Contested landscapes: Conflicts of interests and controversies in planning and using space

Abstract

This paper sets out to explore the relationship between planning and conflict in the use of space, and to reflect on the ideas underpinning transformations of the territory, beginning with the relations existing between projects and policies, since planning decisions are a statement of something more than just organizational projects for space. In an urban realm where the market increasingly swallows up space, contributing to shaping form and functions according to a profit-based logic, battles are sometimes waged to defend public goods. The paper deals with the case of two areas at the center of controversies and disputes related to divergent interests, which spring from totally different points of view on space and the role of the assets shaping the landscape. The contrast is illustrated between the logics of a market based on the pursuit of economic gain to the detriment of social construction, and the right to a collective heritage, with the aim of asserting the need and possibility to go beyond the logics of individualism in planning.