The Uses of Social Network Analysis in Planning: A Review of the Literature

This article reviews the basic concepts of Social Network Analysis (SNA) and its uses in theoretical and empirical planning literature. Continuing a discussion among planning theorists that was initiated at the 2003 ACSP/AESOP Joint Congress, the authors respond to specific gaps identified in papers presented at that conference. Specifically, the authors review the literature on SNA within disciplines related to planning and empirical planning studies using SNA. The authors find that the knowledge base on SNA specifically and network analysis generally is highly fragmented along disciplinary lines, contributing to the critique that it is a fuzzy concept.