When planners depend on powerful actors: Automatism versus intentions

Abstract

According to contemporary discourse in planning theory, planners should reveal, criticise and, if possible, influence structures in which power works. But being honest in a case where planners are an integral part of the power structure as employees, contractors or hired consultants might have a harsh personal impact. Is it even possible to challenge the powerful groups on which one depends? This article argues that one of the factors helping planners to do so is ‘intentions’. Intentions is a supple category with an ambivalent relation to actions. Nevertheless, they belong to the specific preconditions of actions and may imply motives, consistency and responsibility to follow the intended direction. By using the author’s own experience, this article discusses how intentions are formed, how they guide actions, how planning can profit from the time–spatial characteristics of intentions and why intentions strong enough to guide actions belong to factors enabling planners to challenge power. It distinguishes between ‘automatic planning’, which lacks a wider time–spatial perspective since it is oriented on ‘here and now’ assignments, and ‘intentions’, which are variable in terms of scale and time; thus, they can guide one’s deliberate actions towards the future. Without intentions that would exceed particular assignments, planning can easily become a routine which, regardless of its professional quality, allows power to work at the edge of arbitrariness.