Post-Growth Planning

Episode #34 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Dr Julia Grosinger (ICTA-UAB, Barcelona, Spain). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands).

"Post-growth planning is not happening on the grid; it's something which happens in the mindsets of people". Discussing spatial, social, and emotional aspects of degrowth in rural areas throughout Europe. Understanding 'the backbone of human survival' and distinct narratives and experiences in rural areas and small municipalities. Identifying loved keystone places in participatory methods, walking interviews, and arts-based research. Highlighting the role of planned and unplanned spaces for meeting and fulfilling human needs for identity, leisure, and participation. Beyond romanticising degrowth to understanding values like care, conviviality, and solidarity, in rural contexts and connecting to existing social and physical infrastructures - "because we cannot go back the way we came from".

Becoming a Post-Growth Planner #33: Matthias Kranke & Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn

Episode #33 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Dr Matthias Kranke (College for the Social Sciences and Humanities of the University Alliance Ruhr/University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany) and Dr Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn (University of Groningen, the Netherlands). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands).

"You can't get beyond growth without really getting inside of it". Working through roads, ports, rails, and accounting and between growth and post-growth infrastructures. Moving the focal point from policy towards materiality and the realities of existing infrastructures. Reflecting on a special issue on post-growth infrastructures and several workshops. Criticising how infrastructures can facilitate 'ever more everything' (growth, consumption, production), and opening pathways in different spaces and places. Further extending thinking into bitcoins, crypto currencies, and ecological accounting. Finishing with the need for more political debates on infrastructures and how to take socio-material relations seriously to avoid post-growth planning as being myopic and failing to see infrastructures.

Episode #32 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Dr Anna Pagani (King's College London, United Kingdom). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands).

"We cannot think of any future if we do not think about housing!". Work with systems thinking and degrowth through housing markets in the United Kingdom. Pondering on housing as a basic need and experiences with housing associations and discussing a moratorium on new housebuilding. Challenging narratives around the housing crisis and the idea that building new means building better. Identifying leverage points for change and intervention in the housing system. Explaining perceptions of power (discursive, instrumental, structural) and organising packages of solutions by knowing about co-benefits and unintended consequences. Explaining the development, tensions, and intended uses of the 'Manifesto for housing in a post-growth world' for spatial planners today and tomorrow. Calling to action because "post-growth planning is a collective activity of mutual learning, and this mutual learning must be informed by a systems approach".

Episode #31 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Alejandro del Castillo Sánchez (Architect, n'UNDO, Spain/Colombia). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands).

"It's completely possible". Doing, undoing, and redoing. How do we change that big paradigm of architecture: building is growing, growing is welfare, and it's also progress and happiness? Discussing the intersection between architecture, territory and eco-social transition. Connecting post-growth theory to realities in architecture and tourism development along the Mediterranean coastline in Spain. Exploring the scope and the edges of (growth-based) architecture over 15 years to find new ways of bringing value to the territory. Using systems thinking to identify sweet spots between system change, action, and interventions. Learning from real sustainability transformations that are already working. In the end: "Post-growth planning is applying an approach that prioritizes the reduction of territorial and material metabolism, promotes the restoration of ecological functionality, and the reconfiguration of social and spatial systems through an eco-centric paradigm, mainly by undoing rather than producing the built environment."

Episode #30 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Dr Anitra Nelson (University of Melbourne, Australia). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands). "Post-growth plannng is opening a debate and action on a social and material transformation to a more equitable and just relation between us and between us and earth". Talking about the work on the 'Routledge Handbook of Degrowth' (published in 2025) and looking back and forward on history and futures of degrowth, post-growth, and housing. Focusing on horizontalism and explicit and implicit horizontal approaches in the degrowth movement. Explaining experiences with eco-collaborative housing communities and intentional collective housing. Uncovering conflicts and tensions between degrowth and cities, as well as showing prefigurative examples therein. How might we plan for mare sharing, caring, and commoning?