Real Estate & Planning Research Seminar by Prof Tore Sager, Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Title: Current Issues in Activist Planning Theory. Examples from a radical eco-political community

Abstract: Activist planning theory studies how actors from civil society use counter-planning as a strategy to stand up to interventions or lack of service from private business and the central or local state. The presentation concentrates on radical/insurgent spatial planning and draws examples from one of the biggest alternative urban eco-political micro societies in Europe. In planning of the area at its disposal, this intentional community – Svartlamon in Trondheim, Norway – must find ways to deal with many issues that are of importance in planning theory, such as democratic decision-making, community/state relationship, informality vs formal planning, experimentation, artists’ role, prefiguration and utopian thinking. Several of these themes are analyzed even in human geography, urban studies and social movements literature. The presentation exemplifies how the activists of Svartlamon handle such issues in their organization and planning.

Bio: Tore Sager is professor emeritus in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. His recent research is mostly about planning theory. The latest books are Reviving Critical Planning Theory (Routledge 2013) and Activist Planning Case Studies 1990-2020 (Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2023). Journal articles from the last decade deal with neoliberalism, populism, advocacy planning, intentional communities and grassroots urban labs. Sager is currently studying the various forms of activist planning and the relations between planning theories and political ideologies.