Communicative Turn in Spatial Planning and Strategy

The term “communicative turn” has been used to denote the spread of a planning theory, generally called “communicative planning theory” or “collaborative planning theory” that, instead of focusing on the production of a plan, emphasizes the value of planning in promoting public debates (Olsson 2009). Communicative planning or collaborative planning is a planning approach where planners use discourse, communication, and consensus building for facilitating the dialogue between the stakeholders involved in a planning issue and reaching a shared understanding of the problem and consensus on what to do (Verma 2007; Machler and Milz 2015). Unlike systematic planning, where decisions are taken on the basis of the technical expertise and skills of the planner, the main concern of communicative planning is the democratic management and control of urban and regional environments and the...