Power and Planning Discourse: Defining the Greater Amman Metropolitan Area

This chapter investigates the planning acts that defined Greater Amman (GA) as a city-region and produced its metropolitan authority. It establishes the idea that those acts are practices in the historical sense, the sense that goes beyond individuals. Practice refers to those acts that had historical sameness between them at different stages and that were transmitted through time without being habituated. The chapter shows that the framing idea of GA has the historical sameness implied by the notion of practice. Since its inception in the 1960s, the idea was repeated and accepted many times until it took its final form when the Greater Amman Comprehensive Development Plan (GACDP) was prepared during the second half of the 1980s. The chapter argues that the planners who prepared the plan were only entering this practice when they adopted the idea. While they presented their definition of GA as an original, innovative act that responded to technical issues, the chapter shows that this representation was part of a practice that hides the planners’ quest for more control over planning the city and its surroundings. The chapter concludes by stating that the issue of control, seen by the planners as a crucial ingredient of good planning, was also crucial to some of the city officials, including the mayor himself. Indeed, this match between what the planners aspired for and what the powerful mayor wanted was perhaps the main reason behind implementing the idea.