PhD: Imagination infrastructures & the ‘boring power’ of techniques of planning

Investigate how planning techniques like the Cost-Benefit Analysis shape urban futures under climate change.

In the Netherlands and other places around the world two challenges in planning converge in complicated ways. On the one hand, the so-called housing crisis of a shortage of good housing stock; and on the other hand, the climate crisis with far-reaching environmental consequences like changing water-levels. Translated into policy, both crises demand space and new spatial constellations, but are sometimes at odds with each other, such as when new houses are built in areas that are expected to bear the burden of climate change effects. How does this happen? What can we do differently?

Your job

This PhD projects starts from the question: How do planning techniques shape decisions around the governance of risk and development and the kinds of urban futures that become imaginable?  

In planning, climate risk is typically framed as a technical i...

Ready to Apply?

Submit your application today and join our talented team at Universiteit Utrecht.