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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Conflict, consent, dissensus: The unfinished as challenge to politics and planning

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Public participation in planning politics is a legal right in many countries. Planners often see themselves as the defenders of public interests, whereas planning studies may see public planning as the institutionalization of politics, the politicized management or government of disputes on planning issues. Public participation is ultimately a political decision, and this article focuses on how phrases like planning is ‘a work in progress’ and agonistic consensus is a ‘solution for now’ in fact add a critical issue to planning politics: such statements indicate that planning should be seen as an unfinished process, and decisions as temporary. A ‘solution for now’ literally means a ‘planning for-the-time-being’ and a ‘coming-back-to’, highlighting that there are processual issues unresolved within planning praxis. Politics and planning cannot be separated. Two cases of urban planning conflict—the struggle of the homeless for shelter and the Occupy movement—show this: they are used to discuss how planning politics may benefit from having a temporary resting place and being unfinished.