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Public-space planning in four Nordic cities: Symbolic values in tension

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Author

Summary, in English

This article takes its point of departure in the assumption that values shape planning practices and that alternatively one can reconstruct such values from the way planning interventions are argued and evaluated. We contend that planners' discourses involve implicit value commitments that are observable in their representations of public space and implicated in the results of public-space planning. The paper builds an empirical case from representations of public space elaborated in planning documents developed by planners in four medium-sized Nordic cities. We show how these planning representations form four thematic value clusters concerning urban public space, namely leisure-play, identity-unity, power-organization and unruliness-change. Together these clusters constitute a value framework which reveals a number of central tensions relating to the way that planners seek to balance order and spontaneity in public space. The paper concludes by outlining and discussing these values and the tensions they represent. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Publishing year

2010

Language

English

Pages

657-665

Publication/Series

Geoforum

Volume

41

Issue

4

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

Keywords

  • Urban planning
  • Public space
  • Representations
  • Tensions

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1872-9398