The making of the skyline: consultants in the strategic planning of Frankfurt’s high-rise cluster

Within planning practice, consultants operate as external actors that can be hired to advise on or carry out a myriad of planning-related activities. A growing private sector of planning professionals for hire has implications on how planning systems operate. Using the plan-making process of the newest high-rise development plan (HRDP) for Frankfurt am Main, Germany, as a case for understanding such a functioning ‘consultocracy’, this article reflects on these implications and questions how planners’ agency in arbitrating the public interest has been influenced by this emergence of consultants as significant actors in contemporary urban governance.