New State Spaces,Agency and Scale: Devolution and the Regionalisation of Transport Governance in Scotland

Abstract: New state spaces can be seen as products of the interaction between emerging initiatives and pre‐existing institutional arrangements ( Peck 1998 , Space and Polity 2:5–31). In the devolved territories of the UK devolution has created new political centres of policy formulation and this paper is concerned with how devolved policy initiatives are reshaping and rescaling sub‐national spaces of governance. We focus on the rescaling of transport governance in Scotland through a nationally orchestrated process of regionalisation involving the creation of Regional Transport Partnerships (RTPs), an initiative that has been shaped by tensions between changing national political objectives and local interests. Our approach draws on Neil Brenner's “new state spaces” (NSS) framework, which has value in emphasising the historically embedded and path‐dependent nature of restructuring processes. At the same time, its abstract nature leads the NSS approach to privilege the broad processes that generate new configurations of state power over the complex politics associated with the restructuring of particular spaces. In response, we suggest a new theoretical synthesis that draws NSS together with the ancillary notions of “regional armatures” and “the politics of scale” to provide a stronger purchase on the political agency and struggles that “form” and “mould” particular spaces.     

Diminishing borders and conflating spaces: a storyline to promote soft planning scales

At the latest since the argumentative turn, the crucial importance of language, narratives and discourses in the field of planning and policy-making is widely acknowledged. This can be particularly important for European spatial planning, for which the European Union (EU) does not have any formal competence. Thus, instead of enacting directives or regulations, the EU and its member states release legally non-binding documents, which contain ideas and objectives relevant to planning. In these documents, certain storylines can be identified, for example, regarding sustainability, balanced development and competitiveness. This article argues that there is another storyline, advocating the reduction of borders and the creation of new, soft spaces across Europe, such as city regions, cross-border regions or macro-regions. If picked up by national or sub-national actors, this storyline can play a crucial role in contributing to establish the legitimacy that soft spaces often lack. Based on empirical findings from the city region of Graz in Austria, the article aims to identify the elements of a discourse coalition, i.e. what the EU does to support soft spaces, who the actors reproducing the storyline are and how the storyline supports soft planning in practice.     

Statecraft,Scalecraft and Urban Planning: A Comparative Study of Birmingham,UK, and Brisbane,Australia

Recent discussions on state rescaling have pointed towards the need for a greater focus on how and why state activity may change over time in order to generate insights into the provenance, trajectories and outcomes of rescaling in different global regions and national state spaces. Consequently, this paper explores the dialectical and recursive relationship between the concepts of “statecraft” and “scalecraft” to explore the evolving sites, objects and mechanisms for urban planning within two key urban centres in different parts of the world—Birmingham, UK, and Brisbane, Australia. It is illustrated how a range of actors—from the national to the local level—have sought to craft and reshape the strategies and structures for urban planning according to different imperatives. In turn, the implications for a tighter specifying of the process of state rescaling are considered, as well as the subsequent nature of urban planning arrangements.     

Institutional Arrangements and Political Mobilization in the New Italian Regionalism: The Role of Spatial Policies in the Piedmont Region

The paper focuses on the resurgence of the regions as protagonists of the process of the state rescaling in many European countries. In the EU countries this process can be seen as a result of a mix of economic and institutional factors, which have been producing an increasing competition between the central governments and the regional authorities. The rise of the multi-level governance and of the so-called Euroregionalism has reinforced the role of the regional scale in the territorial development: on one hand, with new actors like agencies and organizations engaged in the economic development (FDI attraction, place marketing, innovation and learning), on the other hand by the resurgence of “old” actors, such as the regions, in many cases empowered by processes of institutional devolution. The literature has investigated this re-composition of the political space with regard to the “hollowing out” and the “rescaling” of the state. On the base of these theoretical underpinnings, we discuss some empirical evidence from the Italian experience, in order to show whether and how the regional structures are not only “spaces for policies”, but also “spaces for politics”. Over the last decade, the changes in legal framework, the external inputs from supranational levels of government—the European Commission—and the re-territorialization processes have introduced many elements of innovation in the role of the regions. By illustrating the case of the Piedmont Region, we try to demonstrate that the transition towards the region as an active space of politics can be mediated by the sphere of the policies, especially the spatial ones.     

Rethinking the Spatiality of Spatial Planning: Methodological Territorialism and Metageographies

This paper argues for increased attention to the role of territory and territoriality in framing sociospatial discourses in the context of spatial plan making. In particular, it is suggested that the engagement of political actors with processes of spatial planning tends to be framed within particular spatial imaginaries which reflect established political-administrative and territorial boundaries. It is contended that a critical analysis of the territorial framing of processes of spatial planning is necessary in order to understand the capacity for spatial strategies to effectively challenge and reconfigure established sociospatial imaginaries in functional or relational terms. It is suggested that spatially explicit public policy statements, such as planning strategies, may be characterized by specific assumptions of territorial space, in a similar manner to which mainstream social science has contained implicit assumptions of state-centrism. The salience of territorial spatial imaginaries is demonstrated in the case of European spatial planning and through a local case study of city-regional spatial planning and politics in the Greater Dublin Area.     

Storytelling as Method in Spatial Planning

Abstract

Drawing on the case of the Wageningse Eng in the Netherlands, this paper considers the role of “storytelling” within spatial planning practices. It moves away, though, from seeing it as merely a model of spatial planning, where “storytelling” is sometimes used to justify planners' ideals for the landscape, or a model for spatial planning, which pushes for a normative use of “storytelling” as a means of encapsulating local knowledge and the views of those who live in, and use, the landscape. Rather, the paper engages “storytelling” as a method for revealing how formal planning practices may be destabilized by more vernacular narratives seeking to subvert dominant discourses and processes. In doing so, it seeks to not only show the contested nature of participatory planning within the Netherlands, but also the ways in which narratives—as revealed via such a method—construct specific positionalities with real implications for notions of inclusivity within planning practices.     

Knowledge and Proximity

Over the years knowledge has come to be seen as crucial for economic progress, and proximity as conducive to knowledge exchange. As a result, knowledge-related processes are often considered as possible explanation of the spatial agglomeration of economic activities. However, knowledge and proximity are general concepts that have to be detailed before it is possible to specify the concrete mechanisms at work. Building on recent work that focuses on proximity, this paper develops a perspective in which proximity features as an enabling element, but no more than that, in ongoing processes of knowledge creation, transfer, absorption, and change. We argue that knowledge is to be viewed as activity and process, rather than object or commodity. Concentrating on “knowledge agents”—those engaged in knowledge-related processes, individuals and collectives—will be more productive than persisting to rely on the distinction between tacit and codified knowledge to explain spatial aspects of the economy. Finally, we argue that regions are different when it comes to the extent, and the way, they facilitate creation, transfer, and other knowledge processes. Contributions to local or regional economic development, whether through research or policy, have to take existing repertoires—patterns in collective knowledge—into account.     

European spatial planning reloaded: Considering EU enlargement in theory and practice

The territorial expansion of the European Union (EU) to the new central and eastern European member states raises difficult challenges for European spatial planning. In almost the same manner as structural policy, the conceptual side of European spatial planning has to acknowledge that with enlargement a quantum leap regarding its politics and policy is about to occur. While reflecting on discussions about EU's regional policy and spatial planning on the European level, and sketching a theoretical background, this paper proposes a new way of conceptualizing European spatial planning, taking central and eastern European spatial planning—perhaps as a new epistemic community—into consideration.     

Towards a Framework for Cooperation: Spatial Public Diplomacy on the Island of Ireland

Abstract

European spatial planning arguments advocate a blend of strategic thinking, coordination and related initiatives to promote and secure territorial cohesion. These ambitions embrace a set of normative agendas around economic, social and environmental convergence, competitiveness, policy coordination and efficient infrastructure provision across space. In practice, territorial management then involves devising interventions across inter-connecting scales of governance which comprise complex agency relations, differentiated places and defined communities. In transnational contexts, attempts to foster appropriate spatial governance arrangements and relations across sovereign borders necessitate re-crafting planning and development cultures and service delivery practices to advance territorial cohesion. Transnational working necessarily involves cooperation across an extended range of institutions, interests, influences and potential actors. This paper examines attempts to secure bi-lateral commitment to a joint planning framework for the two distinct territories on the island of Ireland. Specifically, it traces the formal and informal activities involved in the development of the 2013 Framework for Cooperation between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Informed by ideas of cross-border regionalism, it discusses the necessary spatial public diplomacy involved in the social reconstruction of strategic spatial planning to improve policy coordination and cross-border working.     

尺度重组理论视角下的粤港澳大湾区建设研究

粤港澳大湾区建设是由中央政府推行的新的区域发展政策安排,旨在调控国家、区域和城市尺度之间的关系进而引导资本流动以实现特定的空间发展目标,因此可视之为新一轮国家的尺度重组。借鉴西方的尺度重组理论,本文主要从大珠三角城市在经济上的空间联系以及香港问题在政治上的领域关系等两个方面,探讨关系空间如何影响到国家的尺度重组,以及国家的尺度重组对城市的尺度重组的影响。研究认为,粤港澳大湾区建设在于重塑资本流动的地方空间,为“资本固着”提供社会活动平台,继续参与国际劳动分工,深化经济合作,提高区域的全球竞争力。与此同时,国家也通过尺度重组来解决经济全球化过程中出现的领域政治问题,通过新的空间规划把边界问题纳入一体化的经济发展体系之下,保证政治稳定。中央政府把国家建设的尺度下移到粤港澳地区,促进了粤港澳的城市发生多元尺度重组策略,包括城市内部的尺度上推和尺度下移,城市外部的合作联盟和尺度政治。最后,文章从区域发展的角度分析粤港澳大湾区建设带来的影响,讨论粤港澳大湾区的建设与实践对尺度重组理论的补充和对认识国家政治经济发展的启示意义。     

The Politics of Spatial Policy and Governance in Post-1990 Hungary: The Interplay Between European and National Discourses of Space

There is now a wealth of literature discussing how regional development and spatial planning practices in Central Eastern Europe have been shaped through the alignment with EU policy frameworks. However, scholars have tended to study governance dynamics in terms of adaptation and learning, paying thus little attention to how spatial policy change is inherently interlinked with the political contestation of nation-state spaces. This paper proposes to address this lack by combining insights from political economic work on state spatial restructuring and discourse theory. From this perspective, the institutionalization of spatial policies is examined as a political process in which particular understandings of space become seen legitimate and stabilized depending on how well they fit existing discourses. The paper demonstrates the added value of this approach through a case study of spatial policy change in post-1990 Hungary, and argues that the approach is more generally applicable to examine shifts in spatial policies and to address concerns with the increase in uneven development at different scales.     

The Potential Implications of the European Union Water Framework Directive on Domestic Planning Systems: A UK Case Study

The transformation of planning across Europe in recent years has been characterized by new processes at different spatial scales that reach across traditional boundaries. This Europeanization of planning processes is reflected in the emergence of cross-border initiatives, new spatial relationships and the enhancement of regional policy-making. In using the case of the UK this article analyses the possible ramifications of adopting the European Water Framework Directive (WFD). It is demonstrated that the WFD, despite its apparent focus on water regulation, is symptomatic of wider European Spatial Planning processes that are seeing a reshaping of attitudes, witnessing the emergence of new networks and challenging traditional sovereignties of planning.     

Enclavic tourism spaces: territorialization and bordering in tourism destination development and planning

ABSTRACT

Enclave tourism is a growing field of research. In general, tourism enclaves are seen as products of global capitalism and a non-locally-driven neoliberal market economy. Enclaves also manifest certain kinds of tourism planning and development modes in destination societies. The enclaves are exclusively planned spaces that usually contain the vast majority of facilities and services needed for tourists who have limited possibilities or desire to leave the enclave. At the same time, the locals' access to these spaces can be limited or otherwise controlled. Therefore, there are always power issues and processes of inequalities and uneven development involved, which calls for a further understanding of enclaves and their evolution and governance in tourism planning and development. This paper aims to discuss and synthesize the conceptual idea of enclaves in tourism and get an overview of some of the key theoretical perspectives on how enclavic spaces are produced, bordered, and governed in contemporary tourism planning and development. It is concluded that in critical situations the enclave tourism spaces with all-inclusive products can turn out to be all-exclusive for local communities in development. To understand the nature and development of enclave tourism and to guide their transformation in more sustainable directions, further research on policy and governance aspects of enclave tourism is needed.     

Kitchenspace: Gendered territory in central Mexico

Drawing on extensive ethnographic field research with multiple women and kitchens in two central Mexico communities, this article argues for kitchenspace—indoor and outdoor spaces where food preparation takes place—as gendered territory. Using a feminist political ecology approach, it explores private and semi-public space in the everyday, household kitchen and the fiesta or ‘smoke’ kitchen at the center of community celebrations. Marked as gendered territory by distinct social boundaries and gendered, discursive strategies, kitchenspace is vital to the maintenance of traditional forms of organization and generational transmission of cultural and embodied knowledge. This article questions assumptions about ‘the kitchen’ as a site of social isolation and women's oppression that often characterize feminist approaches. It considers embeddedness in local social and spatial contexts and the importance of everyday life in private and public spaces.     

Wars as Dividing Lines? Rethinking the Significance of the Sino-Japanese War in Twentieth Century China

Historical periodization frequently takes wars as turning points—as ruptures that signify the end or beginning of an era. At the same time, front lines have often been taken as boundaries that contain the activities of one side or the other. Thus, discontinuity and disjuncture rather than continuity and fluidity have often been the points of emphasis among historians who have taken war events as turning points, or who have seen lines of combat as impermeable. A new focus on the Sino-Japanese War period has begun to reveal ways in which that moment served not as an interruption but as a part of longer term processes of change and development that characterized China’s mid-twentieth century. It also permits us to gain a deeper understanding of the fluidity of human movement and socio-economic interaction that frequently crossed both political and military boundaries and to think about similarities, linkages, and differences between various Chinese spaces. The aim of this paper is to consider ways in which the new generation of scholarship on the Sino-Japanese War period offers new ways of thinking about continuity, change, similarity and difference across both temporal and physical boundaries that have served as the parameters for much of the earlier scholarship on the period. To this end, the paper examines recent literature on the Sino-Japanese War period, as well as literature that crosses that period, to examine ways in which this historiography has challenged conventional periodizations and political and geographical delineations.     

Hybrid territorialisation: A reconfiguration of rural spaces through gold mining in Upper Guinea

In this article, our aim is to analyse the process of territorialisation in the region of Upper Guinea following the rapid increase in gold mining exploitation since the 2000s. Territorialisation is analysed as a new way of doing space and creating boundaries in an area where boundaries have historically been negotiable and where artisanal and small-scale mining is plurisecular and gives rise to ephemeral spaces. Our first objective is to retrace changes in gold mining activities and spaces over the last decade, and to analyse the expansion of the mining industry as an extractive territorialisation, involving processes that lead to the fixation of the gold diggers’ mobility. Secondly, this article shows how this extractive territorialisation can in fact be analysed as a hybrid one, since it seems to lay the groundwork for state territorial control: first, it formalises spaces linked to and surrounding the exploitation area; second, it seems to correlate to a more general tendency of appropriation under the territorial model by local communities. Territorialisation, understood as both a political and a spatial process, serves thus as a starting point for the analysis of space formalisation in a peripheral region where the state is often seen by locals as mainly absent.     

Planning the post‐political city: exploring public participation in the contemporary Australian city

This special section examines the possibility of meaningful debate and contestation over urban decisions and futures in politically constrained contexts. In doing so, it moves with the post‐political times: critically examining the proliferation of deliberative mechanisms; identifying the informal assemblages of diverse actors taking on new roles in urban socio‐spatial justice; and illuminating the spaces where informal and formal planning processes meet. These questions are particularly pertinent for understanding the processes shaping Australian cities and public participation today.     

Planning Culture—A Concept to Explain the Evolution of Planning Policies and Processes in Europe?

Abstract

This article examines the complex relations between spatial planning and its cultural context (including the specific socio-economic patterns and related cultural norms, values, traditions and attitudes). To be able to analyze the extent to which spatial planning adapts to external pressures such as Europeanization, a “culturized planning model” with the three dimensions “planning artefacts”, “planning environment” and “societal environment” is used. It can be observed that the “harmonization” of spatial planning practices can result from external pressures such as EU regulations as well as (horizontal) collective learning processes. However, “harmonization” does not necessarily result in convergence. Adaptational pressures such as Europeanization often result in the customization of existing structures, frames and policies (“planning artefacts” and “planning environment”) but do not fundamentally change the underlying core cultural traits (“societal environment”). These cultural traits are quite resistant to change and help maintain a diversity of planning cultures and policies in Europe.     

Towards an Integrated Spatial Planning?

The notion of “spatial planning” has emerged as something of a new planning orthodoxy. Underpinning it lie various notions of integration—of policy communities and agendas, for example. This paper considers the evolution of integrated spatial planning in the various UK territories, focusing particularly on the experiences of Scotland. It analyses horizontal and vertical forms of integration using the notion of “governance lines”. These help explore the interaction between policies and actions at various spatial levels to examine how governance action can be re-scaled. A focus on Scotland highlights both divergence from European experience and a number of long-standing, but often subtly different, concerns for planners. Notable among these are the power spatial planning has in other policy sectors to pursue integration, and the co-ordination of land-use issues and infrastructure delivery. These issues present challenges for agendas of integration and highlights their political nature, raising as they do questions such as: how far can integration be pursued in the contemporary governance landscape; and thus to whom and on what might focuses on integration be directed? Such an analysis suggests potentials and limitations for a spatial planning agenda in the future.     

Impacts of urban living labs on sustainability transitions: mechanisms and strategies for systemic change through experimentation

ABSTRACT

Urban Living Labs (ULL) are considered spaces to facilitate experimentation about sustainability solutions. ULL represent sites that allow different urban actors to design, test and learn from socio-technical innovations. However, despite their recent proliferation in the European policy sphere, the underlying processes through which ULL might be able to generate and diffuse new socio-technical configurations beyond their immediate boundaries have been largely disregarded and it remains to be examined how they contribute to urban sustainability transitions. With this study, we contribute to a better understanding of the diffusion mechanisms and strategies through which ULL (seek to) create a wider impact using the conceptual lens of transition studies. The mechanisms of diffusion are investigated in four distinct ULL in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and Malmö, Sweden. The empirical results indicate six specific strategies that aim to support the diffusion of innovations and know-how developed within ULL to a broader context: transformative place-making, activating network partners, replication of lab structure, education and training, stimulating entrepreneurial growth and narratives of impact.