Kritisk realisme og byplanforskning (Critical realism and urban planning research)

Abstract

The article discusses key meta-theoretical presuppositions that are key for urban planning to be possible and meaningful, and points to critical realism as a fertile philosophical position for research within the areas of urban planning and development. Several among the currently most influential positions within philosophy of science are, if taken seriously, incompatible with the production of the knowledge base necessary for urban planning to play any meaningful role. For ontological reasons, critical realism considers interdisciplinary integration as necessary in order to arrive at valid knowledge, while competing positions such as positivism and post-structuralism neglect and exclude important parts of reality. Critical realism recognizes the independent causal powers of both agents and social structures (including material/spatial structures) and hence provides a suitable base for investigating causal relationships between social conditions, urban spatial structures and the actions of agents (including those of the planners). Furthermore, a critical realist view on what kinds of research-based predictions are possible matches the qualitative impact assessments of alternative solutions and the ‘soft’, context-adapted estimates of the magnitude of effects typical within urban planning.