Analysing Contemporary Metropolitan Spatial Plans in Europe Through Their Institutional Context,Instrumental Content and Planning Process

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.     

Falling Apart at the Margins? Neighbourhood Transformations in Peri‐Urban Chennai

This article explores the peri‐urban dynamics in developing cities using a theoretical examination of the metropolis as the new urban condition. Although a western conceptualization, the notion of the metropolis, and particularly metropolitan planning, was exported to the developing world to address its urbanization problems. Metropolitan development authorities were established for wider city regions and accorded legislative powers to prepare master plans for the metropolitan areas. However, in most instances, their planning strategies resulted in a conflation of the urban–rural interface into a more complex peri‐urban condition, marked by heterogeneity and fragmentation. The article illustrates this through an empirical investigation in the Indian city of Chennai, where socio‐spatial transformations of two borderland neighbourhoods on its southern periphery are assessed mainly in terms of metropolitan planning decisions over the decades. In outlining their metamorphosis, the study is careful not to perceive such conflicts as simple forms of polarization between the rich and the poor. Rather, it sets the class conflicts against the politico‐economic dynamics yielding newer forms of polarization in the peri‐urban spaces.     

The Hollowing Out of Brazilian Metropolitan Governance As We Know It: Restructuring and Rescaling the Developmental State in Metropolitan Space

Despite regulatory and financial rollout of the state at a number of scales, and a strengthening of the institutional framework that guides territorial planning and management, Brazilian metropolitan governance continues to be characterized by fragmented and relatively competitive organizational structures. Likewise, the Brazilian metropolis is marked by economic dynamism and intense socio‐spatial and environmental contradictions. Much of the mainstream literature on metropolitan governance has emphasized a natural “optimum” scale for planning and management in city‐regions, articulated by public and private stakeholders aimed at the coordinated delivery of economic, social and environmental services. Combining the literature on new state spaces and critical Brazilian urban‐regional studies, this paper provides an alternative framework to understand the impasse of Brazilian metropolitan areas, which is grounded within a geo‐historic reading of the contradictory projects and strategies of the developmental state and the contested nature of metropolitan scale itself.     

A Long Way to Complexity: Nonlinear “Growth Stages” and Spatially Uncoordinated Settlement Expansion in a Compact City (Athens,Greece)

Recent urbanization trends reflect an increasing dependence on regional economic transformations, local population dynamics, and planning constraints, becoming intrinsically complex and nonlinear. Following this assumption, the present study proposes a new approach for the analysis of long-term urban expansion in a compact metropolitan region (Athens, Greece), clarifying the importance of spatial heterogeneity and volatility in building activity over more than one century. A spatially explicit statistical approach was used to define a development cycle reflecting the stratification of heterogeneous waves of compact and dispersed urbanization at municipal scale. While resulting in distinctive spatial patterns of building activity, long-term urban growth emerged as a multifaceted response to market stimuli, social change, and diversified territorial contexts. Results of a spatially explicit analysis of long-term urban expansion based on official statistics shed further light on processes of metropolitan growth and change, and contribute to design integrated strategies enhancing spatial coordination and a more balanced socioeconomic development of contemporary cities.     

REGIONAL PLANNING IN THE USSR

The theory and practice of drawing up and implementing regional plans, or “territorial plans,” as they are known in the Soviet Union, has been a matter of considerable debate in the Soviet literature, a debate that has been complicated by differences in terminology. The author discusses various Soviet definitions of “territorial planning” and points out disagreement concerning its nature and scope. The major forms of territorial planning as now practiced in the USSR are reviewed, and two forms in particular—regional economic planning and regional physical planning—are distinguished. It is concluded that territorial planning continues to have a somewhat uncertain status in the USSR, with inadequate official support, although the issue remains a matter of considerable interest to the leadership under the Gorbachev administration.     

Spatial Governance across Borders Revisited: Organizational Forms and Spatial Planning in Metropolitan Cross-border Regions

In Europe, cross-border cooperation in spatial planning has intensified in recent years. Organizations with varying institutional characteristics have emerged in urban areas that cross a national border. They deal with problems stemming from the cross-border situation. The institutional and spatial aspects of organizations on the sub-national level in nine European cross-border metropolitan regions are compared in this article. The analytical concept of metropolitan governance applied here takes into account the simultaneous existence of different cross-border organizations as well as their spatial and functional relationships. Subsequently, this article assesses the impact of governance on spatial planning in two cases, Basel and Lille, where institutional changes occurred on the sub-national level between 2000 and 2010. The way organizational and spatial attributes of new forms of cross-border metropolitan governance influence the coordination of spatial policies is discussed here. The comparison of organizational characteristics and capacity to coordinate reveals important differences. Furthermore, comparing spatial scales shows how new cross-border perimeters are drawn along existing national territories. Organizations' competences and interests are decisive for the coordination and implementation of spatial policies.     

Planning for sustainability in expansive metropolitan regions: exploring practices and planners’ expectations in Stockholm,Sweden

In Sweden, local and regional planning practices are faced with the challenge of managing rapid growth in expansive urban regions. However, spatial planning should also contribute to the fulfilment of formalized sustainability objectives and support sustainable development. This includes addressing cross-cutting sustainability issues that transcend established administrative and territorial boundaries. Thus, the management of sustainability issues requires attention from actors at different levels, and challenges how contemporary planning practices plan for development. Based in the expansive Stockholm region, this study explores the cross-level interaction in spatial planning and decision-making and planning practitioners’ experiences and apprehensions of contemporary municipal planning practices with a focus on statutory plans to achieve sustainability targets and objectives. The results show that municipal planning organizations are under pressure because of rapid urban expansion. It is concluded that the role, format and content of statutory as well as informal planning instruments are decisive for the cross-level interaction between planning levels. Moreover, planning instruments find new trajectories resulting in mismatches in expectations from planners at adjacent planning levels. This influences the interplay and preconditions for achieving national and regional sustainability targets and objectives.     

The development of metropolitan regions in Germany in light of the restructuring of the German states: two temporally overlapping discourses

The topics of the territorial structure of the German states and the strategic development of the metropolitan regions are at first glance two completely separate discourses. However, this paper demonstrates that the development of the metropolitan regions in Germany, supported by Federal Spatial Planning, has at least in some cases been influenced by the possibility of offering an alternative to state restructuring and that the metropolitan regions today continue to represent a basis for interstate cooperation. The in-depth observation of four cross-state metropolitan regions makes clear that different development paths have been followed. Thus, while certain metropolitan regions have distanced themselves from issues relevant to interstate cooperation, the examples of Hamburg and Berlin-Brandenburg show the value of metropolitan regions for cooperation between states and as an alternative to state restructuring.     

Beyond the divide: evaluation in co-evolutionary spatial planning

Spatial developments are becoming increasingly a-linear and dynamic with a wide range of possible actors. The awareness of uncertainty is growing and, therefore, projects need to integrate a high level of flexibility. But simultaneously, there is a growing demand for more informed and well-argued decisions. Predictions from the ‘best estimated model’ are no longer credible nor accepted, being too fragile and uncertain. How can we keep long-lasting, multi-actor projects in permanent transition on track? This expresses an important demand for more integrated evaluation in spatial planning. In this respect, this paper analyses existing theoretical evaluation strategies and how these strategies deal with spatial developments. They are still usually structured along static, generic and circular approaches; in fact, many neglect the dynamic, plural and a-linear realities. Therefore, this paper develops a post-structural evaluation approach for various planning issues and different playing fields of actors, followed by an illustration of the various settings for this approach in a Flemish case. Finally, we discuss how spatial planning and future plans might be evaluated with a dissipative role for evaluation.     

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.     

Towards the New Regionalism Approach in the Metropolitan Governance of Turkey

The Greater Municipality Law (no. 5216) was enacted in 2004 in order to coordinate the governance of metropolitan areas in Turkey. In fact, this law has been a part of the restructuring process of the government in public domain as well as of the centralization and metropolitan governance approaches. However, the evaluation of this law displays many conflicts and uncertainties discussed by this study. Analysing the Law no. 5216, this study explores the case of Izmir Greater Municipality from the aspects of metropolitan governance approaches. The study findings suggest that this law conflicts with the issues of functionality along with its definition of metropolitan area boundaries, has problems related to the boundaries, efficiency and incomes of the district municipalities, causes complexities about the distribution of authority between district municipalities and greater municipalities in an unbalanced structure of responsibility and authority for planning issues, and has uncertainties related to the principles of sustainable planning and participation processes.     

北美大都市区规划及其对珠江三角洲的启示

本文简要回顾了北美大都市区及大都市区规划的发展历程,重点讨论了当今大都市区规划的影响因素和力求解决的热点问题,并比较了未来大都市区规划的两种主要模式,最后提出了对于珠江三角洲大都市区规划的几点启示。     

Planning for Rural Housing in the Republic of Ireland: From National Spatial Strategies to Development Plans

This paper examines the role of spatial planning as a policy framework for managing rural housing within an integrated territorial development strategy. The paper focuses on the Republic of Ireland, which provides a useful case for analysing spatial planning and rural housing relationships, due to the State's recent shift towards spatial planning (formalized with the publication of the Irish National Spatial Strategy), as well as the level of housing construction that has been observed in an increasingly post-productivist countryside (triggered by counter-urbanization flows, increased affluence and demands for second holiday homes, etc.). The paper reviews all policy instruments that have been used to manage rural housing at various scales (from national strategies to local level development plans). It is argued that while spatial planning adopts an integrative vocabulary, as policy moves down the spatial scale hierarchy, multi-dimensional spatial goals are implemented through traditional, narrow land-use regulation. This often leads to rural housing being addressed in isolation from its wider social and economic context, disconnecting housing from wider rural community issues and ultimately failing to deliver a coordinated and coherent spatial policy for managing rural settlements.     

Communicative and participatory paradigm in the European territorial policies. A discourse analysis

Communicative planning has been widely criticized for having little to do with the official legal procedures and for low-quality spatial solutions. It has also been blamed to be an empty concept, referring to an action that in itself has no content. This critique gives ground to the question: what is actually the role of the communicative and participatory paradigm in contemporary territorial policies? In this paper, we adopt discourse analysis methods to study the European documents on spatial planning in their three characteristic strands: smart city, integrated planning and multilevel governance. By extracting eight core principles (governance, sustainability, communication, participation, resilience, innovation, cooperation and coordination), we measure the importance of the communicative and participatory paradigm in the current planning discourse in Europe. We find that despite critique it remains one of the fundamental building-blocks of the European territorial policy. Communicative planning principles are visibly present in all the analysed strands of spatial planning in Europe.     

21世纪国土规划的理论探讨

该文结合国土规划性质及地位的探讨,针对国土规划的特点,笔者认为,进行跨学科的综合研究是解决国土规划重大问题的现实途径,其中,国土资源安全理论和城乡融合理论以及动态规划理论等是进行国土规划的理论支柱。在此基础上,指出国土规划的目标应是一个多层次、多目标的目标组合,应采取理论指导、专家论证与实践相结合的技术路线,最后提出了未来国土规划的研究趋向。     

Building local nodes in a global sector: Clustering within the aeronautics industry in Montreal

This article analyzes the mechanisms through which metropolitan governance is established in Montreal's aeronautics sector, one of the most important and innovative industries in the region. The article also examines the role of lead firms, socio‐economic actors, and public agencies from a territorial point of view. It is established that on the one hand the existence of a small number of prime producers at the local level facilitates productive linkages among businesses through subcontracting, and on the other hand, the intensive participation of intermediate socio‐economic agencies and organizations ensures a metropolitan anchoring of the sector and creates a strong territorial identity among the players.     

Images as institution builders: Metropolitan planning in Madrid

This article chronicles recent changes in planning practice. It documents the rise of strategic planning and the move toward proactive planning centered on strategy, marketing, publicity and images. The author studies two cases. One is sub‐regional, of the ‘Great South’ of metropolitan Madrid. The other is regional, of the program ‘Madrid Metropolitan Region’. Planners created physical designs and rhetoric that encapsulated new images for the south and the entire metro area. The planners used the evoking image to craft the strategy, implement it, and build the institutions of regional planning and government. These cases suggest that external images (plans, photos) and internal images (in the mind's eye) are key to understanding how planning processes worked. It reveals the role images played in planning and political discourse, and how discourse was based on the image.     

New Spatial Patterns and Territorial–Administrative Structures in the European Union: Reflections on Eastern Europe

Abstract

Spatial patterns and territorial–administrative structures in Eastern Europe are a mix of historical?territorial path-dependencies influenced by the current path-creating policies. Since the early 2000s, the European Union (EU) policies, practices and challenges have concerned also Eastern Europe. This article discusses spatial patterns and territorial–administrative structures in theory, illustrates their practices and presents scenarios for their future in the EU contexts. The Europeanization of spatial policy and planning and the territorial–administrative structure harmonization are the key current trends. The transposition and implementation of the EU spatial policy mechanisms and practices in Eastern Europe are influenced by contextual path-dependent legacies and the uncertain long-term future of the EU. Conditionality as governmentality and relational regions open new perspectives to territorial dynamics in the EU and Eastern Europe.     

都市圈发展的新背景、新趋势及其规划响应

随着经济全球化的深入发展,城市之间的竞争日益加剧,城市发展越来越呈现出区域化特征,大都市成为了世界城市和城市化发展的主流。在这样的新背景之下,都市圈发展呈现出一些新的趋势,中心性进一步强化并出现多中心的新形式,空间扩散广域化并日趋连绵成片,区域进一步融合并且跨界发展明显。世界各主要都市圈的规划纷纷对这些新形势做出了响应,即以全球性、整体性的视角来审视都市圈发展所面临的问题,致力于形成多中心的空间结构,促进产业扩散与转移,对交通进行网络化整合,并建立类似都市圈政府的机构对都市圈规划进行管理。这些良好的经验可以作为我国都市圈理论研究和规划实践的有益借鉴。