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Thursday 26 June 2014

Skypark and “authoritarian high modernism”

There were considerable ambitions for Skypark at one time:

A £150m, 238-acre site development adjacent to Exeter Airport is proposed by Deepdene Consultants. A planning application to develop land at Clyst Honiton, Devon, has been submitted by planning and development consultant Debenham Tewson & Chinnocks on behalf of Deepdene to East Devon District Council and was expected to go to enquiry in February 1987. The proposal is for a mixed leisure, retail and business centre containing three principal elements: a regional shopping centre; sporting, leisure and recreation facilities; and a business park.


Here is a 'fly-through' video of the promised development, from October 2011:



Skypark Fly-through - East of Exeter Growth Point - YouTube
Exeter & East Devon on Vimeo

These ambitions continue...

From the minutes of the District Council's cabinet earlier this month:

Transforming the council

Relocation is a central part of our plans to transform this Council into an organisation that meets the needs of its residents and businesses in an accessible, cost effective and joined up way . So that we can keep abreast of customer demand and rising customer expectations, East Devon is working hard to transform and modernise the way staff go about their work and the ways in which customers can do business with the council.
 


A QUESTION ABOUT 'DEVELOPMENT' AND 'TRANSFORMING':
> Is it really possible to 'transform' working and service relationships through 'planning'?

References were made in the last post to urban planning 
- that so much of our landscape is the result of:

... the creation of mid-20th century urban planners in the tradition of Le Corbusier — who was actually one of [political scientist and anthropologist James C. Scott]’s paradigmatic examples of “authoritarian high modernism” in Seeing Like a State.

Futures Forum: The changing face of the high street ... the promise of the big box store

To what extent can this critique of modern planning be applied to the District Council's 'relocation project' - of going from Knowle to Skypark?

Let's take a closer look...

Here's a comparison of the sites at Knowle and at Skypark:
Knowle aerial viewSkyparkEarth




















Skypark/ Knowle. | East Devon Alliance

Here is a closer look at the central idea of 'transforming'
... of the 'grand vision' of the new political centre of Brasilia,
... of notions of 'modernising the way people go about their work',
... which is all about making one's authority felt:

High modernity, modernization and development

Geographer Peter J. Taylor argues that high modernity's false optimism in the transformative power of science and technology contributed to confusion in the modernization process.

The overwhelming enthusiasm for the power of science and technology to manage the human and natural world encouraged regimes to attempt monumental development projects that would rapidly catapult developing countries into Western-style development.
Part of this grand vision for Brazil’s future was the relocation of the nation’s capital from the coastal Rio de Janeiro to a new inland site named Brasília. Essentially located in the wilderness, Brasília was to be a “single-function, strictly administrative capital,” says political scientist and anthropologist James C. Scott. Here, long-considered plans for a new capital were finally able to come to fruition thanks to global enthusiasm for the potential of technology. Brasília’s massive scale, rational design and cultural offerings, all built from the ground up in the forests of Brazil made it the ultimate manifestation of high modernity. The project’s chief architect, Oscar Niemeyer, was strongly influenced by Soviet high modernism in his prescriptions for the new capital as the Soviet Union began to slowly open up to the rest of the world in a new period of internationalism. Despite the cultural and ideological differences of the two countries, both shared common ground in their determination to modernize, strong state authority and a strong belief in the doctrine of high modernity.

High modernism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There are further questions about how large-scale planning fails to consider the local and organic nature of 'development':

Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed

In this wide-ranging and original book, James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. He argues that centrally managed social plans derail when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not -- and cannot be -- fully understood. Further the success of designs for social organization depends on the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge. The author builds a persuasive case against "development theory" and imperialistic state planning that disregards the values, desires, and objections of its subjects. 
And in discussing these planning disasters, he identifies four conditions common to them all: the state's attempt to impose administrative order on nature and society; a high-modernist ideology that believes scientific intervention can improve every aspect of human life; a willingness to use authoritarian state power to effect large-scale innovations; and a prostrate civil society that cannot effectively resist such plans.

Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have ... - James C. Scott - Google Books
Authoritarian High Modernism - YouTube

'High modernism'  relies on a passive public,

a weakened or prostrate civil society that lacks the capacity to resist these plans.

... and is essentially utopian:

Utopian aspirations per se are not dangerous. As Oscar Wilde remarked, "A map of the world which does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.' Where the utopian vision goes wrong is when it is held by ruling elites with no commitment to democracy or civil rights and who are therefore likely to use unbridled state power for its achievement. Where it goes brutally wrong is when the society subjected to such utopian experiments lacks the capacity to mount a determined resistance. 

faculty.washington.edu/stevehar/Scott.pdf

And 'high modernism' is about change, about modernity and about discarding a discredited past:

The Radical Authority of High Modernism 

The troubling features of high modernism derive, for the most part, from its claim to speak about the improvement of the human condition with the authority of scientific knowledge and its tendency to disallow other competing sources of judgement. First and foremost, high modernism implies a truly radical break with history and tradition.


The temporal emphasis of high modernism is almost exclusively on the future. Although any ideology with a large altar dedicated to progress is bound to privilege the future, high modernism carries this to great lengths. The past is an impediment, a history that must be transcended; the present is the platform for launching plans for a better future. 

faculty.washington.edu/stevehar/Scott.pdf

The relocation project of moving from Knowle to Skypark reflects these themes:

The 'enthusiasm for the power of science and technology to manage the human and natural world' and 'the state's attempt to impose administrative order on nature and society':

'A high-modernist ideology that believes scientific intervention can improve every aspect of human life':

'A willingness to use authoritarian state power to effect large-scale innovations': 
Vital Bypass Now Open | Exeter Science Park

'A prostrate civil society that cannot effectively resist such plans' and 'state planning that disregards the values, desires, and objections of its subjects': 
Councillor quartet bid to justify move to SkyPark - News - Sidmouth Herald
Knowle and Staff Wishes - a Freedom of Information request to East Devon District Council - WhatDoTheyKnow
Cranbrook has much to learn from Sidmouth - View From Online - News from West Dorset, East Devon & South SomersetEDDC planned relocation to Skypark…convenient for whom? | East Devon Alliance
Democracy flies out of the window as Skypark is chosen | Sidmouth Independent News
Whatever happened to the proposal for a surveyor to independently assess Knowle buildings? Claire Wright

A 'determination to modernize, strong state authority':

See also:
Futures Forum: Desperately seeking suitors for SkyPark
Futures Forum: Knowle relocation project: “Relocation is central to our plans to transform the council into an organisation that meets the needs of our residents and businesses in an accessible, cost effective and joined up way.”
Futures Forum: The future of Heathpark: a conflagration of issues...
Futures Forum: Crony capitalism and lemon socialism in East Devon........ The costs of "substantial growth and expanding business"
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