Urban planners within regressive future imaginaries

LoKoNet-Konferenz, ‘Konflikt – Raum – Emotion: Lokale Konflikte verstehen und bearbeiten’, ‘Umkämpfte Transformationskonflikte’ presentation session, Fachhochschule Erfurt, 26 February 2026

Far-right mobilizations are increasingly shaping urban futures. My talk examined how urban planners experience and navigate these regressive shifts, understood, following Jaeggi (2023), as experiential blockages and deficient ways of dealing with structural crisis. It is often assumed that planners act in the public interest, guided by knowledge, conscience, and objectivity. I question this assumption, as neutrality is rarely achievable (Huning, 2025). Drawing on empirical insights from a German planning administration, I argue that (1) planning is embedded in political power structures in which planners’ positions, self-perceptions, and emotions shape urban futures, and (2) the responses of individual planners, and thus of supposedly neutral administrations, can make urban agendas susceptible to regressive projects.

Originally, this talk was held in German under the title: ‘Ein Blick in die Verwaltung: Plalnerisches Handeln im Kontext regressiver Zukunftsvorstellungen’

More information
https://www.lokonet.de/konflikt-raum-emotion-lokale-konflikte-verstehen-und-bearbeiten/