Urban planning

The chapter acknowledges a double bind between Public Sociology and the vast and ‘messy’ realm of Urban Planning: although a persistent gap, the two fields share a few critical points and crucial issues. On one side, the applied field of planning tries to rationalise age-old practices of regulating the spatial settlement of societies with a cumbersome heritage of specialised concerns: as a result, some aspects lie far away from PS interests: the technical concerns, the various assemblage of rules, the trans-disciplinary nature of urban planning, and the fundamental focus on the spatial ecologies of groups and societies. On the other, some features of planning impinge upon core issues of public sociology and have vastly contributed to the emergence of exciting fields of critical and theoretical thoughts: the insistence on collective action, the concern for practices, and the normative role of imagination and social justice. Besides, the strategic turn in the 90s and the rising discontent with the colonial imprinting emphasised the political dimension bringing the two fields even closer. While both strive to enlighten the conflictual outcomes of collective actions and the interplay of material and symbolic elements, a closer dialogue may unlock beneficial cooperation.