ABSTRACT
Can we have a postmodern planning? No (an answer that is itself not postmodern). Can we have a planning that is more open, sensitive to the needs of the many, radically challenges existing notions and actively seeks to encourage wider participation from those previously excluded in an continuously open discourse? Yes. Whether this is postmodern planning or not depends on semantics and particularly on the extent to which the postmodern can overlap with foundational thinking, and the extent to which what passes as postmodern thinking could equally be argued to be part of a pragmatic planning and/or draw on elements of critical pragmatism. Also, as I argued in the previous chapter, there are two aspects of postmodern planning that are related though imply different outcomes: a postmodern form and a postmodern framework. The outcome of a postmodern planning and the answers to the question above will vary depending on the approach taken. The approach I took was a conservative one and the outcome was structured by that. But regardless of my approach, I maintain that a postmodern planning does not necessarily imply postmodern tenets. If taken as a framework that releases difference and seeks to challenge totality and closed systems, then it may well lead to a postmodern form of planning but it may equally release a less than progressive or liberal form of planning. The rules and foundational principles that I introduced into my postmodern framework in Chapter 8 sought to allow different forms of planning to develop, but also precluded them from becoming dominatory themselves. The form of planning that mostly resembled a postmodern approach, that of the rural areas, had inherent problems and difficulties including a strategic overview and conflict resolution procedures with neighbouring communities. However, the postmodern planning framework did not necessarily imply that form of planning. It could easily have led to a perfectly workable form. The point is that the framework does not determine the form.
