Enjoyable life: : Planning, amenity and the contested terrain of urban biopolitics

• Autores: Ted Rutland
• Localización: Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, ISSN-e 1472-3433, Vol. 33, Nº. 5, 2015, págs. 850-868
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This article explores the connections between urban planning and a particular form of biopolitics. These connections are investigated by looking at the emergence of “enjoyment” as a planning concern in late 1960s Halifax, Nova Scotia. This new concern, the article suggests, emerged as a result of a political struggle involving activist groups, a newly formed state agency, and elements of the post-World War II political establishment. Wedded to this concern were two essential planning policies: the promotion of “amenity” (especially in the downtown) and the introduction of structured “citizen involvement” in planning decisions. Together, these two policies inaugurated a new form of planning and biopolitics. The promotion of amenity aimed to create a more enjoyable life through the alteration of prevailing conditions of life, while citizen involvement routed planning decisions – including the precise meaning of amenity – through “liberal” practices of government. Most importantly, the new policies were shaped by the enactment of normative divisions within the population, a characteristically biopolitical effect. The result of these divisions was a highly unequal process of citizen involvement and a correspondingly uneven terrain of enjoyment: a terrain whose development and use would provide enjoyment for “normative” populations, while leaving “pathological” populations unaffected or worse