstone, W.T., (ed.) Philosophy and the environmental Crisis. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, pp. 10-25.
Papineau, D. (1992) In the steps of the dodo. The New York Times Book Review, October 4.
Quine, W.V.O. (1969) Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. New York: Columbia University Press.
Rawls, J. (1980) Kantian constructivism in moral theory. Journal of Philosophy, 7719:544.
Rawls, J. (1985) Justice as fairness: Political not metaphysical. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 14: 223-251.
Rawls, J. (1993) Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Rees, W. (1995) Achieving sustainability: Reform or transformation? Journal of Plmming Literature, 9:343-361.
Rorty, R. (1980) A reply to Dreyfus and Taylor. Review of Metaphysics, 34:39-46.
Rorty, R. (1989) Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rorty, R. (1990) The priority of democracy to philosophy. In Malachowski, A. (ed.) Reading Rorty. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, Ch. 17.
Rorty, R. (1991) Objectivity, Relativism and Truth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rorty, R. (1995) Philosophy and the future. In Saatkamp, H.J. (ed.) Rorty and Pragmatism. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, pp. 197-205.
Rosa, M. (1995) Goods and life forms: Relativism in Charles Taylor's political philosophy. Radical Philosophy, 71 :20-26.
Skinner, B.F. (1971) Beyond Freedom and Dignity. New York: A.A. Knopf. Planning Theory for Environmentally Sustainable Planning 101
Spitler, G. (1982) Justifying a respect for nature. Environmental Ethics, 4:255-260.
Stein, S.M., (1994) Wittgenstein, Davidson and the myth of incommensurability. In Couture, J. and Nielsen, K. (eds.) Reconstruction in Philosophy: New Essays in Metaphilosophy. Calgary, AB: University of Calgary Press, pp. 181-222.
Taylor, C. (1989) Sources of the Self. The Making of Modern Identity. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Taylor, P.W. (1986) Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Williams, B. (1972) Morality: An Introduction to Ethics. New York: Harper and Row.
Wittgenstein, L. (1959) On Certainty. New York: Harper and Row.
- The contributor(s) (authors) warrant that the entire work is original and unpublished; it is submitted only to this Journal and all text, data, figures/tables or other illustrations included in this work are completely original and unpublished, and these have not been previously published or submitted elsewhere in any form or media whatsoever.
- The contributor(s) warrant that the work contains no unlawful or libelous statements and opinions and liable materials of any kind whatsoever, does not infringe on any copyrights, intellectual property rights, personal rights or rights of any kind of others, nor contains any plagiarized, fraudulent, improperly attributed materials, instructions, procedures, information or ideas that might cause any harm, damage, injury, losses or costs of any kind to person or property.
- The contributor(s) retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- The contributor(s) are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- The contributor(s) are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
- Geography Research Forum may disseminate the content of the publications and publications’ Meta data in text, image, or other print and electronic formats to providers of research databases (e.g. EBSCO, GeoBase, JSTOR) to facilitate publications' exposure.
