Repositioning planning in a governance context: a technological perspective

What governance implies for urban and regional planning is the question that this paper tries to address. Of course, this question is not new, but answers in current debate are often led by prejudicial assumptions: pro or contra governance, according to what planning is ideologically expected to be. Generally, being a promoter of bottom-up and more inclusive approaches, governance is appreciated as a driver of innovation in planning practices indeed. Conversely, who embraces a nostalgic idea of planning as a top-down administrative activity tends to refuse governance and innovation as destabilising concepts. The present paper argues that innovation is necessary to planning as to any technology. In this light, however, to consider governance an external factor inducing innovation may prove to be reductive. Rather, a governance perspective is helpful to cast light on the institutional dimension of planning as a technology. Particularly, to consider planning an ‘institutional technology’ suggests that social experience, public acknowledgement and institutional codification are interlinked and equally indispensable momentums for the achievement of innovation. In this framework, the increasing recourse to urban and territorial governance practices may bear witness to a shift of social demand of planning activities from ‘conformance’ to ‘performance’ aims.