Planning tegen beter in - rationele planning opnieuw bezocht: een Popperiaans perspectief

PhD ceremony: Mr. T. van der Meulen, 14.30 uur, Academiegebouw, Broerstraat 5, Groningen

Dissertation: Planning tegen beter in - rationele planning opnieuw bezocht: een Popperiaans perspectief

Promotor(s): prof. E.J.M.M. Arts, prof. T.A.F. Kuipers, prof. G. de Roo

Faculty: Spatial Sciences

This thesis is a meta-analysis of analyses regarding the implementation gap in spatial planning. Here two approaches can be detected. Firstly, starting from the actor who considers alternative strategies with their various effects, and secondly, starting from the context of planning routines where an intervention is regarded as a representation of shared insights in well-described circumstances. This dilemma can be related to Popper’s distinction between context of justification and context of discovery. In the former the argumentative language function is predominant, in the latter it is the descriptive language function. Rorty relates both perspectives to each other by the concept of irony. In planning practice, both perspectives clash when utilitarian-inspired proposals appear to have little support. This illustrates the relevance of the tension between ‘making’ and ‘planning subjects being together’ in policy analysis. Not every plan is implemented. This is not by definition a problem, but rather just a thing to judge with some irony. Amongst other cases this is illustrated by a description of the planning vicissitudes in the East Groningen village of Ganzedijk, which should have become an example of a new strategy for dealing with shrinking populations (but was never implemented due to several misunderstandings).