When Fiction Conveys Truth And Authority - The Netherlands Green Heart Planning Controversy

Spatial planners give us fiction, while at the same time asking us to take them seriously. Perhaps even more surprising, they get much of the authority they claim. In the case of the Netherlands Green Heart planning concept, the tension between fictionality and authority has become the focal point of a public controversy about the value of the concept for making major policy decisions. The Green Heart concept has been fiercely criticized for its fictional nature. According to these critics, since the Green Heart does not exist, it cannot be used to justify far-reaching policy measures. Surprisingly, the concept seems to remain immune to this criticism. Advocates of the concept admit its fictionality, but still maintain that it is the most appropriate basis for policymaking. Thus, the two sides in this controversy have become deadlocked. We propose a framework and undertake an analysis that shows a way out of the impasse. We do this by showing how fiction conveys truth, and how truth and authority are welded to fiction, most importantly through maps.