Challenging Pro-Growth Dynamics by Developing Planning Knowledges for Diverse Economies

The paper examines the knowledges that post-growth planning will require and in which planners should be centrally involved in generating and fostering. It argues that developing such knowledges could help re-align planning agendas away from growth-dependence. It uses Gibson-Graham’s diverse economies approach to build a framework for researching aspects of diverse economies that could pre-figure a postgrowth future. The proposition is that examples of alternatives are already present within diverse economies and, if supported, could present a significant challenge to the pro-growth hegemony. The paper draws on an extensive review of the research literature alongside European case studies of neo-endogenous development, cooperatives, community land trusts, social enterprises managing community assets, community-owned infrastructure, and urban commoning. Lessons are drawn for the kinds of knowledges needed to enable the shift to more diverse economies, looking across new ways of understanding the locality and the importance of networks in circulating and adapting knowledge. The paper ends with a consideration of how this would change the nature of local planning.