Abstract

The dissertation explores the usefulness of Henri Lefebvre's theory of the production of space for the study of urban planning practice. Characteristic features of municipal-level urban planning practice in the contemporary United States are explained in terms of two basic elements of Lefebvre's theory in order to demonstrate the relevance of Lefebvre's philosophical critique to the everyday routines of mainstream planning practice. Lefebvre's theoretical framework offers a critical perspective from which to assess the nature of the relationship between planners as experts and planning subjects as inexpert publics. ;Based on interviews and document analysis, profiles of four professional planners working in the field of municipal-level public art present four distinct planning practices that are characteristic of public art planning. These profiles form the empirical basis of an exploration into how Lefebvre's theory can be used in identifying and assessing significant sociospatial features of individual planning practices and in comparing these features across cases. ;Relating Lefebvre's theoretical framework to material in the case studies reveals and articulates the ways in which public art planners strategically abstract their planning subjects' socio-spatial diversity or, alternatively, develop plans directly in concert with such diversity. The presence in plan development of creative initiative among the planned-for is found to be particularly significant in distinguishing between abstract and direct forms of public participation