Plurality of Expert Knowledge: Public Planners’ Experience with Urban Contractualism in Amsterdam

This chapter zeroes in on the role of the public planner when it comes to closing contractual deals with public and private sector partners in urban projects where neither public nor private sector actors can realize their objectives on their own, hence often a form of cooperation is established through a contractual arrangement. Little is known, however, about how public planners manage the contracting process and how their involvement in contracts may change their role. We argue in this chapter that the role of public planners has become more than just that of ‘professional elites’ or ‘technocrats’ in this era of urban contractualism. Even in more established and traditionally strictly coordinated planning systems like the Netherlands, practitioners have dynamic roles, they push boundaries, and they have transformative learning practices based on contracts. We seek to develop a more sophisticated understanding of how public planners’ learning reflects to their expert knowledge. The chapter will draw this dynamic picture based on the diversity in shifting positions of contract making, shifting dynamics in contract making, and safeguarding mechanisms.