Benjamin Davy

Plan It Without a Condom

Cities draw from many voices, many rationalities. However, planners often make an effort to separate dissimilar uses from each other and even neglect plural rationalities. Their plans work like condoms, designed to defend us against being raped by the cacophonous abundance of the metropolis. The metaphor, borrowed from Georg Simmel (1903), encourages planners to use monorationality as a tool for planning. But is diversity, even if cacophonous, not also a vital sign of urbanity? Based upon Mary Douglass cultural theory, the article aims to demonstrate how planners can profit from exploring the frontiers of polyrationality.

Land Policy : Planning and the Spatial Consequences of Property

Contents: Preface The myths of property meet the comfort of planning Multiple causes, uncertain effects She told ya fun names! Land values A review of property in land Property and the politics of belonging Polyrational policymaking The myth of planning meets the comforts of property Bibliography Index.

Spatial planning and human rights

The idea for editing a collection of articles on spatial planning and human rights arose in the meeting of Planning Theory’s Editorial Board during the 2012 Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) conference in Ankara, Turkey. I had just published a book containing a chapter on this topic (B Davy, 2012) and was involved in research on the human rights approach to global social citizenship (B Davy et al., 2013). I am grateful to Ulrike Davy, who inspired me to contemplate human rights and spatial planning, although I recognize that many scholars have written about planning and rights (see, for example, Alexander, 2002; Alterman, 2010; Needham, 2006; Webster and Lai, 2003). Human rights are relevant enough, however, to consider their relationship to spatial planning in particular. In selecting articles for the Special Issue, I have encouraged all authors to apply the concepts of spatial planning, planning theory, and human rights in a broad sense. The following articles examine international human rights (both UN sponsored and regional), domestic human rights, or just very important rights. Some authors consider planning tools such as land administration or planning law; others compare the rights of street vendors in several jurisdictions or engage in the examination of effects that rights-based planning has for marginalized individuals or groups. Focusing on human rights means to address rights in the most fundamental way. Legally, human rights often rank highest in the hierarchy of norms, yet human rights also can be construed of as a fundamental approach to the moral negotiations on human needs and aspirations (Sen, 2004). Human rights and spatial planning enjoy a relationship of mutual influence:

Planning in the face of immovable subjects: a dialogue about resistance to development forces

ainstituto de ciências Sociais, Universidade de lisboa, lisbon, Portugal; bSchool of Urban research and Planning, University of iowa, iowa city, USa; cSchool of agriculture and environment, University of Western australia, Perth, australia; drMiT University, Melbourne, Victoria, australia; eSchool of Spatial Planning, TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, germany; fcentre for Urban research, rMiT University, Melbourne, Victoria, australia; gPlanning Democracy, edinburgh, UK

Is Hayek vs Kelsen helpful for planning theory? – A comment on Slaev’s types of planning and property rights by Benjamin Davy:

Planning theory relies on the borrowing from a multitude of academic disciplines. Among these disciplines are political philosophy, sociology, economics, legal theory, architecture, geography, feminism, psychology, border studies, cultural theory, mathematics, computer science, or anthropology (to name just a few). It is no wonder, of course, that occasionally something is lost in translation. After all, accidents happen. Remembering the original idea can help mitigate the consequences and set the record straight. Slaev (2016a, 2016b, 2017a, 2017b), professor at the Department of Architecture and Urbanism of Varna Free University, Bulgaria, recently has presented a comprehensive theory of planning, law, and property rights. Readers must keep in mind the full set of papers, although my comment concerns mostly the article on Types of planning and property rights (Slaev, 2016a). Combining teleocracy and nomocracy with planning, markets, and property, Slaev (2016a: 24 and 38) asserts that “the different forms of property rights play a fundamental role in coordinating any social activity” and that “planning, regulation and the market as forms of coordination of social activities are based on the configurations of property rights”:

Human Dignity and Property in Land—A Human Rights Approach

The chapter takes a two-pronged approach to discuss property in land as a human right. (1) An approach informed by legal positivism helps collect human rights clearly pertaining to property relations. In this sense, human rights are UN-sponsored human rights. The golden rule of property as a human right comprises several essential elements: the right not to be owned (abolition of slavery; prohibition of forced marriages), the right to own property, the right to work, and the right to an adequate standard of living. Property as a human right differs substantially from constitutional property clauses or from property in common or private law. The most important reason for this difference relates to the significance of human dignity in human rights law. (2) According to the prevalent self-descriptions, human rights derive from the inherent dignity of the human person. An approach informed by political philosophy examines whether property as a human right specifically relates to or derives from human dignity. The examination demonstrates that the relationship between human dignity and private property is polyrational: Human dignity explains why property is essential for every person to attain security, freedom, and equality. Human dignity also explains that the human right to property comprises the right to an adequate standard of living. Finally, human dignity explains why property accumulation or monopolization (even if permissible under constitutional or common/private law) must not go too far.

Planning cultures in Europe. Decoding cultural phenomena in urban and regional planningKnielingJoergOthengrafenFrank (eds) Planning cultures in Europe. Decoding cultural phenomena in urban and regional planning, Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate. 364 pp. GB£70.00/US

changing the language we use to label things correctly (Fischer, Wolf Peters). This is a good start to what Amartya Sen (2009) would call a “messy social choice process.” The planner has to help reveal what the stakes are in decisions, what their distributive and justice effects are. S/he has to facilitate dialogue, but it can’t be “anything goes.” There is a material reality and there are facts. But the planner needs a sophisticated understanding of these things in order to play the role of helping the powerless and the powerful to see what is on the table. Hopefully, the planner can also use techniques to bring those whose interests lie on the side of injustice, around to cooperating, or at least compromising, in the direction of justice. Or, failing that, to help the victims to tell the powerful that they listened to them but didn’t buy what they had to say, and that if they want political cooperation, they will need to do better, or face conflict. Every area of urban analysis and practice needs to engage with normative or justice issues. This starts with those who study substance and generate the doctrines that run the society – urban and land economists, housing economists, spatial economists, infrastructure economists, public goods economists. The second fundamental theorem of welfare economics – mostly ignored by them – tells us that aggregate welfare outcomes shift in the face of different distributions. It continues to practicing professionals: lawyers, developers, planners, architects. They should be trained to understand issues of justice and distribution and they should be held to a higher standard of literacy about these issues.Citizens’ groups and politicians, too, need to have their knowledge and language upgraded and changed to reflect justice concerns, not in a woolly and romantic way, but with much greater rigor and logic, and planners should be there to help them do this. We have a lot to do as a field.