The Routledge Handbook of Institutions and Planning in Action

The Routledge Handbook of Institutional Planning contains a selection of 25 chapters prepared by specialized international scholars of urban planning and urban studies focusing on the question of how institutions innovate in practices of action. The contributors share expertise on institutional innovation and philosophical pragmatism. They discuss the different facets of these two conceptual frameworks and explore the alternative combinations through which they can be approached. The relevance of these conceptual lines of thought will be exemplified in exploring the contemporary practices of sustainable (climate proof) urban transition. The aim of the handbook is to give a boost to the turn of institutional analysis in the context of action in changing cities.

Both philosophical pragmatism and institutional innovation rest on wide international uses in social sciences and planning studies, and may be considered as complementary for many reasons. However, the combination of these different approaches is all but evident and creates a number of dilemmas. After an encompassing introduction of institutions in action, the handbook is divided into the following sections:

• Institutional innovation
• Pragmatism: The dimension of action
• On justification
• Political institutions in action
• Social and cultural institutions in action
• Institutions and urban transition

Willem Salet is emirate professor of urban and regional planning at the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Amsterdam. He chaired the group Urban Planning until 2017. He was the Scientific Director of Amsterdam study center for the Metropolitan Environment (AME) 2008-2013. Willem Salet was the President of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) 2008-2010 and is awarded a Honorary Membership of AESOP in 2016.