Strategic Spatial Planning in European City-Regions: Parallel Processes or Divergent Trajectories?(NIRSA) Working Paper Series No. 60 (original) (raw)
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Strategic Spatial Planning in European City-Regions: Parallel Processes or Divergent Trajectories?
Drawing on recent experiences of strategic spatial planning in two city-regions in Europe, the paper seeks to challenge dominant narratives of the emergence of strategic spatial planning as a uni-dimensional process of policy convergence. Recognising a need for fine-grained analysis of practices of spatial planning in diverse territorial and institutional contexts, the paper presents a framework for contextualised comparative analysis, identifying multiple levels of differentiation. The application of this comparative framework is subsequently illustrated with reference to the two city-regions of Dublin and Erfurt. The paper concludes with an outline of an agenda for further research. territorial and institutional context
Strategic Spatial Planning Revisited Experiences from Europe
2009
Europe is finding itself confronted with major developments and challenges: the growing complexity of global issues (rise of new technologies, changes in production processes, crisis of representative democracy, diversity, inequality, migration and the globalization of culture and the economy), increasing concern about the rapid and apparently random course of (uneven) development, the problems of fragmentation, the rising cost of energy, the ageing of the population, the increasing awareness (on all scales, from local to global) of environmental issues (climate change…), the longstanding quest for better coordination (both horizontal and vertical), and the re-emphasis on the need for long-term thinking (Albrechts, 2001; 2004; 2006). Moreover, the need felt by many governments to adopt a more entrepreneurial style of planning in order to enhance regional, cityregion and city competitiveness, the growing awareness that a number of planning concepts (learning regions, knowledge communities, industrial districts, compact cities, liveable cities, sustainable cities, creative cities, multi-cultural cities, fair cities) cannot be achieved solely through physical hard planning and the fact that (in addition to traditional land use regulation, urban maintenance, production and management of services) governments are being called upon to respond to new demands. These developments and challenges imply the abandonment of bureaucratic approaches and the involvement of skills and resources that are external to the traditional administrative apparatus. They all serve to expand the planning agenda. We may consider four different types of reaction to these developments and challenges: reactive (the rear-view mirror), inactive (going with the flow), pre-active (preparing for the future) and proactive (designing the future and making it happen) (see Ackoff, 1981). There is ample evidence that the problems and challenges that regions, city-regions and cities are confronted with cannot be tackled and managed neither adequately with a neo-conservative perspective nor with the intellectual, technicallegal apparatus and mind-set of traditional land-use planning. My thesis is that only the proactive reaction is appropriate as it calls for the transformative practices that are needed to cope with the continuing and unabated pace of change driven by the (structural) developments and challenges. Transformative practices focus on the structural problems in society; they construct images/visions of a preferred outcome and how to implement them (see Friedmann, 1987). So a shift is needed from a more regulative, bureaucratic approach towards a more strategic, implementation-led and development-led approach. My focus on transformative practices does not 3
2010
This paper presents the argument that the contents of spatial plans and the discursive framing of processes of spatial strategy-making are structured by the political geography of the formal institutions of governance through which spatial plans derive their legitimacy. At the same time spatial planning processes and strategies themselves may be active in the social construction of particular spatial (territorial and scalar) configurations. Spatial planning strategies for cities and regions increasingly seek to transcend political and administrative boundaries and embrace functional spaces and fuzzy boundaries. It is argued here however, that the spatial reach of such strategies in practice may be constrained by the formal structures of governance through which they are produced. Recent studies of the contents of spatial planning strategies have found that spatial plans in practice continue to employ territorial rather than relational concepts of space and place. This paper moves to...
Sustainability
Decision-makers, planners and administrators involved in different policy domains at different governance levels face the important challenge of fostering more balanced, sustainable and territorially integrated development. Well-designed, multi-level, multi-sector and multi-actor governance arrangements can play a key role in this process through orchestrating the interplay between different spheres, activities, actors and interests. In this paper, we examine the role of spatial planning in improving the relations between rural, peri-urban and urban areas. We analyse the strengths and limitations of spatial planning and explore the connections with territorial development. The methodology used for this analysis combines regional case studies in seven European locations—Ede, Frankfurt/Rhein-Main, Styria/Graz, Helsinki, Lisbon, Lucca and Mid Wales, with rapid appraisals, the analysis of published data, expert judgement and triangulation. We ask under which conditions spatial planning ...
The Importance of Context and Comparison in the Study of European Spatial Planning
European Planning Studies, 2008
The European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) was agreed in 1999 at Potsdam, Germany, as a non-binding framework intended to guide spatially significant policymaking at different spatial scales in order to achieve a more balanced and sustainable growth of the EU territory. This paper develops a conceptualization of the nature of transnational planning frameworks such as the ESDP and presents a framework for the investigation of the application of their policy orientations in the spatial planning systems of European states. It is argued that investigations of the application of transnational spatial development frameworks like the ESDP and the 'Territorial Agenda of the European Union' document adopted by EU member states in 2007, need to be sensitized to the diversity of territorial contexts in which these apply, and that a contextualized and comparative approach is therefore essential in evaluating their influence in Europe's varied territories. development policies and EU sectoral policies. Six forms of application were identified including the application of the ESDP's policy orientations in the spatial planning systems of the member states of the EU. This form of application is the focus of the present paper. Specifically, it was proposed that member states should "now take into account the policy aims and options of the ESDP in their national spatial planning systems in the way they see fit and inform the public of their experiences gained from European co-operation in spatial development" (CEC, 1999, p. 44). Member states were also called upon to "take into consideration the European dimension of spatial development in adjusting national spatial development policies, plans and reports" and it was suggested that "the requirement for a 'Europeanization of state, regional and urban planning' is increasingly evident" (CEC, 1999, p. 45). The commitment to applying the ESDP in member states was reaffirmed at a meeting of EU Ministers responsible for spatial planning and Urban/Regional policy at Tampere, Finland, in October 1999. The resulting ESDP Action Programme contained 12 actions including the monitoring the integration of ESDP policy options into national spatial planning (Ministers Responsible for Spatial Planning and Urban and Regional Policy 1999). In 2001, the Belgian EU Presidency followedup this action with a survey into "ESDP policy orientations in national spatial planning".
The hidden face of European spatial planning: Innovations in governance
European Planning Studies, 2005
Presently, the 'informal' European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) is being duly applied. At the same time, European planners are still searching for a shared understanding of what European spatial planning actually means. Against the backdrop of current developments in European governance, it seems appropriate to explore various regional perspectives on this emergent phenomenon. In so doing, one needs to go beyond the most commonly known perspectives, though. One needs to also reveal the less obvious 'southern perspectives'. Under close scrutiny, they show themselves well capable of introducing some valuable new elements, and they are as equally useful as others in enriching the debate on European spatial planning and in deepening our understanding about current changes in planning practices in Europe.
New concepts of strategic spatial planning dilemmas in the Dutch Randstad region
International Journal of Public Sector Management, 2009
PurposeDrawing on changes in the nature of European metropolitan development planning in general, and the example of the Randstad, in particular, the purpose of this paper is to argue for an improved interconnectedness between regions and their public and private sector agencies. These should be linked to “flows of social and economic interaction”, and, as such, complement conventional notions of “bounded spaces” and “nested territorial jurisdictions”. This is in response to the now crucial question for metropolitan planning of how to develop and renew effective institutional capacity to deal with the increasing spatial complexities at regional or metropolitan level.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is a case study‐based theoretical review of types of metropolitan planning, drawing on original policy documents and interviews with relevant policymakers.FindingsIt is shown that the answer to addressing the challenges of development planning at the city‐regional level is not primari...
European Planning Studies, 2016
This article sets out to propose and apply a qualitative framework for thinking about how to analyse and compare metropolitan spatial plans in a milieu of divergent spatial planning traditions and discretionary planning practices. In doing so, the article reviews and develops an understanding concerning the institutional context, instrumental content and planning processes associated with four contemporary metropolitan spatial plans in Europe, namely those of London, Copenhagen, Paris and Barcelona. Through the results of a multiple case study and a subsequent cross-comparative analysis, the article stresses that contemporary metropolitan spatial plans tend to merge the characteristics associated with project-based and strategy-based spatial plans, thus contrasting with the typical land-use character of municipal plans and the often strategic, growth-oriented pursuit of regional plans in Europe. In this sense, the metropolitan scale is treated less explicitly as a planning scale per se; rather, it tends to emerge as a “concealed” scale between municipal and regional scales and also between local and regional knowledge in planning. Moreover, the analysis suggests that while metropolitan plans seem to converge in terms of their general themes, they cannot be ultimately “typified” in view of ad hoc variations related to their institutional contexts, instrumental contents and planning processes.