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Trading Zone and the Complexity of Planning

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Urban Planning as a Trading Zone

Part of the book series: Urban and Landscape Perspectives ((URBANLAND,volume 13))

Abstract

In this chapter, we explore the applicability of the trading zone approach by addressing the complexities that frame and penetrate all contested planning issues. Planning issues are thoroughly political, and the ‘political’ is thoroughly complex. The complexities in planning include not only issues of ontological and epistemological differences about what should be done and what is a ‘good city’ but also questions such as what kind of processes of decision making, information gathering and valuation should be incorporated in planning. By addressing the political, communicative and technical ‘dimensions’ of planning through two illustrative planning cases, we discuss how trading zone as a concept resonates with these complexities and whether it can bring theoretical and practical insights into planning. We find the nature of planning to be often more complex than the illustrations of trading zone formation thus far have portrayed. Hence, complexities may restrain the applicability of the trading zone concept as a planning tool. Overcoming the seemingly irreconcilable differences between actors in any planning case calls for creative, dialogical, locally sensitive and flexible planning. These issues are at the heart of the trading zone approach. Therefore, the trading zone approach can be suitable in a range of descriptive and normative uses within planning, when applied with due attention to different aspects of complexity.

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Acknowledgments

The work on this chapter has been partly funded by the Academy of Finland, research grant 253845.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Real Estate, Planning and Geoinformatics/YTK, Aalto University, 12200, 00076, AALTO, Finland

    Vesa Kanninen & Raine Mäntysalo

  2. School of Management, University of Tampere, Tampere, 33014, Finland

    Pia Bäcklund

Authors
  1. Vesa Kanninen
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  2. Pia Bäcklund
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  3. Raine Mäntysalo
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Correspondence to Vesa Kanninen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Department of Architecture and Urban Stu, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, Milan, 20133, Italy

    Alessandro Balducci

  2. , Department of Real Estate, Planning and, Aalto University, Lämpömiehenkuja 2, Espoo, 00076, Finland

    Raine Mäntysalo

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Kanninen, V., Bäcklund, P., Mäntysalo, R. (2013). Trading Zone and the Complexity of Planning. In: Balducci, A., Mäntysalo, R. (eds) Urban Planning as a Trading Zone. Urban and Landscape Perspectives, vol 13. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5854-4_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5854-4_10

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  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-5854-4

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