Blurred Borders: Urbanization, Knowledge-Policy and Cross-Disciplinary Interaction for Sustainable Cities

With increasing urban growth, how urbanization is perceived, and what knowledge is included or excluded in planning and policy making becomes highly significant. Urbanization is conceptualized, viewed and handled differently in differing knowledge traditions. Knowledge is increasingly claimed and used at every policy stage, in problem identification and policy formulation, as well as for policy strategies and solutions. The UrbaKnow project's part of departure is the perceptions of urbanization and the use of knowledge in the planning for sustainable cities in the Norwegian context. The proposed project consists of four main work packages: WP1: Knowledge traditions in urban planning, WP2: The Knowledge-Policy interaction when it comes to urban environmental challenges, WP3: Comparative international perspectives on urbanization and environmental challenges, WP 4: Overcoming knowledge fragmentation, testing the claim for interdisciplinarity in urban and environmental planning. The project will employ social science perspectives in order to study the knowledge base for problem definitions and policy solutions and how they vary across sectoral, disciplinary, and national borders. By combining theoretical insights from sociology of knowledge and studies of profession, science and technology studies and development research, the project will bring new perspectives and theoretical innovation to studies of urban and environmental planning, which have so far frequently been left to spatial planners. Methodologically, the use of mixed methods aims at new ways of approaching planning studies. The knowledge traditions, the knowledge-policy and cross-disciplinary interaction in urban environmental planning have been investigated qualitatively by discourse analysis of policy documents, informant interviews and focus groups, and quantitatively through a web-survey to map views on urbanization, knowledge exchange, and policy strategies in urban sustainability management. The project has organized several internal workshops for developing joint papers, e.g. two CIENS Breakfast seminars, one initial in October 2014 and one final in March 2017. The project organized an international workshop in October 2015 in London in collaboration with our international experts at UCL (University College London). The project has also been presented and discussed in internal CIENS seminars and meetings. In May 2016 a web survey was sent to more than 1000 urban planners, researchers and other professionals with stated interest in urban issues (the respondents were approached among all participants in major, recent urban research conferences in the Norwegian context the last year). The 326 responses reveal a varied professional and disciplinary background: 39% social scientists, 18% architects, 16% natural scientists, 12% engineers; 40% from public sector, 26% from research and 14% from business sector. Urbanization is far more often seen as a 'solution' than a 'problem', among these urban professionals, more often among the younger, among those in the business sector, among architects and social scientists, than among other. Unsurprisingly, planning - both land use and societal planning - are the most preferred policy strategies. The views on interdisciplinarity are predominantly positive. The responses to what kind of knowledge is seen as important for urban development all disciplinary groups prefer their "own" discipline, however, with an open-mindedness towards also other knowledge backgrounds. The open answers in the web survey reveal interesting and rich reflections on the potentials and challenges in the endeavours for urban sustainability. Many claim a too dominant physical-technical disciplinary hegemony and too dominating investor interests in today's urban planning. And point to the lacking of more comprehensive integrated perspective in coping with the urban complexity. Still, there seeems to be a broad consensus on the prevailing planning traditions. With all these new kinds of "urban professisonals" there will also be potentials for broader societal strategies in the policies and planning for urban sustainability; possibilities that already are latent - in the legislation (participation and societal planning) and in the increasing demand for knowledge and policy integration.

With increasing urban growth, how urbanization is perceived, and what knowledge is included or excluded in planning and policy making becomes highly significant. Urbanization is conceptualized, viewed and handled differently in differing knowledge traditi ons. Knowledge is used at every policy stage, in problem identification and policy formulation, as well as for policy strategies and solutions. The project's part of departure is the perceptions of urbanization and the use of knowledge in the planning for sustainable cities in the Norwegian context. The proposed project consists of four main work packages: WP1: Knowledge traditions in urban planning, WP2: The Knowledge-Policy interaction when it comes to urban environmental challenges, WP3: Comparative international perspectives on urbanization and environmental challenges, Oslo, London and Chennai compared, WP 4: Overcoming knowledge fragmentation, testing the claim for interdisciplinarity in urban and environmental planning. The project will employ s ocial science perspectives in order to study the knowledge base for problem definitions and policy solutions and how they vary across sectoral, disciplinary, and national borders. By combining theoretical insights from sociology of knowledge and studies o f profession, science and technology studies and development research, the project will bring new perspectives and theoretical innovation to studies of urban and environmental planning, which have so far frequently been left to spatial planners themselve s. Methodologically, the use of mixed methods aims at new ways of approaching planning studies. The knowledge traditions, the knowledge-policy and cross-disciplinary interaction in urban environmental planning will be investigated qualitatively by discour se analysis of policy documents, informant interviews and focus groups, and quantitatively through a web-survey to map the extent of knowledge exchange, and interdisciplinarity in urban environmental management.