Landscape – Great Idea! X-LArch III - Department für Raum ...

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Fig. 2: SLA implements gender equality in planning procedures
planning process create inequalities between men and
women? The planning process could be described as a
top-down process. A more participatory process would be
desirable for future undertakings. The regional organisation
was comprised of local decision-makers, representatives
of the planning authorities and business and employees’
representatives. With most of the participants in the
working groups being men, differing interests of women
e.g. for having different daily routine by combining gainful
employment with family-related work were not discussed.
Results and discussion
The structuralist landscape planning assessment (SLA)
wants to identify and analyse the correlations of the built
environment, the social environment and the economic
environment, and reassess the interactions between
these environments. The three layers of the structuralist
approach are embedded in the 4R method which
supports a systematic analysis of planning projects and
procedures. Gender equality in the access to urban
landscape is integrated in the 4R method; it becomes an
effective tool for empowering planners in practice and
research. The evaluation of the application of the 4R method,
suggested a modification dividing the 4thR into two
parts: firstly, the discussion of planning models (imaginary
level), and secondly, the discussion of social norms
and values (symbolic layer) as the 5thR. This distinction
makes it possible to discuss the values in planning which
structure the imaginary and the real layer. The implementation
process reverses the order of the 5Rs. It starts with
the symbolic layer (5thR) where, the planning procedure
is defined with consideration of gender equality and social
sustainability. Next, the planning models are worked
out. They must support the daily lives of men and women
(4th R or imaginary layer). Finally, the concrete planning
suggestions for the real layer are made, using participatory
planning methods (e.g. Fenster 2008).
Additionally, scientific landscape planning research
must focus on the impact of planning models on urban
planning. Planning models are imagination, ideology and
utopia. They provide the frame for actual and future possibilities
of a planned reality. They are mainly formulated
in a simple and positive way and evoke understanding
and accordance. This represents a strategy to hide their
elitist and excluding keynote (e.g. Bourdieu 2005: 13ff).
The models are professionally invented ideas which lead
to “should-be realities” (e.g. Deleuze 1992). This evokes
expectations which are impossible to reach in reality
(e.g. Schneider 2002). Not reaching the ideal means to
devaluate the real standard. The result is an explicit or
implicit devaluation of life conditions. Planning models
are normative instruments of hegemonic power (e.g. Carrigan/Connell/Lee
1985). The planning model of ‘functionalist
town planning’, for instance, attaches a lower value
to non-paid everyday work than to gainful employment.
The urban open space is interpreted as serving purely
recreational purposes which are strictly separated from
the working sphere. This affects mainly people for whom
open space is a work space. Those are in particular persons
who stay in the neighbourhood doing family-related
work, i.e. mostly women. Every day an enormous mental,
physical and financial effort is required to conceal, overcome
and retouch the discrepancies between real and
model life (e.g. Roither/Jauschneg 2007). The resulting
apathy is socially externalised as an individual problem