The book is a textbook in planning and urban development and can also be read by professional planners. The authors are Marcus Johansson, PhD, political scientists and researcher at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies at Örebro University, and Abdul Khakee, Professor Emeritus at the Department of Urban Planning and Environment, KTH in Stockholm and at Department of Political Sciences, Umeå University.
Johansson and Khakee do not only incline towards Aristotle and Chomsky. Ethical egoism is explained by the Wolf in the strip cartoon Bamse by Rune Andréason who thinks: It is only right when I get something, for all the others are egoists and think only of themselves. It is only I who think of myself.
Public interest the guiding principle
But Marcus Johansson and Abdul Khakee primarily investigate how urban planners who are civil servants reflect about ethical decisions. Both structure plans and building permit applications for private building are examined, and the book also contains a draft for the way ethics can be incorporated into the training of planners.
It is the duty of planners to ensure that political goals for building development and the provision of public service are implemented without being influenced by pressure by special interests and by their superiors. They must be attentive to the public and must explain their actions to their political masters.
Although the public interest is supposed to be the guiding principle in planning, the authors note that it is questionable whether there is any clear conception of what public interest comprises. – If planning is, on the whole, a political occupation, planning is a matter of power and the division of powers. They point out that this raises questions concerning equity and responsibility.
Literature:
More publications concerning urban planning are Just Environments – Politicising Sustainable Urban Development, a thesis by Karin Bradley who has recently received her doctorate in Environmental Justice at the Department of Urban Planning and Environment, KTH, and Equal opportunity next! Urban planning from a gender perspective, written by Anita Larsson and Anna Jalakas, and published by SNS Förlag.