The rise of storytelling in urban planning is concomitant with the end of what have been called great narratives. The narrative of town planning, as Secchi defined it in the 1980s – namely a progressive and emancipatory rhetoric associated with the transformations of the city – gives way to simply introducing a plot of urban projects, a narration of the city to come. This transformation of urban action is linked to new conditions for exercising the profession of town planner. City-makers now also need to be planning technicians, producers of meaning, facilitators of participatory processes, communicators of intentions and cultural mediators. This transformation is also marked by the emergence of a new mode of urban governance (new public governance). Finally, it heralds spectacular urban planning as per Debord’s understanding. An urbanism which, failing to produce territorial material, works on the dissemination of images and discourse: action transforming into its representation. This book is devoted to the subjective description of this transformation of urban action at this time of integrated spectacular.
Geneva: A-Type editions, 2015