Planning practice in the West Bank: should planners speak up?

摘要

Globalisation, and the associated growing awareness of the significance of urbanisation, has resulted in a renewed international interest in planning (e.g. UN-Habitat, 2009, 2015a), and also in efforts by professional planning institutes to internationalise their own operation. The ambiguity of "sustainable development" has provided some necessary common ground for such endeavours, since planning has hitherto been strongly rooted in local and national codes, practices and policies. However, this new and conscious international engagement leaves many ethical questions about the responsibilities of planners and their professional bodies unresolved, and too often "unproblematised." I was directly exposed to some of these concerns in 2014-15 when I was asked by UN-Habitat to provide a professional evaluation of plans in the Israeli-occupied West Bank of Palestine, arguably the most contested territory anywhere. I am grateful to Planning Theory and Practice for giving me the opportunity to air my concerns and hopefully to begin a wider debate about how planners should respond when their fundamental professional claims are being contradicted in practice.