Life among urban planners : practice professionalism and expertise in the making of the city The contributors treat planning as a set of critical cultural acts that are both controversial and in many cases contested. Planning and as this volume places in focus planners can then be considered in relation to the social dynamics of the contexts in which they operate: in the planning office on construction sites in sometimes violent confrontations with those at whom they are directed. What roles do planners have in shaping the social dimensions and daily practices of urban life How do they employ manipulate and reshape the expertise assigned to them for that purpose The essays here critically examine what planners persistent commitment to thinking about the future means for the ways in which people live in the present and represent and preserve the past. We are particularly concerned with the social contexts in which planners produce their work including their cultural values personal assumptions social pressures and beyond