Zetti, Iacopo (2021). Power relationships, citizens participation and persistence of rational paradigm in spatial planning: the Tuscan experience. ITALIAN JOURNAL OF PLANNING PRACTICE, vol. 11, pp. 1-23.
Since 2005, Italy — and Tuscany in particular — has adopted ambitious reforms aimed at fostering open and collaborative spatial planning. However, behind this democratic façade, a ‘top-down’ technical approach is re-emerging that is used to maintain rigid control and limit any real redistribution of power.
This article analyses why planners and policymakers consistently retreat into ‘technical rationality’, using it as a pseudo-ethical guarantee or a tool for managing power. Ultimately, such a trend stifles measures designed to rebalance the relationship between authorities and citizens. The research concludes by exploring the link between scientific rationality and social control, and by proposing a ‘counter-hegemonic’ planning framework — one that challenges existing power dynamics in order to strive for a fairer city.