Land Use Policy and the Symbolic Politics of Environmental Conflict

Abstract

Environmental quality issues often appear to be discussed in a way that is not amenable to rational analysis or traditional understanding of political behavior. These issues have another kind of rationality, however, in terms of their symbolic or cultural meaning—a fact that planners have frequently failed to understand. This chapter explores the political consequences of this failure and offers some ideas as to how the land use professions can improve their capacity to deal with symbolic meanings. The argument is developed with the aid of a story about a seemingly irrational political decision that sabotages, in the name of open space, a carefully worked out and costly redevelopment project for the former site of Les Halles Market in Paris.