I think you should take a look at the works of Christopher Alexander next, particularly the first three books in his Center for Environmental Structure series (Timeless Way of Building, Pattern Language, Oregon Experiment). He has much the same things to say on top-down and centralized planning as Friedmann, but his theory on what a truly liveable society looks like goes a step further in that it eliminates the power structures that take control of a person's environment away from them (which necessitates planners and experts who "have the right knowledge"). The way that a community develops as a result looks somewhat like an embryo developing, with details shaped by their users themselves coming together to form a coherent whole. He argues that 95% of historical vernacular architecture was built this way and if you give it a chance I think it's pretty convincing. In my opinion it's the logical next step after Friedmann's theory and a more radical look at what a utopian society may look like. It's also the only theory I've seen that's truly clicked for me, and in some ways it feels less like a new way forward and more like deep ancient wisdom being revealed to you. Interestingly enough Alexander was a pretty prolific architect himself, and one of his largest-scale works (his designing of the University of Oregon campus, talked about in The Oregon Experiment) looked much like the Transactive Theory, with mutual learning between processed knowledge (Alexander and other professional architects) and personal knowledge (students and faculty). Later in life he considered this project to only partially be a success because it ended up being bogged down by bureaucracy as a result of the power structures already in place at the University, namely private ownership of the facilities. That just goes to show I think that a truly equitable society and human-oriented communities would work best under an anarchist organization. Anyways great video! This is pretty much the only channel I've seen going beyond critiquing existing structures and actually into offering solutions.
Thank you for these videos! Let me know when you have a patreon or a discord I love imagining a different more radical way for planning to be implemented in our cities. I am going back to school to study urban planning and would love to dedicate my summer to researching the radical tradition of planning.
I came up with this concept independently (and less completely ofc) back when Trump first got elected for how we might mobilize people at all meaningfully. The stumbling block ofc was getting anyone else on board, and I realized that it would require a major social movement that I was insufficiently persuasive to create.
Can someone explain me, how Friedmanns Theory and his later works are related to communicative and cooperative planning of Healey and Innes? Greetz from Europe!
I will get there eventually! I believe Healy took inspiration from him- she wrote the forward to one of his later books. I also see many connections between transactive and communicative, though communicative removes the structural transformation that transactive requires.
"the youth of 1973, those are the baby boomers" 💀
in his defense, the youth liberation movement of the 70s had some really rad moments
I think you should take a look at the works of Christopher Alexander next, particularly the first three books in his Center for Environmental Structure series (Timeless Way of Building, Pattern Language, Oregon Experiment). He has much the same things to say on top-down and centralized planning as Friedmann, but his theory on what a truly liveable society looks like goes a step further in that it eliminates the power structures that take control of a person's environment away from them (which necessitates planners and experts who "have the right knowledge"). The way that a community develops as a result looks somewhat like an embryo developing, with details shaped by their users themselves coming together to form a coherent whole. He argues that 95% of historical vernacular architecture was built this way and if you give it a chance I think it's pretty convincing. In my opinion it's the logical next step after Friedmann's theory and a more radical look at what a utopian society may look like. It's also the only theory I've seen that's truly clicked for me, and in some ways it feels less like a new way forward and more like deep ancient wisdom being revealed to you.
Interestingly enough Alexander was a pretty prolific architect himself, and one of his largest-scale works (his designing of the University of Oregon campus, talked about in The Oregon Experiment) looked much like the Transactive Theory, with mutual learning between processed knowledge (Alexander and other professional architects) and personal knowledge (students and faculty). Later in life he considered this project to only partially be a success because it ended up being bogged down by bureaucracy as a result of the power structures already in place at the University, namely private ownership of the facilities. That just goes to show I think that a truly equitable society and human-oriented communities would work best under an anarchist organization.
Anyways great video! This is pretty much the only channel I've seen going beyond critiquing existing structures and actually into offering solutions.
Interesting, thanks! Looking forward to learning about the ultimate answer to all life's problems - Radical Planning
Awesome! I'm waiting for the Radical Planning video!
Thank you for these videos! Let me know when you have a patreon or a discord I love imagining a different more radical way for planning to be implemented in our cities. I am going back to school to study urban planning and would love to dedicate my summer to researching the radical tradition of planning.
This is great, it's basically a critique of metric fixation but for Urban Planning.
Really nice discussion of a now little known area of theory!
This was fantastic, thank you. I'm learning a lot about how to engage with my neighbors.
Fantastic series :) Thank you so much
Good series. I love it. On transactive theory, NIMBY, end of dialogue.
I came up with this concept independently (and less completely ofc) back when Trump first got elected for how we might mobilize people at all meaningfully. The stumbling block ofc was getting anyone else on board, and I realized that it would require a major social movement that I was insufficiently persuasive to create.
Can someone explain me, how Friedmanns Theory and his later works are related to communicative and cooperative planning of Healey and Innes?
Greetz from Europe!
I will get there eventually! I believe Healy took inspiration from him- she wrote the forward to one of his later books. I also see many connections between transactive and communicative, though communicative removes the structural transformation that transactive requires.
FIRST :D