Policing, planning and sex: Governing bodies, spatially

Literatures on the regulation of conduct have tended to focus on the role of policing and theenforcement of criminal law. This paper instead emphasizes the importance of planning inshaping conduct, using the example of how planning shapes sexual conduct to demonstratethat planning can, in different times and places, exercise police-type powers. We illustrate thisby analysing the regulation of brothels in Sydney and Parramatta, NSW, Australia, providing acase study of spaces of sexuality that historically were constructed and regulated as criminal,but have since become lawful. This paper examines the ways in which these transitions in lawhave been differently expressed and accomplished through local planning enforcement. Inmaking such arguments, the paper emphasizes not only the potential for planners to act likepolice, but also the capacity of planning to supplant policing as a key technique of governmentality.