In this paper we seek to present a challenge to the normative prescriptive role of strategic urban planning practice. In effect, we challenge what has traditionally been regarded as the essence of strategic or ‘forward’ planning: the plan as a statement of what the city ought to become. Using Lacanian-inspired analysis we seek to understand how urban issues may be identified as metaphorical deficiencies or illnesses, to which planners apply a therapeutic salve in the form of strategic policies. Turning to the psychological utopianism of Ernst Bloch, a Freudian-inspired predecessor of Lacan, we suggest a way forward in Bloch's immanent transcendent conceptualisation of hope. We suggest replacement of the transcendent term ‘utopian’ by ‘utopic’, as a practice which is critical, inclusive, and dynamic; performative rather than normative.