Document Type
Article
Peer Reviewed
1
Publication Date
11-2007
Journal/Book/Conference Title
Planning Theory
Volume
6
Abstract
In earlier publications I have argued that planning can be thought of as a form of persuasive and constitutive storytelling about the future. In this paper I tell a story about the transformation of Louisville, Kentucky, a city of approximately 700,000 people located in the middle of the United States. The story begins in the early 1950s with a youth named Cassius Marcellus Clay, moves through space and time, weaves together a series of locally-grounded common urban narratives, and ends at a new Center in Louisville named after Muhammad Ali. By weaving these tales together, I seek to demonstrate how narrative might be used to generate a more capacious approach to planning, but also to indicate how the physical design of the city-region has to be changed to make space for diverse common urban narratives. I end by suggesting that such an approach might help increase the sustainability of Louisville and other city-regions.
Keywords
sustainability
Published Article/Book Citation
The definitive version was published in Planning Theory 6:3 (2007), pp. 237-262.
Rights
Author posting. Copyright © James Throgmorton, 2007. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Sage for personal use, not for redistribution.
URL
http://ir.uiowa.edu/urban_pubs/5