Identifying conceptual elements within urban studies

Examining the urban studies literature reveals discrepancies in how practitioners are discussed and defined. For example, Altshuler’s (1974) discussion identified practitioners by disciplinary background, but failed to expand more critically on how different disciplines might shape transport planning. Similarly, Innes and Grubber’s (2005; 2001) discussion included statements such as MTC staff were found to hold a variety of specialised discipline backgrounds, from engineering to economics and planning (Innes & Gruber, 2001, p. 379). In comparison, Vigar (2002, p. 204) found that the bulk of the UK civil service involved in transport planning was comprised largely of economic and traffic engineering disciplines. In exploring the implications of this finding, Vigar (2002, Chapter 9) oscillates between discussing how traffic engineers (p.

204), town planners (p. 207) and transport planners (p 208) each have a role in implementing more sustainable transport policy. Curtis and Low (2012, Chapter 12) similarly oscillate between discussing the urban planning profession (p. 211), planners (p. 212) and transport planners (p. 212). In contrast, historical urban studies call into direct question the all-knowing planning surveyor or traffic engineer (Bonham, 2002;

Brown, 2006; Clapton, 2005; Norton, 2008).

Conflating disciplines in transport planning fails to account for how disciplines constrain or provide liberties in allocating road space. In Chapter 1, transport planning/planner

was defined as professionals responsible for allocating road space within metropolitan Melbourne. This definition makes sense given the unique topic of road space allocation. Yet, even this definition masks different disciplines held by professionals responsible for allocating road space. We saw in the first half of this chapter that scientist broadly represents actors involved in scientific studies. This label makes sense given specialised areas of scientific study. However, the encompassing ambit of transport planning involves a wide range of more specialised disciplines, such as urban design, engineering and urban planning. Consequently, though transport planner is defined in this thesis in relation to road space allocation, interrogation of urban studies clearly indicates a need to clarify, if not explicitly account for in analysis, how and to what if any extent different disciplines impact road space allocation.

Examining the urban studies literature reveals discrepancies in the conventions and routines of professional practice. For example Meyerson and Banfield’s (1964) study was seminal to both testing, advancing and advocating the rational comprehensive model during the first wave of urban studies. Although since updated from the study, the model continues to broadly outline a decision-making construct that theoretically posited a logical and linear five-step process beginning with: (1) identifying problems and criteria, (2) identifying potential solutions and courses of action, (3) predicting consequences of actions, (4) evaluating consequences of actions, (5) selecting appropriate actions based on criteria (Khisty & Arslan, 2005, p. 78, summarising Rosenhead 1989). The rational comprehensive model assumed that whatever the goals of society were at the time, they would more likely be achieved if problems were analysed rationally. Supporting the model were four fundamental assumptions: (1) planning occurs linearly, (2) planning is informed by appropriate and adequately defined problems, (3) problems are supported by rigorously collected un-biased data, (4) information feeds through an unbiased decision-making process to implementation.

Similarly, travel almost singularly remains premised on two core economic principles: 1.

travel is a derived demand and therefore is not conducted for pleasure, and 2. as a derived demand, travel is perceived as a negative utility which actors seek to minimise any and all costs associated with travel (Banister, 1994, 2008). Travel, therefore, is understood as logical autonomous actors, making rational decisions, and influenced by the needs, actions or desires of friends or family (Buliung & Kanaroglou, 2007).

However, scholars continue to question the validity of the rational comprehensive model or economic accounts of travel (Banister, 1994; Friedmann & Hudson, 1974;

Khisty & Arslan, 2005). Yet, the legacies of both have led scholars to concede that

regardless of deficiencies their dominance guides contemporary practice (Timms, 2008; Willson, 2001). Thus, in seeking to develop a picture of the science of transport planning, particularly in relation to examining norms, conventions and professional conduct, it is critical to differentiate between limitations of frameworks used in transport planning, from limitations of transport planning.

Another example of why making this differentiation is important can be seen in Innes and Grubber’s (2005; 2001) comprehensive five-year study of transportation planning in the San Francisco Bay area. The investigation identified four planning styles that guided the actions and decisions of a diverse range of professionals. The study’s aim was to test the strength of collaborative processes. Consequently, the analysis started from the position that the collaborative style is the ideal style. Although incorporating communicative processes into transport planning is a worthwhile pursuit, it discounts analysing transport planning in its current form. Thus, determining whether transport planners do or do not apply communicative processes can be equally or perhaps more relevant, than advancing a normative position that they should.

In seeking to develop a picture of the norms, conventions and professional conduct that shape road space allocation, it is therefore clear that a need remains to differentiate between limitations of frameworks used to allocate road space, from limitations of transport planning. However, making this differentiation does little in the way of actually defining conventions and routines pertinent to road space allocation. We saw in the first half of this chapter that scientific culture broadly represents the structural components that guide and shape the actions and decisions of scientists. Therefore, to understand more specifically the culture that guides road space allocation, we turn to urban studies concerned with governance.

Examining urban studies concerned with governance revealed a growing reliance to understand examine action through discourse. For example, Vigar (2002) and Curtis and Low (2012) both applied Hajer’s discursive analytical methods to examine transport planning. Curtis and Low (2012, p. 34) analytically separate “organisational structure” from “routines, norms and conventions”. Organisational structure is defined as formalised rules that determine and establish skills required to conduct transport planning, and determine governing responsibilities for different aspects of transport planning. Conventions are defined as “the talk that goes on around policy”, which can be written and verbalised. In contrast, Vigar (2002, pp. 29-38) distinguished between policy arenas, which consist of different organisations, from policy communities, which

consist of organisational culture and informal routines. The difference between the two studies reflect Hall and Taylor’s (1996) separate streams of institutional analysis.

Curtis and Low’s historical perspective and emphasis on path dependency requires the examination of governance. Thus, how governing authorities develop and change overtime reveals different aspects of power, which in turn highlights how imbalances of power shape and maintain path dependent policy trajectories (Curtis & Low, 2012, pp.

33-36). Vigar’s sociological perspective emphasises a relational view of the world, where power does not reside in a specific government authority. Thus, examining policy arenas provides an analytical lens to focus on professional practices and activities in the context of a wider “social milieu” that is not simply premised on

“bureaucratic machinery of governance” (Vigar, 2002, p. 22).

Hall and Taylor (1996) suggest a key strength of the institutional approach is its explanatory power about why institutions persist. This requires focusing on macro-level processes. The discursive analytical lens applied by Curtis and Low (2012) and Vigar (2002) examine such macro-level processes. Though the explanatory power of discourse to explain action is acknowledged, actors are shifted to the back of analysis.

An actor’s actions and decisions are explained through discursive concepts such as a storyline. Practice-oriented studies highlight the strength in bringing actors to the fore in analysis. Yet, discursive accounts of transport planning do provide insight into how one might go about defining conventions and norms that guide transport planning.

Finally, examining the urban studies literature reveals limitations in incorporating materiality into analysis. The research agenda outlined by Pinch and Bijker (1984) has been crucial to developing stronger links between technology studies and science studies (Pickering, 1995), and to historical urban studies discovering an ‘interpretive flexibility’ of artefacts (Norton, 2008). Urban studies concerned with history clearly highlight that strength in tracing the contours of materiality. For example, problematising time reveals how the standardisation of time resulted in transport timetables and constructing new social norms around travel. Notions of running late, being early or arriving on time were normalised through the standardisation of time (Bonham, 2002; Davison, 1993; Thrift, 1996, chapter 7; Urry, 2008, chapter 5). See Thrift (1996, chapter 5) for a compelling counter argument to time beginning with the invention of the face-clock. In terms of the construction of travel, “time underpinned the economical journey as it was each individual's time that was spent and saved in the journey between two locations” (Bonham, 2002, p. 80, italics in original). In bridging notions of space and time into something measured, time subsequently transformed

into a resource, “differentiated off from social space, consumed, deployed and exhausted” (Urry, 2008, p. 98). Local government by-laws further normalised changes in time, which eventually became accepted as professional norms and conventions (Brown-May, 1998; Ehrenfeucht & Loukaitou-Sideris, 2007). Thus, technology associated with time in turn helped shape and inform how travel patterns slowly came to be regulated, organised and normalised. Clapton’s (2005) unpublished thesis provides a Melbourne-specific example of how materiality can be included into analysis. Clapton examined the rise of traffic regulations in Melbourne from the perspectives of the car. Thus, the car provided a lens to examine how nascent transport planning knowledge was created, refined and constrained. Although such studies provide support for examining how the material contours of agency emerge through the everyday practices of professional transport planning, solutions and problems empirically identified remain contingent to their context (Somers, 1996).

Consequently, material agency remains bound within methodological considerations.

As we see in Chapter 3, this has important implications for how materiality is included in analysing road space allocation.