What is cultural planning about? As always, metaphors secretly direct and limit what we are able to think and formulate. One can, roughly, distinguish between metaphors taken from the mechanical and taken from the organically. Is cultural politics and management about good ways to ‘produce’ culture or is it about ‘cultivating’ culture? Or – the same opposition now transferred to the organically – is cultural politics about how to squeeze oranges in the best possible way or about growing oranges? Is cultural politics about realizing ‘projects’ or ‘creating possibilities’? The current domination of mechanical metaphors is assessing ‘productivity’ is not without danger
