Conflict is another element of the planning process that the profession has struggled to deal with. Whenever a harm or wrong occurs it can be hard to discern the path to reconciliation given the multiplicity of actors in public disputes (1). Marris also points out how conflict interacts with the grief process where the loss of continuity leads to the various community members seeking a new source of meaning through conflict. To better understand how grief is resolved, Marris examined mourning rituals and found that they recognize three important elements:
Like the cultural mourning rituals Marris studied, institutions need to embody these principles to be able to respond to societal and community change (2). This call for a renewed relationship between institutions and conflict has resonance in planning as many researchers have found a culture and process that promotes conflict and inhibits its transformation (3). Many planning decisions create competing sub groups of the public and force them to embrace decisions that often do not embody their preferences. An example of this can be seen in the contentious process of locating services like homeless shelters. Limited resources, restrictive bylaws, and policy obligations create a planning environment where communities are provided few options to respond other than conflict. Given this environment, the location of new shelters is often decided by feasibility (i.e. where bylaws and funding allow) as opposed to the interests of street-involved people or the surrounding community.
Conflict also plays out in the development application process where the different members of the current community and future community struggle to find a voice in the conversation between developers, city planners and other key stakeholders. With so many voices and only a few key points of intervention via public meetings, it is no wonder participants entrench their opinions and project their feelings of loss onto one another. The most prolific example of this dynamic is in NIMBYism and its critics. What other choice does a community apprehensive of change have than to attack the future community or development proposal who they see as representative of that change?
The current process provides little space for the emotional turmoil fueling NIMBYism to be spoken, affirmed and redirected towards renewed continuity and emotional growth. At the same time there are layers of power and intersections of privilege and marginalization that run through the community bringing broader conflicts about voice and belonging into the space. These broader societal conflicts are also not given space within planning and so they get manifested as exclusion and disengagement. Many groups have lost trust in the planning process to represent their interests and will not participate in long range activities like secondary plans and official plans. In response, movements like advocacy planning have arisen to raise awareness of the profession’s responsibility to counter power conflicts. Instead, taking a therapeutic approach may be preferred because its processes of recognition and reflection awaken opportunities to transform and transcend those power conflicts.
Planners are part of larger social systems and exist in a complex conflictual relationship between the political realm, their professional responsibility and the desires of developers. Conflict has become so accepted in the profession that for many planning decisions it is just expected that they will need to be resolved through some form of arbitration such as at the Ontario Municipal Board (4). The planner is thus stuck navigating three levels of conflict, the individual conflicts between participants struggling to process change and trauma, the systemic conflicts that enforce and dismantle structures of power, and the internal conflicts between developers, politicians and planners at the heart of the profession. Bollens unpacks the unique role planning plays in regard to the conflicts within our city:
“The city is important in peace building because it is in the streets and neighborhoods of urban agglomerations that there is the negotiation over, and clarification of, abstract concepts such as democracy, fairness, and tolerance. Debates over proposed projects and discussion of physical place provide opportunities to anchor and negotiate dissonant meanings in a post-conflict society; indeed, there are few opportunities outside debates over urban life where these antagonistic impulses take such concrete forms in need of pragmatic negotiation” (5)
As found by Sandercock and company, it is the applied aspect of planning conversation that allows the emotions of conflict to be grounded in the concrete aspects of our everyday lives. Planners have not been oblivious to this potential for the profession to transcend its conflicts and play a peace-building role. There have been several frameworks and tools proposed such as LeBaron’s conflict transformation approach to help planners bridge cross-cultural conflicts (6). There is also the transformative mediation method which like therapeutic planning is centred on the pillars of empowerment and recognition (7). The idea in all these tools is that conflict cannot be resolved through a top down approach, it requires participants to be heard and valued. Only through such a process of ambivalent exploration can a meaning beyond conflict be uncovered (2). Marris outlines a set of principles for the management of change. Planners should:
Therapeutic planning aligns with the community conflict resolution theory and practice of Bollens, LeBaron and company. It recognizes that conflict is a part of planning and that it is rooted in real feelings stemming from the loss of change, deep seated traumas, and systemic power imbalances. Therapeutic planning counters the power dimensions of conflict by empowering all participants to express their emotional experience and then grounds these emotions in the practical questions of what change will actually look like in the community. Such a process does not make planners community therapists or mediators; nor does it mean that planning will be the salve to all conflict and trauma in society. Instead, therapeutic planning recognizes the role planners play in community conflict and trauma, and in particular, the potential for planning discourse to ground abstract emotions and direct them towards growth reconciliation and healing.
This can be seen in Wendy Sarkissian’s intervention in Redfern where the conflict between the indigenous and non-indigenous communities was overcome when the emotional realm of all participants was heard and affirmed (6). The speak out activity transformed abstract societal conflicts as well as more personal tensions and anxieties into understanding and a common language. The practice of therapeutic planning that Sandercock crafted from Redfern creates a common framework that everyday practitioners can use to turn conflict into both a more productive decision-making process and even a process that leads into greater community cohesion and wellness.
The goal of this past section has been to make clear the potential therapeutic planning has to reimagine the profession if applied more broadly. Planning should become more therapeutic because it makes the process more productive. It transforms conflict and emotional deadlocks into common understanding, thus making the public interest easier to identify and actualize. The decisions that come from a therapeutic approach better reflect the needs of the community because they recognize the emotional realm and different expressions of knowledge as real and rational. Therapeutic planning therefore better assists planners in achieving our professional commitment to identify and actualize the public interest. Section 1.3 of the Code in particular calls for planners to acknowledge the inter-related nature of planning decisions and their consequences for individuals, the natural and built environment, and the broader public interest (8). The reflective and emotionally attentive approach of therapeutic planning makes it easier for planners to embody this part of the code as well as others.
There is also an imperative for planning to become more therapeutic because of the legacy of conflict and trauma that are caused by planning’s dark side. Nowhere is this transformation more important than on the indigenous reconciliation front. If planning is to truly reconcile with indigenous communities, it needs to replicate the successes of therapeutic planning throughout the profession. Indigenous reconciliation, trauma and conflict are fundamental parts of planning that no professional can ignore. Therapeutic planning puts the healing of these dynamics at the forefront of planning’s objectives. Planners can and should care for their communities. Therapeutic planning creates a theory of care that reimagines planners as community caregivers. If the therapeutic imagination grants planning the capacity to be healing, what is stopping the profession from embracing this therapeutic potential?
- Loss generates a conflict which must be worked out, so as to restore a vital sense of continuity to experience.
- The resolution of this conflict cannot be preordained, since the resolution only becomes meaningful through the ambivalent exploration by which it is realized.
- Until grief is worked out the conflict itself becomes the only meaningful reference for behaviour. (2)
Like the cultural mourning rituals Marris studied, institutions need to embody these principles to be able to respond to societal and community change (2). This call for a renewed relationship between institutions and conflict has resonance in planning as many researchers have found a culture and process that promotes conflict and inhibits its transformation (3). Many planning decisions create competing sub groups of the public and force them to embrace decisions that often do not embody their preferences. An example of this can be seen in the contentious process of locating services like homeless shelters. Limited resources, restrictive bylaws, and policy obligations create a planning environment where communities are provided few options to respond other than conflict. Given this environment, the location of new shelters is often decided by feasibility (i.e. where bylaws and funding allow) as opposed to the interests of street-involved people or the surrounding community.
Conflict also plays out in the development application process where the different members of the current community and future community struggle to find a voice in the conversation between developers, city planners and other key stakeholders. With so many voices and only a few key points of intervention via public meetings, it is no wonder participants entrench their opinions and project their feelings of loss onto one another. The most prolific example of this dynamic is in NIMBYism and its critics. What other choice does a community apprehensive of change have than to attack the future community or development proposal who they see as representative of that change?
The current process provides little space for the emotional turmoil fueling NIMBYism to be spoken, affirmed and redirected towards renewed continuity and emotional growth. At the same time there are layers of power and intersections of privilege and marginalization that run through the community bringing broader conflicts about voice and belonging into the space. These broader societal conflicts are also not given space within planning and so they get manifested as exclusion and disengagement. Many groups have lost trust in the planning process to represent their interests and will not participate in long range activities like secondary plans and official plans. In response, movements like advocacy planning have arisen to raise awareness of the profession’s responsibility to counter power conflicts. Instead, taking a therapeutic approach may be preferred because its processes of recognition and reflection awaken opportunities to transform and transcend those power conflicts.
Planners are part of larger social systems and exist in a complex conflictual relationship between the political realm, their professional responsibility and the desires of developers. Conflict has become so accepted in the profession that for many planning decisions it is just expected that they will need to be resolved through some form of arbitration such as at the Ontario Municipal Board (4). The planner is thus stuck navigating three levels of conflict, the individual conflicts between participants struggling to process change and trauma, the systemic conflicts that enforce and dismantle structures of power, and the internal conflicts between developers, politicians and planners at the heart of the profession. Bollens unpacks the unique role planning plays in regard to the conflicts within our city:
“The city is important in peace building because it is in the streets and neighborhoods of urban agglomerations that there is the negotiation over, and clarification of, abstract concepts such as democracy, fairness, and tolerance. Debates over proposed projects and discussion of physical place provide opportunities to anchor and negotiate dissonant meanings in a post-conflict society; indeed, there are few opportunities outside debates over urban life where these antagonistic impulses take such concrete forms in need of pragmatic negotiation” (5)
As found by Sandercock and company, it is the applied aspect of planning conversation that allows the emotions of conflict to be grounded in the concrete aspects of our everyday lives. Planners have not been oblivious to this potential for the profession to transcend its conflicts and play a peace-building role. There have been several frameworks and tools proposed such as LeBaron’s conflict transformation approach to help planners bridge cross-cultural conflicts (6). There is also the transformative mediation method which like therapeutic planning is centred on the pillars of empowerment and recognition (7). The idea in all these tools is that conflict cannot be resolved through a top down approach, it requires participants to be heard and valued. Only through such a process of ambivalent exploration can a meaning beyond conflict be uncovered (2). Marris outlines a set of principles for the management of change. Planners should:
- Expect and encourage conflict so participants have an opportunity to react to change and articulate their feelings.
- Recognize the autonomy of different types of experience to allow people to self-organize their own experience of grief.
- Give time and practice patience so that the transformative process can occur. (2)
Therapeutic planning aligns with the community conflict resolution theory and practice of Bollens, LeBaron and company. It recognizes that conflict is a part of planning and that it is rooted in real feelings stemming from the loss of change, deep seated traumas, and systemic power imbalances. Therapeutic planning counters the power dimensions of conflict by empowering all participants to express their emotional experience and then grounds these emotions in the practical questions of what change will actually look like in the community. Such a process does not make planners community therapists or mediators; nor does it mean that planning will be the salve to all conflict and trauma in society. Instead, therapeutic planning recognizes the role planners play in community conflict and trauma, and in particular, the potential for planning discourse to ground abstract emotions and direct them towards growth reconciliation and healing.
This can be seen in Wendy Sarkissian’s intervention in Redfern where the conflict between the indigenous and non-indigenous communities was overcome when the emotional realm of all participants was heard and affirmed (6). The speak out activity transformed abstract societal conflicts as well as more personal tensions and anxieties into understanding and a common language. The practice of therapeutic planning that Sandercock crafted from Redfern creates a common framework that everyday practitioners can use to turn conflict into both a more productive decision-making process and even a process that leads into greater community cohesion and wellness.
The goal of this past section has been to make clear the potential therapeutic planning has to reimagine the profession if applied more broadly. Planning should become more therapeutic because it makes the process more productive. It transforms conflict and emotional deadlocks into common understanding, thus making the public interest easier to identify and actualize. The decisions that come from a therapeutic approach better reflect the needs of the community because they recognize the emotional realm and different expressions of knowledge as real and rational. Therapeutic planning therefore better assists planners in achieving our professional commitment to identify and actualize the public interest. Section 1.3 of the Code in particular calls for planners to acknowledge the inter-related nature of planning decisions and their consequences for individuals, the natural and built environment, and the broader public interest (8). The reflective and emotionally attentive approach of therapeutic planning makes it easier for planners to embody this part of the code as well as others.
There is also an imperative for planning to become more therapeutic because of the legacy of conflict and trauma that are caused by planning’s dark side. Nowhere is this transformation more important than on the indigenous reconciliation front. If planning is to truly reconcile with indigenous communities, it needs to replicate the successes of therapeutic planning throughout the profession. Indigenous reconciliation, trauma and conflict are fundamental parts of planning that no professional can ignore. Therapeutic planning puts the healing of these dynamics at the forefront of planning’s objectives. Planners can and should care for their communities. Therapeutic planning creates a theory of care that reimagines planners as community caregivers. If the therapeutic imagination grants planning the capacity to be healing, what is stopping the profession from embracing this therapeutic potential?
1. Digeser P (2001). Political Forgiveness. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
2. Marris, P. (1974). Loss and change. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
3. Hillier J (2002). Off the slippery ice and onto rough ground: Direct action and agonism in democratic planning practice. In: Allmendinger P & Tewdr-Jones M (Eds) Planning Futures: New Directions in Planning Theory. London: Athlone Press, pp. 110-135.
Pløger J (2004) Strife: Urban Planning and agonism. Planning Theory 3: 71-92.
4. Pagliaro, J. (2016, February 17). OMB Reform: Onward and upward. Toronto Star. http://projects.thestar.com/ontario-municipal-board-reform/onward-upward/
5. Bollens, S. A. (2006). Urban planning and peace building. Progress in Planning, 66(2), 67-139.
6. Sandercock L. (2003). Cosmopolis 2: Mongrel cities of the 21st century. London: Continuum.
7. Bush, R. A., & Folger, J. P. (1994). Promise of mediation: The transformative approach to conflict. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
8. OPPI. (2018). Professional Code of Practice http://ontarioplanners.ca/Knowledge-Centre/Professional-Code-of-Practice
2. Marris, P. (1974). Loss and change. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
3. Hillier J (2002). Off the slippery ice and onto rough ground: Direct action and agonism in democratic planning practice. In: Allmendinger P & Tewdr-Jones M (Eds) Planning Futures: New Directions in Planning Theory. London: Athlone Press, pp. 110-135.
Pløger J (2004) Strife: Urban Planning and agonism. Planning Theory 3: 71-92.
4. Pagliaro, J. (2016, February 17). OMB Reform: Onward and upward. Toronto Star. http://projects.thestar.com/ontario-municipal-board-reform/onward-upward/
5. Bollens, S. A. (2006). Urban planning and peace building. Progress in Planning, 66(2), 67-139.
6. Sandercock L. (2003). Cosmopolis 2: Mongrel cities of the 21st century. London: Continuum.
7. Bush, R. A., & Folger, J. P. (1994). Promise of mediation: The transformative approach to conflict. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
8. OPPI. (2018). Professional Code of Practice http://ontarioplanners.ca/Knowledge-Centre/Professional-Code-of-Practice