This article claims a place for nonhuman things in the worlds of planning theory and practice. Using a fragment from a dialogue between a group of planners and a developer, I explore how things—apartment buildings, site plans, scale models, and parking spaces—shape planning practice. My concern is the micropolitics of planning and the way in which people interact with objects to convey authority and commitment and to establish mutual understandings.
BeauregardR.2005. From place to site: Negotiating narrative complexity. In Site matters, edited by BurnsC. J.KahnA., 39-58. New York: Routledge.
2.
BeauregardR.2011. Time, action, space. Urban Geography32: 470-75.
3.
BibbyP.ShepherdJ.2000. GIS, land use, and representation. Environment and Planning B27: 583-98.
4.
BlackA.1990. The Chicago area transportation study: A case study of rational planning. Journal of Planning Education and Research10 (1): 27-37.
5.
BourdieuP.2005. The social structures of the economy. Cambridge: Polity Press.
6.
CallonM.2002. Writing and (re)writing devices as tools for managing complexity. In Complexities: Social studies of knowledge practice, edited by LawJ.MolA., 191-217. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
7.
CallonM.LatourB.1981. Unscrewing the big Leviathan: How actors macro-structure reality and sociologists help them to do so. In Advances in social theory and methodology, edited by Knorr-CetinaK.CicourelA. V., 277-303. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
8.
DaltonL.2007. Preparing planners for the breadth of practice. Journal of the American Planning Association73 (1): 35-48.
9.
DastonL.2004. Speechless. In Things that talk, edited by DastonL., 9-24. New York: Zone Books.
10.
EdensorT.2011. Entangled agencies, material networks and repair in a building assemblage: The mutable stone of St. Ann’s Church, Manchester. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers36 (2): 238-52.
11.
FainsteinN. I.FainsteinS. S.1979. New debates in urban planning: The impact of Marxist theory. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research3 (3): 381-403.
12.
FainsteinS. S.1997. The egalitarian city: The restructuring of Amsterdam. International Planning Studies2 (3): 295-314.
13.
FainsteinS. S.2010. The just city. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
14.
FlyvbjergB.1998. Rationality and power: Democracy in practice. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
15.
FlyvbjergB.2001. Making social science matter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
16.
ForesterJ.1989. Listening: The social policy of everyday life. In Planning in the face of power, edited by ForesterJ., 107-118. Berkeley: University of California Press.
17.
ForesterJ.1996. Argument, power, and passion in planning practice. In Explorations in planning theory, edited by MandelbaumS. J.MazzaL.BurchellR. W., 241-62. New Brunswick, NJ: CUPR Press.
18.
ForesterJ.1999. The deliberative practitioner: Encouraging participatory planning processes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
19.
ForesterJ.2009. Dealing with differences: Dramas of mediating public disputes. New York: Oxford University Press.
20.
FriedmannJ.HudsonB.1974. Knowledge and action: A guide to planning theory. Journal of the American Institute of Planners40 (1): 2-16.
21.
GiddensA.1982. Profiles and critiques in social theory. Berkeley: University of California Press.
22.
GierynT.2006. City as truth-spot: Laboratories and field sites in urban studies. Social Studies of Science36 (1): 5-38.
23.
HarmanG.2009. Prince of networks: Bruno Latour and metaphysics. Melbourne: r.e.press.
24.
HochC.1992. The paradox of power in planning practice. Journal of Planning Education and Research11: 206-15.
25.
HochC.1996. What do planners do in the United States. In Explorations in planning theory, edited by MandelbaumS. J.MazzaL.BurchellR. W., 225-40. New Brunswick, NJ: CUPR Press.
26.
HommelsA.2008. Unbuilding cities: Obduracy in urban sociotechnical change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
27.
InnesJ.BooherD.2004. Reframing public participation: strategies for the 21st century. Planning Theory & Practice5 (4): 419-36.
28.
JoergesB.1999. Do politics have artefacts?Social Studies of Science29 (3): 411-31.
29.
JubienM.2001. Thinking about things. Philosophical Perspectives15: 1-15.
30.
LatourB.1992. Where are the missing masses? The sociology of a few mundane facts. In Shaping technology/building society, edited by BijkerW. E.LawJ., 225-58. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
31.
LatourB.2005. Reassembling the social. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
32.
LatourB.YanevaA.2008. “Give me a gun and I will make all buildings move”: An ant’s view of architecture. In Explorations in architecture, edited by GeiserR., 80-99. Basel: Birkhauser.
33.
LehtonenT-K.2009. How does materiality matter for the social sciences? In The materiality of res publica, edited by ColasD.KharkhordinO., 271-88. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars.
34.
MarcuseP.2009. From critical theory to the right to the city. City13 (2-3): 185-97.
35.
MitchellW. J.2005. Placing words: Symbols, space, and the city. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
36.
MurdochJ.1998. The spaces of actor-network theory. Geoforum29 (4): 357-74.
37.
MurdochJ.2006. Post-structural geography: A guide to relational space. London: Sage.
38.
PressmanJ.WildavskyA.1973. Implementation. Berkeley: University of California Press.
39.
SandercockL.1998. Towards cosmopolis. Chichester, UK: Wiley.
40.
SandercockL.2007. Spirituality and the urban professions: The paradox at the heart of planning. Planning Theory & Practice2 (1): 65-67.
41.
SchonD. A.1982. Some of what a planner knows. Journal of the American Planning Association48 (3): 351-64.
42.
ScottJ.1998. Seeing like a state. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
43.
TaitM.WhileA.2009. Ontology and the conservation of built heritage. Environment and Planning D27 (4): 721-37.
44.
ThriftN.1996. Spatial formations. London: Sage.
45.
ThrogmortonJ. A.2000. On the virtues of skillful meandering. Journal of the American Planning Association66 (4): 367-79.
46.
WinnerL.1980. Do artefacts have politics?Daedulus109: 121-36.
