Ten: A multiplicity of meanings of space and place

Publication Date:
20 Jul 2011
Pages:
227–248
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51952/9781447342861.ch010
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This book has explored the position of urban planning, and the image, representation and depiction of planning in film and photography over the last 80 years or so. It has essentially attempted to work on several levels: as a narrative of urban planning’s remarkable ability to change and adapt to different conditions, political expectations and public desires over time; as an alternative history of places and change in the built environment and – more pertinently – reactions to that change, using sources from the arts and humanities; and as a prompt to those interested and involved in urban planning to consider the story of places in ways that the public, the media and others understand. It is intended to facilitate a wide-ranging debate on these subjects at the beginning of the 21st century, and one that has been lacking for many decades. From a personal perspective, although I have worked in the field of urban planning for many years, I have always found these aspects of planning – the image and representation of planning and places, the role of planning in achieving wider societal benefit and the depiction of cities through history – the most interesting and challenging, and sometimes the most difficult, to analyse and comprehend.

The fact that my dilemmas and uncertainties about these issues still exist today, two decades after I first graduated, perhaps lie at the root of the problem of urban planning and places themselves. My uncertainties with planning correspond to questions of planning as a self-perpetuating activity, devoid of a philosophical core, lacking a strong concern with place meaning and identity, and a continual source of criticism politically and in the media.

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