IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/elg/eechap/19906_26.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Urban planning and the truthiness question

In: Handbook on Planning and Power

Author

Listed:
  • Eric Sheppard

Abstract

Truth is contingent, not objective. Lacking an absolute standard, truthfulness emerges from a social consensus accepting the validity of truth claims, structured by powerful forces constructing consent. The current ‘post-truth’ moment is not new but disruptive: marginalized right-wing truth claims are regaining attention. Its timing reflects the intersection of inequalising and disempowering Globalization with the digitization of society and platform capitalism algorithms. Distress about post-truth claims reflects legitimate concerns that they bend the arc of knowledge production away from social and environmental justice. Yet the succession of paradigms characterizing Anglophone urban planning also entails asserting counter-truth claims against pre-existing wisdom - albeit seeking to bend the arc towards justice. The alternative to arbitrarily legislating what counts as truth is to engage all conflicting claims with one another with no predetermined outcome: engaged pluralism. With knowledge contestable, planning is a political process with ends and means up for grabs.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric Sheppard, 2023. "Urban planning and the truthiness question," Chapters, in: Michael Gunder & Kristina Grange & Tanja Winkler (ed.), Handbook on Planning and Power, chapter 26, pages 397-411, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    • Handle: RePEc:elg:eechap:19906_26
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781839109768/9781839109768.00034.xml
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:elg:eechap:19906_26. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Darrel McCalla (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.e-elgar.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.