《优》On the Edge of Reason.docVIP

On the Edge of Reason: Planning and Urban Summary. The shift in planning theory from technical-instrumental to relational conceptions of rationality is helpful in relating to urban environments in Africa that are characterised by the intersection of multiple rationalities and also by spatially extensive and shifting networks of economic and social transaction. However, the relevance of contemporary planning theory is limited by its origins within the intellectual traditions and experiences of the West. If we are to engage effectively with the multiple rationalities that are shaping the cities of the world.cities that are increasingly centred in the global South.then we must bring Western intellectual tradition into a critical relationship with the epistemologies, rationalities and value-based traditions of the non-Occidental world. This paper argues that post-colonial literature and theory may provide some of the intellectual resources needed to sustain such an engagement, as post-colonial thought directs attention to the hybrid intellectual formations and practices that emerge in the on-going interaction between colonised and coloniser. By using Johannesburg as the prism through which to look at cities and at planning, this paper provides some thoughts on how to construct an ‘other way’ of thinking that is situated both within and outside dominant representations. Introduction Over the past two decades or so there has been a lively debate over the nature and content of urban planning and spatial policy-making that has drawn on various strands of critical social theory. Perhaps the most significant intellectual (and, to some extent, practice-related) shift has been the move away from the idea of planning as the product of the autonomous reasoning processes of the expert, to a relational notion of planning in which futuredirected action emerges from dialogue and interaction between multiple actors (see.for example, Healey, 1997). This represents a shift from an instr