From Knowledge to Attention: Planning in an Information-Rich World

Abstract

This study investigates how debates on epistemology in planning theory can be enriched through emerging conceptual frameworks related to attention. Based on a literature review, the research examines epistemological debates in planning, epistemic authority, and the politics of knowledge, and integrates recent contributions concerning attention in order to identify conceptual intersections between these fields. The paper reviews perspectives that conceptualize planning as a practice of knowing, feminist-informed approaches to epistemology, and hermeneutic understandings of planning practice, highlighting their shared rejection of technocratic assumptions about knowledge as neutral, universal, and purely evidence-based. Building on these foundations, the study introduces attention as an increasingly important analytical lens in an information-rich world where attention, rather than information, becomes the scarce resource. The discussion explores concepts such as the attention economy, attentional capitalism, ecologies of attention, and the politics of attention, arguing that planning processes are shaped not only by knowledge production but also by dynamics of visibility, selection, recognition, and cognitive resource allocation. The paper concludes that integrating attention into planning theory opens new avenues for examining knowledge, justice, and planning practice, while also offering a framework for understanding how planners navigate information abundance and how attentional dynamics influence the construction of urban futures.