Planning and caring: A reflection

The terms ‘care’ and ‘caring’, and the strong normative emphasis in much of planning theory writing, implies that planners ‘care about’ how place futures evolve, who benefits from such evolutions, and how actions now affect our collective planetary future. But while there is an extensive literature on places, place qualities, planning as place-shaping and place-making; on values and ethics; and on the affective as well as intellectual dimensions of place-making activity, little use has been made of care and caring as orienting concepts in our field. Should we treat the terms as just useful descriptive words, with many synonyms? Or do they signal a new perspective which could inspire and orient place-shaping work? Or do they add and enrich ideas already developing within the field of planning theory and practice? With reference to some recent contributions to the planning literature, this essay reflects on these questions.