Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Investigating Planners’ Learning Experiences in Amsterdam’s Fragmented Governance of Property Development

Abstract

Fragmentation in terms of institutional complexity and a multitude of governance actors involved in property development changes the nature of planning practice. I investigate how planners in Amsterdam, who operate as project managers, learn from interacting with property industry actors, and how their learning experiences travel beyond the project scale to instigate wider institutional change. Planners in Amsterdam struggle as the distance between municipal policy directions and development practices ‘on the ground’ grows. I argue that putting a human face on these governance intricacies and incorporating private sector considerations in literature on institutional change in planning becomes increasingly pivotal.