TRACK 14: ETHICS, VALUES AND PLANNING

Upholding Justice in an Age of Crises

Chairs:

• Stefano Cozzolino, ILS Dortmund
• Anita De Franco, Politecnico di Milano
• Büşra İnce, Politecnico di Milano
• Erhan Kurtarır, Yıldız Technical University, Istanbul
• Stefano Moroni, Politecnico di Milano
• Brett Allen Slack, Politecnico di Milano

Nowadays, global challenges and crises—whether social, political, environmental, or economic—are profoundly interconnected and manifest locally, emerging with unprecedented speed and urgency. Planning interventions and measures often struggle to keep pace with these rapid developments, raising serious questions about their effectiveness. The growing awareness of contemporary crises highlights a widespread desire for a more just world and urban life. Typically, discussions jump directly to concrete solutions and transformative scenarios, while ethical perspectives and values that drive planning actions are frequently overlooked.

It is necessary, however, to engage more critically and systematically with certain background ethical questions. In particular, a new challenge that planning must deal with today is the multiplicity of interests, desires, and ideals that characterize contemporary urban societies. From this perspective, this track will explore three interrelated questions:

• What ethical perspectives and values should guide planning interventions and measures?
• How can justice and values be effectively operationalised in planning solutions?
• How can today’s diverse and highly conflicting interests and ideals coexist harmoniously?

We invite participants to contribute to the thematic discussion of the track by offering their particular experiences, perspectives and predictions (related to the contemporary crisis context, and concerning social, institutional, political, professional and environmental issues, to name a few) from their specific fields of inquiry. This track will host contributions that unfold, uphold and operationalise notions of justice and ethical frameworks of the planning discipline in the era of multiple crises.