Strategic Planning in Transition: Contested Rationalities and Spatial Logics in Twenty-First Century Danish Planning Experiments

In this article, we analyse how contested transitions in planning rationalities and spatial logics have shaped the processes and outputs of recent episodes of Danish “strategic spatial planning”. The practice of “strategic spatial planning” in Denmark has undergone a concerted reorientation in the recent years as a consequence of an emerging neoliberal agenda promoting a growth-oriented planning approach emphasizing a new spatial logic of growth centres in the major cities and urban regions. The analysis, of the three planning episodes, at different subnational scales, highlights how this new style of “strategic spatial planning” with its associated spatial logics is continuously challenged by a persistent regulatory, top-down rationality of “strategic spatial planning”, rooted in spatial Keynesianism, which has long characterized the Danish approach. The findings reveal the emergence of a particularly Danish approach, retaining strong regulatory aspects. However this approach does not sit easily within the current neoliberal political climate, raising concerns of an emerging crisis of “strategic spatial planning”.     

Deconstructing Spatial Planning: Re-interpreting the Articulation of a New Ethos for English Local Planning

This article reviews recent debates about the emergence of “spatial planning” as a new ethos for English planning, suggesting that continued uncertainty around the term's use is partly caused by a failure to consider its emergence as the product of a contested political process. Drawing on an interpretive approach to policy analysis, the article goes on to show how this new organizing principle is a complex articulation of different and potentially contradictory reform impulses. The result is to destabilize the concept of spatial planning, showing how it has been constructed as an “empty signifier”, an unstable and tension-filled discursive stake in an ongoing politics of reform. Finally, it is argued that this has significant implications for the ways in which implementation success and failure should be understood and for analysis of planning reform initiatives and systems more widely.     

The Authenticity of Spatial Planning Knowledge

This article intends to start a debate on the authentic disciplinary grounds of spatial planning studies as a scientific discipline of spatial intervention closely interrelated with practices of spatial development. In a volatile epoch of regrouping academic specializations, scientists feel a strong incentive to reflect on the authentic grounds of their discipline. This certainly goes for spatial planning studies that heavily rely on intensive interaction with a wide range of disciplines. What justifies its own position? Spatial planning studies are intensely interrelated with practices of planning, which demarcates its scientific position in a specific way. The author does not claim an exclusive position for spatial planning studies (the diversity of external relations and alliances enriches the field of study) but defines the authentic identity of the spatial planning discipline in the conceptual coherence of five dimensions: practical context, spatial norms, knowledge and action, to be validated in new contexts of practice. The author states that different planning paradigms interconnect the five dimensions in their own way and in doing so innovate the authentic body of planning knowledge. To invest in this authenticity is crucial in this era of organizational proliferation.     

Reinventing Strategic Planning in Post-socialist Cities: Experiences from Sofia

Recent planning experiences in post-socialist cities indicate a growing interest in strategic spatial planning. In their search for new planning paradigms, municipalities in transition countries have embraced strategic planning as a way to involve the business community and the broader constituency in defining a vision for the future of cities. More importantly, this more proactive approach has created an opportunity for mobilization of funds and political support for urban development thus bridging the resource gap under a regime of fiscal austerity. Drawing on the recent experience of Sofia with strategic spatial planning, the paper outlines the essential characteristics of the process (plan-making) and the product (strategic plan). The research establishes clear links between the process of strategy development, its institutional framework and the hierarchical structure of goals, objectives and actions. It is argued that strategic spatial planning is an efficient tool to manage post-socialist cities.     

Examination of the Interpretation of Strategic Spatial Planning in Three Cases from Turkey1

Strategic spatial planning is a multi-actor approach through which relevant parties come together, discuss the problems and potentials of their locality and formulate a shared vision, strategies and projects for multiple sectors. Obviously, this planning approach comprises certain methods and techniques; however, it is reinterpreted in different ways in the planning systems of different countries due to their specific legislative, economic, administrative and social backgrounds. What is more, the use of this approach may vary even between localities in the same country, depending on the perception of the stakeholders and methods of collaboration. Despite varying perceptions and methods of adoption, it is possible to say that contemporary strategic planning practices display two constants, which are (1) a multi-actor (or participatory) planning process and (2) a multi-dimensional (or multi-sectoral) plan. Once these two characteristics are provided, the so-called nation-specific and local-specific differences show themselves in the organization of multi-actor planning processes, and in the contents and forms of strategic plans. The method of adoption and interpretation of the mentioned characteristics is illustrated by three cases (at regional, provincial and local levels) from Turkey.     

Women's Interests and Empowerment: Gender Planning Reconsidered

This article looks at the empowerment approach in relation to issues of women and development. After explaining why this is currently the most fruitful perspective in the field of gender planning, it then goes on to explore two central problems of the empowerment approach. The first problem is the conceptualization of women's gender interests. The distinction between women's practical and strategic gender interests was introduced by Molyneux and popularized by Moser. It is argued here that this distinction is theoretically unfounded and empirically untenable. Secondly, gender planners tend towards a preference for simplified tools and quantifiable targets. Here it is argued that women's realities should not be bent into this planning framework but that instead planners, working from an empowerment perspective, should demonstrate flexibility and theoretical grounding, and be aware of the political dimensions of their work.     

Understanding the Reorientations and Roles of Spatial Planning: The Case of National Planning Policy in Denmark

Spatial planning commonly adopts a diversity of functions and logics in contributing to the handling of growth and development. Being influenced by an array of contextual driving forces that result in specific institutional practices and policy agendas, spatial planning seems to be constantly reoriented in terms of its purposes and reasoning. This article sets out to explore the diverse orientations and roles that spatial planning has assumed in Denmark over a 50-year period. In doing so, the article examines the evolution of national planning policy by means of a multi-disciplinary framework comprising analytical concepts drawn from planning theory, state spatial theory and discourse analysis. Based on an in-depth study, the article then attempts to qualify, illustrate and synthesize the diverse roles that spatial planning has assumed in Denmark throughout that timeframe. The article concludes that spatial planning initially assumed a steering role, which has been either supplemented or substituted by balancing and/or strategic roles over the course of the past two decades. As a whole, this case is thought to contribute to current discussions regarding how spatial planning is shaped in different parts of Europe.     

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.     

Discourses of Mobility and Polycentric Development: A Contested View of European Spatial Planning

This article carries out an analysis of the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP), a policy document which represents a critical moment in the emergence of a new discourse of European spatial development. The analytical approach probes at the power relations which have shaped the ESDP framework and its contents, focusing on the twin core themes of spatial mobility and polycentricity. The analysis concludes that in the contested policy process a new spatial discourse of economic competitiveness is emerging at the expense of social and environmental interests. This new discourse will be further contested as implementation takes place in an uncertain policy environment.     

Byzantine Planning: Site Management in Istanbul

Abstract

A new site management plan for Istanbul’s Historic Peninsula was approved in late 2011. In this paper, we examine its institutional setting, preparation process, and contents from organizational and administrative perspectives. The result of a participatory process, the plan is professional, logically consistent, and effectively identifies challenges facing cultural heritage. The heart of the plan is a complex architecture of Objectives, Strategies, and Actions that are integrated into forty-nine Project Packages. Surprisingly, however, the plan specifies neither concrete activities nor financial resource­s. Moreover, cultural heritage is consistently downplayed: rather than substantive interventions at monuments or museums, attention is focused on managerial and urban planning buzzwords (coordination, capacity-building, participation, awareness-raising, marketing). This arose from the preparation process, which was participatory but nonetheless dominated by urban planners and government agencies. The case suggests the potential risks of the uncritical application of managerial and urban planning tools to cultural heritage.     

Planning Cultures and Histories: Influences on the Evolution of Planning Systems and Spatial Development Patterns

Abstract

This special issue addresses the influences of planning cultures and histories on the evolution of planning systems and spatial development. As well as providing an international comparative perspective on these issues, the collection of articles also engages in a search for new conceptual frameworks and alternative points of view to better understand and explain these differences. The articles focus on three main aspects: the change in planning systems and its impact on spatial development patterns; the interrelationship between planning cultures and histories from a path-dependency perspective; and the variations in physical development patterns resulting from different planning cultures and histories. Papers from different parts of the European continent present evidence at different scales to illustrate these aspects. In all cases, the specific combinations of political, ideological, social, economic and technological factors are important in determining urban and regional planning trajectories as well as spatial development patterns.     

The Scottish Parliament,Regulation and Land Use Planning

Constitutional reforms are taking place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. These offer the opportunity to bring about a more effective policy framework for a range of policy areas including land use planning. In Scotland, the introduction of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 could allow the improvement of spatial planning policy and practice in a variety of ways, including bringing a more strategic approach at regional level, introducing a national plan and ensuring greater links with innovative community planning exercises. Such improvements could ensure a more sustainable environment as well as a more inclusive society and could offer lessons for similar practice in other contexts.     

Increasing Societal Discomfort About a Dominant Restrictive Planning Discourse on Open Space in Flanders,Belgium

The specific spatial context in the densely urbanized northern part of Belgium, Flanders, offers a sort of laboratory conditions to study, design and plan fragments of open space in an urbanizing context. A chronological analysis of documents in three periods relevant to Flemish spatial planning policy allows us to conclude that one single planning discourse has reigned spatial planning in Flanders already since the design of the first zoning plans 45 years ago. This planning discourse considers city and countryside as two separate and separated entities. Today, however, the validity of this dominant discourse is increasingly under pressure. An obvious societal need appears to be growing to turn around the perception of a possible contradiction between city and countryside. In a densely urbanized spatial context, alternative planning discourses should be based on the idea of open spaces that offer complementary services within a partnership between city and countryside.     

Strategic Spatial Planning: Collective Action and Moments of Opportunity

The theory and practice of strategic spatial planning makes a significant contribution to debates about contemporary European planning. Whilst its proponents describe a progressive style of governance and new territorial imaginations it is difficult to point to success on the ground. The paper argues that the normative conception of strategic spatial planning and focus on the failure of planners to live up to the ideal diverts attention from understanding the day-to-day work of planners and the ordinary politics of planning. We review some potentially helpful work in political sociology to develop framework that, rather than seeing planners failing to develop appropriate spatial and governance imaginations, may contribute to a better understanding of how planners pursue interests, attempt to manage the costs of collective action and assess institutional constraints and political opportunities.     

Surviving Between the Trenches: Planning Research,Methodology and Theory of Science

Planning research-understood as research aiming to improve the body of knowledge on which spatial planning is based-includes issues rooted both in the social sciences, natural science and the humanities. Spatial planners need knowledge about the likely consequences of different alternatives of action, as well as understanding of the role of plans and planning processes in the development of society. This is reflected in the two-fold focus of planning research on both substantive and procedural issues. Whereas research on the role of plans and planning processes takes place mainly within a non-positivist social science paradigm, the research aiming to provide planners with the knowledge needed in order to make good plans is often situated in the battlefield between opposing positions within theory of science. Because planning research has both society and the physical as its subject of inquiry, a reflective opinion about the interaction between the physical environment and human actions is crucial. Traditionally, many spatial planners have conceived of this in a quite näive way, assuming that human behaviour can to a high extent be shaped or controlled by manipulating the physical environment. During recent decades, this view has been sharply criticized by anti-positivist scholars, and some theorists point out the great uncertainty, close to impossibility, in predicting human actions, even at an aggregate scale. The latter position has dramatic implications to spatial planning, as it would then be impossible to assess whether a certain physical solution is likely to have positive or negative social and related environmental consequences, e.g. in terms of travelling distances and modal split. Our own position is that the physical environment, along with a number of individual and non-physical structural factors, influences human activities and quality of life. To some extent, this influence can be predicted at an aggregate scale, but not for a particular individual (except those actions rendered impossible by the laws of physics). How strong influence the physical environment exerts, is a question requiring empirical research in order to be answered.     

Planning Sustainability: Intergenerational and Intragenerational Justice in Spatial Planning Strategies

Abstract: Subsequent to the Brundtland Report (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987, Our Common Future), sustainability has been set up in many countries as a mission statement of cross‐sectoral policies. Sustainable development carries the normative notions of equity, empowerment and environmentally sensitive economic development. Thus, it seems to suggest a fundamentally different vision to neoliberal dogma, which is at the same time described as dominating all socio‐political processes. This paper intends to explore the relation between these two discursive framings of contemporary policies through the example of German spatial planning guidelines. More precisely, it addresses social justice as one pillar of sustainability and how it is operationalised in spatial planning policies in Germany. This may exemplify how the seemingly opposing discourses interact in policy practices. The empirical analysis suggests that the ways in which the German spatial planning report focused on social space in territorial terms promotes an economistic and truncated view of social justice, one which fosters the neoliberal idea of regional competition for global capital and reduces socio‐spatial justice to territorially equally distributed economic inclusion.     

'Euroscepticism', Political Agendas and Spatial Planning: British National and Regional Planning Policy in Uncertain Times

Over the last 10 years, European Union interest in planning has increased significantly. Although land use planning remains a function of each member state, the legal obligations imposed by the EU in the fields of environmental law, structural funds, the Common Agricultural Policy, and Trans-European Transport Networks, have all impacted upon the context of the operation of the British planning process. Many of the EU initiatives have had to be transposed into domestic legislation, while others form an important-if oft-times uncertain-framework for British policy-makers. This paper examines the relationship between the European Union's policies and initiatives as they have potentially impacted upon the British planning system and the contents of Britain's national and regional planning policy guidance to local planning authorities in the assessment period 1988-1997. But the Conservative governments adopted a 'Eurosceptic' approach to their relations with Europe and, as demonstrated within this paper, also towards spatial planning issues that caused uncertainty in practice. The research indicates that although the EU has impacted upon British planning, particularly at the local level of government, this has not been reflected at the national and regional levels in planning policy documentation, mainly because of the 'Eurosceptic' attitude of the government. Policy-makers at both the national and regional levels in England, Scotland and Wales are now recognizing the need, however, to keep apace with changes occurring simultaneously with regard to enhanced European integration, and the approach of the Blair government since 1997 has re-focused the relationship between the EU and UK over spatial planning.     

Venturing Into Unknown Territory: The Preparation and Formulation of the Second Benelux Structural Outline

Inherent in transnational planning are obstacles which cause spatial planners to venture into unknown territory. The scale, the issues and the institutional context are significantly different from planning at the national level or below. What does this mean for the role of spatial plan-making, which is the cornerstone of the planning profession? This paper focuses on the role of plans as part of building transnational governance capacity. It does so on the basis of an in-depth case study of the preparation of the Second Benelux Structural Outline (1994–2000). The research material consists of a series of interviews with directly involved planners and administrators, primary sources such as internal reports of the Benelux Economic Union and direct observations by the researcher who attended several meetings of the planning committee. The paper starts with a short discussion of contemporary planning theory through which the formulation of the plan is analysed. Planning as a communicative process and planning as a programming process are central concepts in this analytical framework. The paper proceeds with an analysis of the making of the Second Benelux Structural Outline. A conclusion is that the plan as a communicative tool was not sufficiently developed during the planning process, in spite of the desirability of such a feature in this stage of building transnational governance capacity. The concluding remarks will focus on the ways in which the communicative dimension of future transnational plans can be improved.     

大遗址保护规划:对象、使命和内容框架

大遗址保护规划是系统统筹大遗址保护的综合性管理手段和政策纲领,具有系统整体性、综合协调性、战略引导性、控制约束性等特点。大遗址保护规划的对象是大遗址系统及其保护、利用、管理与发展等使用方式,决定了保护规划的愿景目标、架构体系及统筹协调的内容和行动计划。大遗址保护规划的基本理路是以物为基础、以人为中心,以保证大遗址安全为底线,以重塑大遗址空间保护格局、优化大遗址使用方式、推动大遗址资源资产保值增值为使命任务,通过科学合理的遗址资源配置和空间优化,实现大遗址资源与人、自然资源及其他人文资源的共融共生,大遗址保护利益与区域发展利益的和谐统一。     

Serbian Spatial Planning among Styles of Spatial Planning in Europe

The classification of spatial planning styles in Europe has been successively reviewed a few times. Most recently, it has been done in the framework of the European Spatial Planning Observatories Network (ESPON) 2.3.2 project dealing with the territorial governance. Based on national overviews for 29 European countries, this project uses the classification of spatial planning systems in four styles: comprehensive-integrated, regional-economic, land-use and urbanism. This study did not take into account the spatial planning system in Serbia since it is neither in the European Union nor a member of the ESPON similar to Norway and Switzerland. This article uses the form of national overviews elaborated for the ESPON project and puts Serbia in a comparative spatial planning perspective, classifying it between the comprehensive-integrated and land-use planning styles.