Failed planning: lost opportunities and choices for the future
ISSN: 0168-2601
Article publication date: 9 October 2020
Issue publication date: 15 December 2020
Abstract
Purpose
Social, spatial and environmental justice are inseparable, and key for sustainable urban development. The city is the cradle of innovation and production. Also, the city is the site of riots, where protesters demand their right to access services and resources. The purpose of this paper is to answer the question: Why do plans to resolve urban ills in developing countries fail to deliver and achieve social justice?
Design/methodology/approach
This paper investigates weaknesses, limitations and outcomes of planning processes in a developing country. The author used two qualitative research tools: document analysis augmented with informal interviews. The author uses Egypt as a case study in an attempt to answer this question. The author reviewed two types of documents: official reports that the Egyptian authorities produced and donor agencies prepared plus both published and unpublished research. Interviewees are those who participated in elaborating and executing urban plans and policies.
Findings
Achieving social, spatial and environmental justice is amongst the reasons for planning metropolitan areas and their regions. Unfortunately, rarely plans accomplish social, spatial or environmental justice. Institutional setup is the reason for failed urban planning – institutional failures lead to both policy and market failures, thus complicating urban problems.
Originality/value
Approved plans must have the power of legislation, and planners need to reclaim their authority and autonomy, which requires regulating the profession. Planning education must be at the graduate level and available to other disciplines, such as economics, public administration, law and the like. Planners must acquire the following competencies: technical competencies for analytical actions; hermeneutic competencies for communicative actions; and critical competencies to observe professional ethics. They must emancipate themselves from their bias to enlighten and empower their constituents.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all those who supported them in conducting the research and preparing the manuscript. First, we would like to thank the interviewees H. el-Gebaly, S. Shaaban, A. Ali, and F. el-Shahid for their for their time and information they provided. We would like to thank W. Mohammed, G. Yassein for their comments on early draft, and M. Younan for his research assistance. Finally, we would like to thank two anonymous reviewers. Their comments enriched the manuscript.
Funding: The author received no specific funding for this work.
Competing interest statement: The author declares no competing interests exist.
Citation
El-Kholei, A.O. (2020), "Failed planning: lost opportunities and choices for the future", Open House International, Vol. 45 No. 4, pp. 387-406. https://doi.org/10.1108/OHI-07-2020-0075
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited