ABSTRACT
The quotation above comes from John Forester’s interview with the young planner Kristin (Forester 1993). Her words echo her disappointment now her first job as a planner has turned out to be full of politics. The transcript of the interview was published in 1990, so Kristin is probably an experienced planner by now. Yet her early observations about her experience with politics in planning are still of relevance. The step from planning school towards the daily practice of planning turned out to be the first time that Kristin was really confronted with politics in action. Of course, she knew that people were ‘going to be self-interested’, but that abstract textbook wisdom is hardly comparable to an encounter with politics reallife. It is the experience of politics that creates understandings that truly stick. But what is politics actually? What do we mean when we talk about power and politics in planning?
