Patterns of self-organization in the context of urban planning: Reconsidering venues of participation

Abstract

This article unpacks the relations that exist between the planning institution and urban residents by examining processes of self-organization in planning. Approaching self-organization with the lens of assemblage, the article proposes three categories or patterns of self-organization of different urban actors and portrays how they act in different forms to induce urban change. The three self-organization categories are as follows: (1) self-organization by the disenfranchised for basic rights, (2) self-organization by the ordinary for community interests, and (3) self-organization by the powerful for economic gains. In these different forms of self-organization, power and agency are differentially constituted by the relations between the residents, the planning institution, and the physical space. Moreover, the impacts of these actions on the urban space vary. Nevertheless, there are also some resemblances between groups and actions that are commonly dissociated. Unpacking different manifestations of self-organization in urban planning proposes a more relational interpretation that emphasizes the inextricable and overlapping relations of formal and informal planning and of top-down and bottom-up planning, and surfaces a different understanding of urban power relations.