The practices of planners in the light of digital devices. Issues of coordination and control of urban production processes

The relationship between the city and digital technology has been the subject of a great deal of research but few studies have looked at what digital devices can do for the players who manage the operational implementation of urban development. Urban planners use a wide range of tools resulting from the development of digital technologies. This article proposes a typology based on the practices of planners and examines their scope, using material collected as part of a survey of 17 public planners in the Île-de-France region and in major French regional cities in 2022. Using methods from the analysis of organised collective action applied to the use of management tools and digital technology, we sought to identify the systems used, and the ways in which they are designed, used and mobilised by professionals in their actual activities as planners. We have shown that these digital tools do not have a uniform effect on planning practices, as they are largely transformed by the planners and their uses. While the concrete effects on the projects themselves seem to be limited, digital technology sometimes shake up organisations. They also reveal the tensions and ambivalence of the developer’s position in the planning system. It brings up issues of coordination, but also of power and control: in this way, digital technology reveals the contemporary changes in urban development professions.