This handbook contains a selection of chapters prepared by specialized international scholars of urban planning and urban studies focusing on the question of how institutions innovate in practices of action. It aims to give a boost to the turn of institutional analysis in the context of action in changing cities.

Preface. Foreword. Part 1 Institutions in Action 1. Institutions in Action 2. Developing a 'Sociological Institutionalist' Approach to Analysing Institutional Change in Place Governance 3. Political Articulation and Hegemonic Practices in the Institutionalization of the 'Urban Order' Part 2 Institutional Innovation 4. Discursive Institutionalism and Planning Ideas 5. Institutions in Urban Space: Land, Infrastructure, and Governance in the Production of Urban Property 6. Moving Towards a Flat Ontology of Institutional Innovation: Actor-Relational Lessons Learned from Early Water Management Perspectives 7. Planning and the Politics of Hope: A Critical Inquiry Part 3 Pragmatism: The Dimension of Action 8. Adapting Different Planning Theories for Practical Judgment 9. From Garbage in the Streets to Organizers' Opportunities: Exploring the Institutional Pragmatics of Democratic Inter-Subjectivity 10. What Can We Learn from Evolutionary Theory When Confronting the Deep Challenges of Our Times? 11. Learning and Governance Culture in Planning Practice: The Case of Otaniemi Part 4 On Justification 12. Constitutions, Laws and Practices: Ethics of Planning and Ethics of Planners 13. How to Contextualize Legal Norms in Practices of Sustainable Development? Distinguishing Principles, Rules and Procedural Norms 14. Interpreting Planning as Actions 'In Plural': From Democratic Claim to Diverse Institutional Change 15. Provenance, Ideology and the Public Interest in Planning Part 5 Cultural and Political Institutions in Action 16. Contextualizing Institutional Meaning Through Aesthetic Relations. A Pragmatist Understanding of Local Action 17. 'London's Vatican': The Role of the City's New Architectural Icons as Institutional Imaginaries 18. The Political Nature of Symbols: Explaining Institutional Inertia and Change 19. The Urban Commons and Cultural Industries: An Exploration of the Institutional Embeddedness of Architectural Design in the Netherlands Part 6 Institutions and Urban Transition 20. Pragmatism and Institutional Actions in Planning the Metropolitan Area of Milan 21. Paradoxes of the Intervention Policy in Favelas in São Paulo: How the Practice Turned Out the Policy... 22. Ambiguity as an Opportunity: Coping With Change in Urban Megaprojects 23. Instituting Resilience in the Making of the Istanbul Metropolis 24. Urban Transformation in the Northern Randstad: How Institutions Structure Planning Practice Reflection 25. Weaving the Threads of Institutions and Planning in Action