Planning Small Regions in a Larger Europe: Spatial Planning as a Learning Process for Sustainable Local Development

An enlarged Europe is addressing the challenge of territorial cohesion on the basis of a disciplinary and operative framework formed by a number of evolving documents and provisions to be applied and developed at different administrative and planning levels. Rapid and profound changes have occurred in previous decades as far as institutional framework, the role of actors and issues to be tackled are concerned, within a re-scaling process of territorial governance. In this context, small territories can take advantage of European funds, but experience a hard confrontation with the market economy and supra-local visions, use of resources and infrastructure projects. A decisive role, in many countries, has been gained by regional authorities, which must mediate among various territorial levels, institutions and actors involved in a multilevel governance process. The paper focuses on spatial and regional/territorial planning processes among the European dimension, Member States and regions, on the basis of a case study conducted in Northern Italy. The aim is to determine the role of European spatial planning as a “learning machine” [Faludi, A. (2008) European Territorial Cooperation and Learning, disP 172, (1/2008), pp. 3–10.] able to support processes of mutual learning and cooperation, overcoming the attitude of compliance to upper level schemes and financial programmes rather than innovating usual procedures and territorial planning.     

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.     

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.     

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 European Union as an Ethical Community and What This Means for Spatial Planning

The European Union has adopted in its official publications a number of ethical values which can be identified and made explicit: they are values which concern the material content of policies and values of human rights. Although the relationship between those values and practice is not always direct, it can legitimately be expected that the values influence the content of the EU's spatial policy. With the extension of the EU policy to include territorial cohesion, the core values have been given an explicitly spatial dimension. Nor can the member states ignore those values, because formal legislation of the EU works through into the practice of those states: that increases the significance of EU values for the spatial planning of the member states. For those reasons, planners should know what those values are and how they can influence spatial planning.     

Positioning European Spatial Planning

The European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) is being described as 'inter-governmental'. The original initiative was for a Community spatial strategy for the delivery of the Structural Funds. Coming from France, it met with opposition. So it was that the successive six-monthly Presidencies of the EU took turns in managing the process. In truth, however, without Commission support the ESDP would not have come about. Now that the ESDP is on the books, the Commission is claiming a leadership role. Taking a position on this, one needs to view spatial planning against the backdrop of general thinking about European integration. Positions in the literature are often presented as polar opposites, like that of 'neo-functionalists' putting faith in integration on the one hand and that of 'realists' emphasizing the continuing dominance of nation states on the other hand. However, a growing body of literature is not about these 'grand theories', but about the actual workings of European institutions. It takes a middle ground and invokes concepts which planning writers are accustomed to, like networks, discourses and governance. From this literature it appears that mutual learning, a feature also of the ESDP process, is common in European integration. European spatial planning must be seen as part and parcel of an emergent system of European multi-level governance. In it, power is exerted at multiple levels of government. Denying the Community a spatial planning role is not realistic, therefore.     

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.     

Evaluating Cost-Benefit Analysis as a Tool for Gender Planning

This article evaluates the usefulness of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) in the field of gender and development planning. While the incorporation of distributional considerations into CBA would appear to have made it more sensitive to gender differentials, the article argues that it is limited by a number of factors. These include both its own methodological biases, such as the bias towards marketed activities and quantifiable indicators, as well as the political economy of gender at different stages of the project cycle. Empirical examples from both First and Third World contexts are drawn on to demonstrate how these biases work in practice. The article concludes that CBA is best suited to interventionist, rather than participatory projects; to efficiency, rather than equity goals; and, where equity is the goal, to women's practical needs rather than their strategic gender interests.     

Internationalizing the Spatial Identity of Cross-Border Cooperation

The adoption of Schengen Agreement and acceleration of cross-border region building among European Union (EU) member states have considerably diversified the character of identity policies in European border areas. One important outcome is the formation of different spatial identities for improving the policies of cross-border cooperation. Using the formation of internationalized spatial identity of North European twin cities Haparanda (Sweden) and Tornio (Finland) as study example, this article argues that the promoters of cross-border cooperation still pay little attention to the strategic planning and coordination of identity policies. As a result, the promotion of an international spatial identity of cross-border cooperation remains unbalanced failing adequately to support the aims of cooperation policies. The ineffective integration between cooperation policies and international identity of cooperation complicates the building of competitive and dynamic cross-border regions in the EU peripheral areas as well as responding to challenges of EU's territorial cohesion.     

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.     

An Anatomy of Spatial Planning: Coming to Terms with the Spatial Element in UK Planning

“Spatial planning” is a phrase that now resonates throughout many planning systems across the globe. It is being used as a label to describe pan-national, regional, strategic and even aspects of local planning processes. Within the UK, spatial planning is being utilized alongside, or even in place of, more traditional phraseology associated with planning, such as “town and country planning”. It is being used by a range of institutions of the State, professional groups and academic commentators to describe the processes of planning reform, modernization, policy integration, and strategic governance that politically are now required to make planning fit for purpose in the 21st century. The precise meaning and definition of spatial planning remains difficult to pin down, as does its origins within the UK. This paper attempts to dissect the various components of the spatial planning phrase and set out the meaning and origins of the term in the UK context. It covers re-territorialization, Europeanization and integration origins of spatial planning thinking and provides a conceptual, rather than practical, debate on the anatomy of spatial planning, situated within ongoing processes of institutional transformation, through the lens of governance and distinctiveness in state policy development.     

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.     

A Dynamic Location-Allocation Model for Evaluating the Spatial Impacts for Just-in-Time Planning

This paper presents an interperiod network storage location-allocation (INSLA) model to solve the just-in-time production planning problem. The model is extended to a multiobjective problem in which trade-offs between delivery time and transportation costs are analyzed. The results for a hypothetical problem show that in an attempt to reduce inventories on the part of the primary purchaser of raw materials, the possibility exists for less than optimal behavior in the system.     

Effectiveness of Planning Instruments for Minimizing Spatial Conflicts of Biogas Production

Abstract

The energy policy in Germany encourages an ever-greater utilization of biomass to produce biogas. But this utilization interferes on the natural resources and affects new conflicts regarding other forms of land use particularly flood prevention measures, drinking water supply and recreation. A forward-looking planning is needed to minimize these conflicts. Hence, this paper aims to derive quality and protection standards, summarized in checklists, assessing the effectiveness of different planning instruments with respect to the impact of biogas production in practice. These checklists were used in four model districts in Lower Saxony to evaluate the effectiveness of planning instruments on the regional level. The results show that the investigated Regional Planning Programmes do not contain any explicit planning statements as to the production of biomass or biogas. Specific regulations regarding potential conflict situations are mainly to be found in the respective Protected Area Regulations. However, generally the German spatial planning and sectoral planning provide options to control the production of biogas in a way that it is compatible with the majority of competing land uses.     

Spatial Planning in the Network Society-Rethinking the Principles of Planning in the Netherlands

The Dutch planning system rejoices a very positive reputation in the international academic planning literature. Yet both the conceptual orientation and the institutional practices of Dutch planning are eroded. New institutional practices have emerged that effectively form a 'shadow structure' to the official planning system, eroding both its effectiveness and legitimacy. The article suggests that this instititutional development is to be understood against the background of larger processes of social change to which the system has so far not responded: the coming 'network society'. In light of this analysis it is suggested that Dutch planning could enhance both its effectiveness and legitimacy by reconsidering some of the basic features of the planning system.     

Early European Experience in Marine Spatial Planning: Planning the German Exclusive Economic Zone

Marine spatial planning is emerging as an integrated, resource management-led approach to governing the use of the seas. Recent initiatives include those of some north European countries, including Germany, which has now completed a plan for its federal offshore territory. In this article, an analysis is presented of this pioneering plan and the consultation process behind its production, with a particular emphasis on the treatment of different sectoral interests around which the plan was structured. This revealed the attempts to coordinate not only the different demands at sea by means of allocation of areas and cross-sectoral considerations, but also the uneven representation of activities with certain interests gaining strongly and others effectively marginalized. This study provides early empirical evidence of the tensions involved in the attempt to adopt a spatial approach to marine governance. This new domain for planning is situated in the overlapping, but distinct domains of marine management and spatial planning. The conceptual backgrounds of both are drawn upon in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the plan and in suggesting how marine plans might gain by giving close attention to the broader principles of marine and strategic planning.     

Supra-national Spatial Planning of the Baltic Sea Region and Competing Narratives for Tourism

The paper discusses supra-national spatial planning between 11 countries in the Baltic Sea Region. The focus is on competing narratives for tourism development. Western models of planning introduced to the newly independent post-Soviet States is the underlying theme. The argument is that Western planning thought has become legitimized and is presented to the East as a culturally and socially superior model, based on the presumption that because the newly independent States are moving towards market economies, Western planning models are appropriate. The paper evaluates a specific Western initiated supra-national spatial planning programme for the Baltic Sea Region and evaluates its tourism component. Post-modern concepts such as globalization, deconstruction, and narratives are incorporated in the discussion. The conclusion presents planning lessons and recommendations.