ABSTRACT
Regardless of their degree of civilisation or their size, societies have always felt the need to organise and control the space they inhabit. The reasons for this are well known: a society uses the control of space to protect itself from outsiders and distinguish between individual and collective spaces. Furthermore, the ordering of space is used to organise the life of society within the hut, the village, and the city. Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to content ourselves with just these reasons; the ordering of space is the product of something much more profound than the pragmatic organisation of society. It is rooted in a vision of the world, of man’s place in the cosmos, and of the very nature of life and society. In other words, it is rooted in a political idea. Spatial planning as a technique and spatial governance as a form of governance are born of the overall need for social and spatial order, which is transferred to and satisfied by the ordering of space.
