What’s Space Got to do With it? Towards Planning Theories Incorporating Different Notions of Space

Space, or the idea of designing, making, managing or preserving spaces, is a fundamental and taken-for-granted dimension of spatial planning practices. So explicitly, planning practices could be understood as managing built, social and natural environments in holistic and integrative terms by defining land uses and functions in a spatial context and integrating different actor-specific perspectives and interests. The troublesome problem we want to address here is that, somewhat surprisingly, planning theories are rather vague and often just implicit regarding how space is actually construed. Specifically, procedural theories may even be considered as rather spatially blind, while substantive planning theories often tend to address a somehow simplified perspective on space. However, it is the various, often-competing notions of space, which are of particular significance for planning practice. This discrepancy is particularly clear when one considers that the competing claims in planning are not only a matter of different interests of the actors, but are deeply rooted in different spatialities. These varying conceptions and articulations of spatiality, as well as conflicts arising from them, are not sufficiently addressed in planning theories. Hence, in this contribution, we plea for a more nuanced conceptualisation of space in planning theories to better inform planning practice by bringing the substantial and procedural dimensions into conversation.