How Public Norms Help to Cope with Uncertainty in Complex Practices of Planning

The article questions the contemporary dilemmas of planning by confronting the prevailing pragmatic approaches of urban and regional planning with the challenge to institutionalise public norms. The analytical framework highlights the fundamental difference between the socialisation of the normative dimension of planning (the setting of public norms that condition social interaction and policies and justify the appropriateness) and the pragmatic orientation of planning (the purposive targeting and horizontal collaboration of public and
private agencies, the direct focus on problem-solving and the correction of errors). The author claims that a productive dialectic between the two dimensions is needed for the sake of legitimacy and effectiveness of planning. However, the normative institutional dimension appears to be neglected in ongoing practices of planning. The empirical investigation examines the conditions of transformational planning that aims at guiding fragmented city-regional spaces into more coherent city-regional configurations with sustainable qualities of place. Three conditions of city-regional transformation are taken into the examination: habitability, mobility, and the care for the climate.