ABSTRACT
The problems and challenges that places are confronted with cannot be tackled and managed adequately with the intellectual apparatus, concepts and mind-set of traditional spatial planning. This chapter argues that planning must involve a strategically-focused, creative effort to imagine structurally different answers, and to bring this creative imagination to bear on political decisions and the implementation of these decisions into transformative practices. Hence the chapter constructs the outline of a ‘new’ strategic spatial planning approach open to transformative practices. Transformative practices focus on the structural problems of our society, elaborate images of a preferred outcome and propose how to implement them. Envisioning as a learning process is used to broaden the spectrum of possible futures. In a final section, the chapter reflects on the role planners may play in substantiating transformative practices.
