Urban planning and degrowth: a missing dialogue

Abstract

The paper aims at discussing the reciprocity of developing a dialogue between urban planning and degrowth by arguing for two interactive processes: ‘spatialising degrowth’ and ‘degrowing planning’. Degrowth literature has not yet fully recognised the potentiality of urban/urban regional spatial development and planning in facilitating and driving the degrowth transformation for local and regional sustainability and justice. The possibility of urban planning to facilitate a downscaling of the economy, save the environment and secure distributive justice is predicated on the causal relationships between space and societal conditions. Therefore, planning has the potentiality of providing spatial instruments in a degrowth transformation. On the other hand, the mainstream growth-oriented planning paradigm is facing internal and external imperatives for transformation. Degrowth values and principles provide inspiration for urban planning to rethink its role and function in urban and societal development, specifically on three fronts: ideology, substantive values and utopianism. The paper further discusses the dilemmas and advantages of planners, being situated in the complex political and institutional landscape, in taking proactive transformative practices.