Becoming a Post-Growth Planner #32: Anna Pagani

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?

Episode #29 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Dr Sofia Greaves (Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands). "Post-Growth Planning is in need of creative methods for collectively imagining new futures". Reflecting on experiences with artists and arts-based methods in Thamesmead, London. Pondering on the question how art can be a form of research, of generating new narratives and stories, and a contribution to community-building. Working through tensions within artists and dangers of artwashing. Delving into recent projects moving from arts to engineering in Oslo and transdisciplinary research that integrates music, sounds, and painting, into environmental engineering. Uncovering the vortex of flow and creating an album of fluid motion that includes stories and experiences as data. Advocating for an emotional planning and the question how we might bring that kind of data into decision-making.

Episode #28 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Prof Dr Christian Schulz (University of Luxembourg). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands). "Within the discipline, there is something going in…". Reflecting on a decade of post-growth thinking in economic geography and spatial planning. Following diverse understandings and misunderstandings and post-growth practices in central Europe. Focusing on horizontal replication, learning, and regional perspectives. Understanding the importance of the social dimension in a post-growth transformation. Taking up the democratic idea and democratic challenge, e.g., towards critical thinking regarding housing policies and questions of land and land ownership. Identifying future hope in young scholars, students, and growing engagement in the discipline. Utilising experience from own research projects and two research-practice working groups on post-growth geographies and well-being.

Episode #27 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Dr Sophie Sturup (Xi'an Jiaotong Liverpool University, China). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands). "What kind of humans would populate the world that is actually sustainable?" Looking beyond individualism and the multiple beings, we are, and we can be in the world. Explaining the dangers of conceptualizing ourselves as separate from everything else. Using insights from Aboriginal thinking in Australia to remind science and ourselves about exposure to other worlds and the imperfection of language. Each of us matters, and the collective is me - working towards responsibility as something we take on as a duty of care to others. Pondering on own pathways into academia, towards governmentality, transport planning, public-private partnerships, and post-growth. Calling for authority and authenticity to speak in opportunities of participatory planning. Post-growth planning is not just an idea; it is something we must actually do.

Episode #26 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Dr Izabela Mironowicz (Gdańsk University of Technology, Poland). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands). "It is not enough that you believe, you have to practice too". Reflecting on experience and action in research, education, and practice in Poland, Austria, Germany, and Europe. Talking about scope of action within planning and legal systems, private and collective action, citizens and consumers, post-socialist housing estates, democracy and degrowth values. Pondering on historical backgrounds of cities and contemporary re-interpretations and positive narratives for the future. Explaning discussions on the integration of post-growth into education for students, practitioners, and activists. Positioning education as a tool to empower people and to empower a broader society. Moving towards post-growth planning as planning for nature, taking into account the needs of humans.

Episode #25 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Luciana Maia (futurbanos, Germany). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands). Can you be right in the wrong environment? Working through localising global agendas in diverse contexts, into legacies and relations between Global North and Global South, and recent international experiences. Arguing with post-growth principles, layers of decision-making and the power of Doughnut Economics as a model. Strengthening the importance of a common language and terminology, of listening as a precondition for dialogue and understanding, and providing hope and optimism for the future by connecting urgencies with normative ideas by diverse people. Post-Growth planning as a crucial piece of the puzzle and a pathway for collectively slowing down.

Episode #24 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Anton Brokow-Loga (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Germany). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands). Reflecting on the interfaces between sustainability, post-growth, and democracy, early seeds of post-growth debates in Germany, experiences in local politics, growth coalitions and political images, political shifts in Europe and threats to democracy, but also education, engagement, and sources for future optimism. Arguing for politicizing the sustainability debate in spatial planning and identifying points of intervention.

Episode #23 of “Becoming a post-growth planner: obstacles and challenges to changing roles and practices” with Dr Benedikt Schmid (University of Freiburg, Germany). In conversation with Dr Christian Lamker (University of Groningen, the Netherlands). Talking about experience from working groups on post-growth geographies and alternative approaches to prosperity, the common good in housing and district development in Freiburg/Germany and beyond, making limits visible and navigable, the importance of adopting a critical perspective, to be courageous by engaging and questioning and the key of listening to wishes, potentials, and abilities.