The purpose of a master plan?

‘Generally, a master plan is not just a bundle of project descriptions. In most cases a master plan includes statements and spatial illustrations of the future situation as a target of the master plan, descriptions of the ways and means to achieve the target,

philosophy, concepts, ideas, and justification of projects’ (JICA 2009).

‘A comprehensive general plan provides a jurisdiction with a consistent framework for land use decision-making. The general plan has been called the “constitution” for land

use development to emphasize its importance to land use decisions. The general plan and its maps, diagrams, and development policies form the basis for the city’s zoning,

subdivision, and public works actions’ (Sacramento General Plan 2009).

Master plans are ubiquities through both space and time. Predicated on a spatial imaginary of the city, but not confined merely to the design and development of that space, it transcends ‘the city’ as an urban object and reproduces it through the project of planning and design. This is perhaps true anywhere, but in relation to the locations in the world known as Lusaka (at least ending in a single ‘a’) and Sacramento, such a narrative is particularly powerful. Indeed all of what we know about these two cities, whether it is 1913-2030 or 1848- 2030, is framed by the existence of a master plan. The plans are a literal codification of ‘the city’ as arrived at by a particular dialogue or process of knowledge production about existing

50

urban concerns and the need to set the city on a clearer path towards, in this case, a sustainable future. To codify something into the form of a policy, as is the case simply to write, is to “bring to the surface something that is not there yet or that is there only as latent, as potential” (Mbembe and Nuttall 2004:347). In this sense, the city master plan strategy could also be seen as a way of ‘writing the city into the world’. From the perspective of the individual cities that adopt them, they therefore represent strategies in what Ananya Roy describes as ‘worlding’ (Roy and Ong 2011).

But what, with this in mind, do we make of the proliferation of master plan city strategies today? Orientated on sustainability and pointed towards a distant horizon of 2030, they register on ‘global’ scales. At the most basic of levels, is this a repetition across space, a following of suit regarding the need to problematize and redefine the city, its spatial design and its agenda, a form of ‘mobile urbanism’, and a (re)territorialisation of ‘cityness’ under the rubric of sustainability (McCann and Ward 2011)? Or, in a temporal sense, is this the collective response to situated manifestations of a ‘crisis of planetary urbanisation’ (Harvey 2015)? The amount of literature detailing the ‘problematic’ nature of spatial urbanisation’s impact upon the future environment is phenomenal, and as the brief narratives of the two cities above highlights, both find themselves responsible for large (and increasing) urban populations. However, can a real assessment of the historicity of what constitutes ‘sustainability’ in any particular location even begin to transcend the flattened space of the globalised world? In other words, in seeking to understand the emergence of these plans, how might we begin to separate their positioning with regards to a global spatiality and temporality in relation to the continued growth and (re)framing of their own histories?

Theoretically, then, these master plan strategies seemingly present a number of profound questions over what they are and what they represent. The differences between the specificities of the plans in Lusaka and Sacramento are as different as the cities are themselves and yet the principles behind them and the broad rationale for their development is remarkably similar. However much these differences and similarities may serve to complicate our understanding of what the plans are, there is little doubt, over what they are supposed to do. As an interventionist technology, they represent a mechanism of governing the otherwise unplanned, undefined development of urban space. Others who have engaged with similar planning and policy projects have adopted terms such as ‘city strategies’

51

(Robinson 2011) or ‘strategic plans’ (Wu and Zhang 2007). What they all share, is their role as long-term comprehensive documents containing broad objectives and strategies used to coordinate future developments around a specific spatial design (Bell 2005; Rapoport 2015). A master plan however, is only useful if those who need to have read it, have read it. As the opening of this chapter served to illuminate, the plans in both Lusaka and Sacramento have faced significant issues in terms of their respective audiences. The lead planner responsible for overseeing the master plans development in Lusaka provided me the following overview of the status quo:

“…there is lack of understanding of where we should go. Even the directors do not

challenge this. I think this council was supposed to have a specific unit that should guide development in that area. There was supposed to be a specific unit to ensure

that everyone buys in, then you roll it out to the institutions…nothing is happening

despite wasting a lot of money on it. There is no clear steps about how we get from here to the plan’s vision, no step by step clarity. What are we doing today to move

towards the ECHO city?”(interview, Lusaka)

The nature of Sacramento’s general plan, meanwhile, suggests that it seeks to target the city’s population in a different way by containing, within its pages, a hands on ‘how to use’ guide for ‘residents, businesses, developers, and decision makers’ (Sacramento General Plan 2009). Depending on how one looks at this it could be thought of as taking much of the burden off the city planners or, alternatively, as usurping the very role they seek to encompass.

“The reality is that deep down it is more with hope than expectation that we push the

plan out there for the stakeholders to actually engage with”.

Of course while planners such as the one quoted above, have a very particular perspective on seeking a cohesiveness to their urban communities and are perhaps discouraged by the lack of real intervention these plans can achieve, the view from those in the higher echelons of city government tends to take on a different perspective:

“It is not only coming from us, we saw the people and the investors engaging and promoting the idea of a new plan because they are tired of the current system that is there. It is very cumbersome, preventing development in the city. Something different

52

is what is sought after and what the people want to see”(interview, principal planner, MLGH).

“I like the general plan because that is where the vision goes, that’s where the future goes, that’s where the best ideas go and if you get them in there and get them

approved then you can fight for those visions, because it is real hard to get them down

to the real world. You have got to stick them up there” (interview, Sacramento City Council Member)

“Up there” refers, in this case, to the comprehensive and all-encompassing function that the Sacramento general plan plays. However it also serves as a nice metaphor for the unavoidable materiality of the master plans in both Lusaka and Sacramento, disseminated, as they are, across the desks and walls of offices in the two cities even if, in doing so, they seemingly disappear into the background of the day to day world of urban governance. A multitude of perspectives seem, then, to reflect upon the plans and what they should or indeed have offered the city since they were adopted. Irrespective of these conflicting attitudes however, the existential nature of the new vision is cemented into the fabric of city governance and circulated far beyond the confines of the respective cities.