The great planning game: Exploring the variety of values and worldviews in planning

This game explores different styles of spatial planning and different “types” of planners. The objective of this game is to make planning student sensitive to the variety of planning styles around the world. The types of planners described here (rather humorously) are based on the meticulous research conducted by Karina Sehested from the University of Copenhagen. While Sehested based her research on Danish municipal planning departments, we have extrapolated her results to include types not described in her paper. We did so inspired by Nadin and Stead’s text “European Spatial Planning Systems” (2008), in which the authors explore different styles of planning in Europe. Based on these two texts, we came up with a set of “ideal types” of planners. These ideal types obviously might not exist in their “pure form” in reality, but describe, we believe, a variety of planning attitudes and planning positions students might encounter in the workplace.