The democratic nature of spatial planning and the challenge of the rational "model"

Abstract

Rational planning has been challenged in recent years, with respect to its effectiveness, feasibility and democratic nature. Its emergence in the 1960s and 1970s was accompanied with unfortunate claims of comprehensiveness and scientific objectivity. The challenge originated equally in neoliberal views and in progressive positions, which stressed its lack of political ideology and social sensitivity. Yet, the deficit of contact with the citizens and cooperation with society does not entail abandonment of the basic rational model and resorting to a logic of the private economy and marketing principles.