The urban constitution: Handling complexity and disagreement through intelligent decision-making

This thesis investigates the legal and theoretical foundations of English planning law. Based on an in-depth examination of planning legislation and related case law, and situating this subject in its wider administrative and public law context, I create a novel intellectual framework for explaining the social and political significance of law in land transformation. I argue that planning laws form an urban constitution, that is, a collection of statutes, doctrines, and values, all of which taken together constitute public institutions and administrative venues to handle complex planning problems and tackle disagreement stemming from land change. I maintain that the main way the urban constitution addresses these issues is through the promotion of a distinct mode of public reasoning, which I term administrative intelligence. This is a form of decision-making that allows public authorities to define, refine, and settle policy ends that are to be encouraged in land development through the application of expert judgement. I show how the urban constitution, mainly through legislation and court decisions, seeks to handle planning problems and disagreement by encouraging that mode of reasoning.