Planners in a populist world

Authoritarian populist regimes have no use for technocrats who purport to serve the public good in the name of rationality. Where does that leave planners?

Planners, like all technocrats, draw their authority from their specialized knowledge. Whether in government or the private sector, planners' know-how, experience and expertise is what gives them the legitimacy to intervene in private property markets and regulate them in the name of rationality and the public interest.

However, planners' self-image often conflicts with how they are perceived by others. To make a broad generalization, planners often see themselves as "doctors for cities" – holistic professionals whose expertise lies in knowing how to diagnose and cure urban ills. In the eyes of developers and real-estate market actors (not to mention some local and state institutions), on the other hand, planners are more accurately described as midwives – charged with helping deliver construction projects quickly and efficiently.

As a result, planners' expertise has been continually questioned over the years, with their epistemic legitimacy seemingly in perpetual crisis. The planning literature is replete with debates on epistemic challenges to the profession, which seem to re-emerge every couple of decades in slightly different guises.

Recent epistemic challenges

Over the past decade or so, these challenges have come primarily from two directions: "late" neoliberalism and the corporate "smart cities" movement. The former has had little use for planners' holistic knowledge, preferring to restrict them whenever possible to the role of midwives, while transferring many of their traditional functions to more pro-development actors. The latter has recast cities as something akin to a computer, with hardware and software issues that are best addressed by programmers, rather than planners. 

More recently, populist movements and regimes have clashed with planners in various ways. Populists have their own ideas about planning and urban policy, and often have little respect for "experts" such as planners, who as seen as serving "elites." Moreover, their ideas are often based on wild conspiracy theories and "alternative facts," which they demand be taken seriously (even if they contradict objective reality).

Until recently, though, populists and planners had somehow managed to find ways to coexist. My research, for instance, showed how populist regimes are happy to co-opt planning technocracies when it suits their purposes. But the honeymoon may be over, as populism, particularly of the right-wing authoritarian strain exemplified by Donald Trump et al, gains more self-confidence and evolves into something more virulent and aggressive. 

A clear indication of this is Elon Musk's ongoing assault on the US government. Like an autoimmune disorder, Musk's DOGE team – itself ostensibly a government agency – has been attacking government bodies in ways that seem to make little rational sense. Musk's woodchipper has been working overtime, indiscriminately devouring ostensibly uncontroversial government institutions. Technocrats responsible for a variety of seemingly critical tasks – foreign aid, public health, environmental regulation, nuclear safety, even national security – have been summarily dismissed by Musk and his team of young, inexperienced tech workers.  

Shifting epistemic authority

Putting aside the shock factor (and the grotesque spectacle of the world's richest man cutting off life-saving help to some of the world's poorest people, in the case of USAID), these moves herald a series of epistemic shifts for which the planning profession is ill prepared, if not defenseless.

Trump, Musk, and the like have made clear that they have no use at all for the professional knowledge of technocrats, regardless of how qualified or experienced they may be. They have made no attempt to distinguish the "expendable" from the "essential" workers at these agencies – all have been purged equally. This is precisely because these technocrats purport to serve the greater good and rationality, rather than the personal interests and whims of the authoritarian leader and his populist movement.

In this new world, epistemic authority is held by tech executives and the ultra-rich (and, in Trump's case, TV celebrities), and aided by the technical know-how of Silicon Valley programmers. Thus, Elon Musk, by dint of being the world's richest man, is deemed a more qualified technocrat than so many anonymous (but qualified) civil servants. This principle is already so well-established within the MAGA movement that Musk and others no longer feel the need to even justify their actions, aside from a few comically half-baked and incoherent claims, which they know sympathetic media and social media outlets will amplify uncritically.

It's becoming clear that whoever ends up replacing the old civil service – because someone has to be in charge of food safety and air traffic control, right?? – they will most likely not be committed to the old ethos of principled and reality-based public service. Rather, they will be partisan hacks who are committed to whatever alternative epistemologies and personal grudges the movement espouses (if not, they simply won't be put in these positions). Obviously, this will negatively affect the quality of government services.

Planners' legitimacy as experts

This has clear implications for planning, a discipline largely identified with the public sector. In a populist world, planners' epistemic authority can no longer be taken for granted. Rather, it is liable to be questioned, minimized and devalued at every turn.  Indeed, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) – the closest thing to a planning authority in the US federal government – appears to be Musk's next target.

To be fair, some of the populist claims against planning have merit. For instance, many of planners' claims do seem counterintuitive to lay ears, are not well explained, and are not really designed to be understood by lay people. Likewise, too many public-engagement exercises serve as a fig leaf, with outcomes essentially decided in advance, leaving participants feeling bitter and cynical.

Moreover, in a populist age, planners need to learn to speak the lingua franca. Populists speak in plain language, base their claims on "common sense," tap into emotional narratives, and aren't afraid to speak in terms of "good" and "bad." Planners, on the other hand, use complicated jargon, draw upon technical and instrumental rationality, and often hedge when it comes to value judgements. No wonder populists get so worked up when they need to communicate with planners.

On a deeper level, planners must be honest with themselves about the political contexts within which they operate. John Forester wrote: "If planners ignore those in power, they assure their own powerlessness." Under neoliberalism, planners were tolerated to the extent that they agreed to serve as midwives – technical experts responsible for helping birth real-estate projects smoothly. Under authoritarian populism, perhaps even the midwives are expendable. If epistemic authority rests with tech oligarchs, billionaires and computer programmers, who needs planners' expertise?

This is not a passing fad – populism is here to stay. Trump-like politicians are popping up all over the world, and the Elon Musk copies are sure to follow, armed with their own woodchippers.

It's clear that planners need to come up with new narratives that enable them to reclaim their epistemic authority as holistic problem-solvers, as doctors for cities. As an epistemic community, we should already be working on formulating new justifications for planning interventions in a populist world.