Today, urban scholars think of cities and regions as evolving through networks of human associations, technologies, and natural ecologies. This being the case, planners are faced with the task of navigating a profoundly material world. Planning with and for humans alone is unacceptable: in the unfolding of urban processes, non-human things cannot be ignored. This inclusive vision has consequences for how planners envision the connections among norms, technologies and life-worlds as well as how they design and implement their plans.

The contributors to this volume utilize a variety of examples - ecologically-sensitive, regional planning in Naples (Italy); congestion pricing in New York City; and public participation in Europe, among others - to explore how planners engage a heterogeneous and restless world. Inspired by assemblage thinking and actor-network theory, each chapter draws on this "new materialism" to acknowledge, in quite pragmatic ways, that spatial politics is a process of becoming that is inseparable from the materiality of urban practices.

About the Author

Laura Lieto is a Professor of Urban Planning in the Department of Architecture at the 'Federico II' University, Italy.

Robert A. Beauregard is a Professor of Urban Planning in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University, USA.

Book Information
ISBN 9781138392878
Author Laura Lieto
Format Paperback
Page Count 180
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 453g