Planning Cultures in Europe

Decoding Cultural Phenomena in Urban and Regional Planning

Frank Othengrafen, Joerg Knieling

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781138255661
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351910903
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Local & Regional Planning Public Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Bringing together an interdisciplinary team from across the EU, this book connects elements of cultural and planning theories to explain differences and peculiarities among EU member states. A 'culturized planning model' is introduced to consider the 'rules of the game': how culture affects planning practices not only on an explicit 'surface' but also on a 'hidden' implicit level. The model consists of three analytical dimensions: 'planning artifacts', 'planning environment' and 'societal environment'. This book adopts these dimensions to compare planning cultures of different European countries. This sheds light not only on the organizational or institutional structure of planning, but also the influence of deeper cultural values and layers on planning and implementation processes.

PART 1
Planning Culture – Theoretical Approaches

Chapter 1
Theoretical Reflections on Common European (Planning-) Cultures

Hans Gullestrup

Introduction: A Way of Understanding Culture and the Cultural Foundation of Societies

This chapter attempts to show how a theoretical inter-cultural model of understanding can be useful for the description and understanding of how research, planning and social measures of development are strongly rooted in, and restricted to, the dominant world conception of cultures. In a globalised world this is the case in any given field at any given time.

On the basis of a brief account of the concept of culture and of my general understanding of this concept, I will reflect on some common features of European cultures of importance for European spatial planning. Let me stress that these are reflections based on the perceptions and experiences of a Danish development researcher with a business economics background. That is, I will observe European cultures in the way they can be perceived with a cultural background such as mine, or in the way they can be perceived with my own cultural preparedness. It is my clear understanding that ‘reality’ will always be perceived and understood through one’s own culture, i.e. through one’s own cultural glasses. ‘Reality’ – or a substantial part thereof – is thus constructed on the basis of one’s own cultural background and experience. I will primarily reflect on the impact these dominant cultural features exert on how we in Europe perceive, acknowledge and define relevant issues in society. I will also reflect on how these recognised culturally related issues are of importance for the knowledge and insight that we ordinarily demand and obtain, in contrast to the knowledge we fail to recognise and therefore do not demand or try to obtain through research and developmental initiatives, related to our way of urban and regional planning in the European countries.

A Proposal for the Understanding of Culture

The concept of culture is unclear and difficult to define within humanistic and social science research. Nevertheless, or perhaps for this very reason, it is a concept that many researchers from many different schools have worked with, and one in which many researchers are still deeply involved. If one is to attempt to explain why this is so, the reason must be that culture is something that is relevant to all of us. It is something that we all have, and something which we want to preserve and yet at the same time try to change, consciously or unconsciously. Culture provides security and gives us a feeling of belonging, as well as a feeling of distance from others. But, for better or worse, culture is also a strong guide for our way of being and our way of perceiving ‘reality’ as the base for our acting.

If we are to understand much of what is happening in the world today, we have to take into account the concept of culture. If we are to understand the situation in the Middle East, and what is happening and has happened in former Yugoslavia, in Palestine and Israel, or if we are to try to understand the debate about the Muhammad cartoons in the Danish daily paper Jyllands-Posten, and the whole debate in Europe about refugees and immigrants, then we have to deal with the concept of culture. And if we want to understand why we are doing as we do – or why we are doing something differently, such as the way in which we teach our children or plan our society in Europe – we have to understand our cultures and the differences between them. In recent years, the concept of culture has also become part of a tool for understanding organisational development and international cooperation in different types of organisations, such as multinational companies, the European Union, the United Nations etc. (see also contribution of Knieling and Othengrafen in this volume).

But what, then, does the concept of culture mean? Well, to me culture is the world conception and the values, moral norms and actual behaviour – as well as material and immaterial results thereof – which people (in a given context and over a given period of time) take over from a past generation, which they – possibly in a modified form – seek to pass on to the next generation; and which make them different in various ways from people belonging to other cultures.

Thus, culture is manufactured and acquired by definition, and therefore in a way it is a contrast to what is ‘not manufactured’ – to nature. However, the distinction between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ is not as simple and clear as it may appear initially. Firstly, the mere distinction between culture and nature is itself culturally determined. Secondly, the boundary between what is and what is not manufactured is becoming increasingly blurred because of technological advances. For instance, if we are able to create new plant and animal species by means of gene splicing, then are these new plants or animals part of nature, or are they examples of material products of culture?

The boundary between what is nature and what is culture is thus in no way unequivocal, in the same way that it is not independent of culture. In spite of this, I will, however, maintain a distinction between what is manufactured and what is not at an abstract level – between culture and nature – in order to focus more on the concept of culture.

To me the concept of culture can be understood by means of three different dimensions on an abstract and meaningful level: the horizontal culture dimension; the vertical culture dimension; and a culture dimension of time. Below, I will briefly outline these three dimensions and the relationships between them with the strongest focus on the horizontal and the vertical dimension. In empirical studies that look at specific sectors of the society, such as the planning, education or production sectors, the focus will be on various elements of the three cultural dimensions, depending on the aim of the study and the sector in question.

The Horizontal Culture Dimension and its Different Segments of Cultural Dimensions

A distinctive feature of all living creatures is that their survival as individuals and species depends on the relationship between their biological needs (for food, protection against the climate, reproduction and socialisation into new generations, etc.) and the opportunities that surrounding nature offers them. Where more than one person is present in nature, humankind will always seek to fulfil their basic needs in social co-action through one form or another. Not necessarily by means of social cooperation, because an actual example of co-action may very well be characterised by suppression and exploitation, but in some way it takes the form of co-action. The actual ways of fulfilling the basic needs and of organising co-action can, and will, vary greatly in time and space, from one group of people to another, or from one culture to another, even within similar natural conditions.

At the same time, we can observe a multitude of different ways of coexisting and co-acting to fulfil fundamental needs in cultural contexts. We can note certain patterns, or certain common features in these ways, which make up the essential parts or central segments of culture in human co-action. In connection with my studies of different cultures I have found it purposeful to work with eight such segments of culture; in an etics culture analysis, in the words of Marvin Harris (1999, 224). These segments can be found in any chosen culture, but each of them (and their relation to one another) can manifest itself in quite different forms. The difference between them can only be analysed and understood by means of an actual, empirical culture analysis or by means of an emics culture analysis.

Together the eight segments of culture make up what I call the horizontal culture dimension. Horizontal because the eight segments of culture are manifested on the same level of the culture, so to speak. That is on the ‘perceivable’ level. Which kind of observations are most interesting and important for empirical studies and understanding depends on the actual purpose of each study; for example, the purpose of understanding European planning cultures. The eight segments, each of which describes different aspects of human co-action, can briefly be characterised in the following way and as in Figure 1.1:

Figure 1.1 The horizontal culture dimension

Source: Gullestrup 2006, 75.

1. the processing segment – or technology (for example, the use of statistical data, interviews or visual data, etc.);

2. the distribution segment – or economic institutions (for example, through (planning) legislation, advice of public teaching, etc.);

3. the social segment – or social institutions (for example, official state monopoly, community based or organisational planning institutions or individual planning);

4. the management and decision segment – or the political institutions. (for example, state or private decisions, community or cooperative decisions, etc.);

5. the conveyance segment – or language and communication (for example, professional languages, cases, pictures, etc.);

6. the integration segment – or reproduction, socialisation and learning (for example, part of school syllabus, TV announcing, legislating, etc.);

7. the identity-creating segment – or ideology (for example, the prestige of spatial planning and the planners, etc.); and

8. the security-creating segment – or religious institutions (for example, the legislation and/or political or religious support of spatial planning etc.).

The Vertical Culture Dimension and its Different Layers

In the encounter with a foreign culture certain perceptions will invariably be more noticeable than others. They thereby create a ‘first-hand perception’ of the observed culture. Actual behaviour, dress code and available products of different kinds will usually provide the foundation for this first-hand image. Soon after, the culture actor will also be able to perceive the underlying and difficult-to-perceive social structures, moral norms etc. A little later the social values will begin to materialise before the ‘observer’. These materialisations will contribute to a more nuanced perception of the immediately perceived culture image.

Consequently, not all observations are equally important for culture understanding, in as far as some – the more immediately perceivable and ‘observable’ culture features – may only be an expression, or symptom, of a deep culture characteristic, such as attitudes and values. Therefore it is useful to speak of a hierarchy of observations – of the vertical culture dimension. My argument here is that a deeper insight into the immediately perceivable cultural layers can only be understood and grasped through the symbolising culture layers above. Thus understanding the manifest culture layers is significant on their own merit, but they might also carry a symbolising significance for penetrating the deeper symbolised culture layers. In other words, the core culture can only be understood via the symbolising culture layers.

I have thus found it useful to work with six different culture layers. The three upper layers belong to the perceivable or manifest culture layers with their own significance, as well as a symbolising significance for the understanding of the three lower layers. The latter belong to the hidden layers of the culture, but also the more fundamental core culture.

a. Manifest culture layers – or the symbolising culture layers.

i. The immediately perceivable process layer and its resultant outcome (for example, the dress formality of the planners, their language, etc.).

ii. The difficult-to-perceive structural layer (for example, how the planning institutions are organised, other people’s respect for planning and the planners, people’s acceptance of plans, etc.).

iii. The formalised layers of norms and rules (for example, the contents of planning, consideration for handicapped and ‘people far away’ etc. and the formal influences of the population, etc.).

b. Core culture layers – or the symbolised culture layers.

iv. The non-perceivable existence – or ‘that which is without being there’ (for example, the understanding of the ‘strength’ of different planning concepts and language, etc., the meaning ‘of being there’ at public meetings, etc.).

Figure 1.2 Culture as a complex entity consisting of culture segments and culture layers: the semi-static model

Source: Gullestrup, 2006, 101.

v. The basic value layer (for example, respect for democracy, the various ‘value- foundations’ for decisions such as ‘money-based economic reality perspective’, ‘growth philosophy’ or consideration of nature and/or the future, etc.).

vi. The fundamental world conception (for example, the priority of material income to religious consideration of various kinds, the superiority of the own society to others, etc.).

The horizontal and vertical dimensions of cult...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures, Maps and Tables
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Part 1: Planning Culture – Theoretical Approaches
• Part 2: Planning Cultures in Northwestern Europe
• Part 3: Planning Cultures in Eastern Europe – Between Breakup and Tradition
• Part 4: Planning Cultures in Southern Europe
• Part 5: Interdependencies Between European Spatial Policies and Planning Cultures
• Part 6: Conclusions
• Index