Conference report: The 4th Conference of the International Academic Association on Planning, Law and Property Rights, Dortmund, 2010

Abstract

Some 120 academics in the fields of planning, planning law, real estate and property rights gathered in Dortmund from 10 to12 February 2010. Well-prepared for the snow, ice and cold after previous Planning, Law and Property Rights (PLPR) February conferences in Amsterdam, Warsaw and Aalborg, they not only took the opportunity to learn more about the latest research developments in their fields, but also to experience the city of Dortmund, in the Ruhr Area - a focus of the 2010 European Capital of Culture. With the Conference badge came unlimited use of the public transport U-bahn, providing easy access to the conference venue at Dortmund's south campus, and a chance to explore the city, taking into account a warning from Ben Davy, TU Dortmund's local host, that anyone wearing a tie during carnival time risked having it cut off! The Ruhrgebiet: European Capital of Culture 2010 The well-known School of Spatial Planning of the Technological University of Dortmund, one of the largest and most highly respected schools in Germany and beyond, was a perfect choice for the conference. According to Walter Grunzweig, the Vice President of TU Dortmund, who inaugurated the conference, the school plays an important role within the University, linking an engineering school with the social and cultural sciences. He also explained that the TU Dortmund itself, founded some 40 years ago, was intended as a basis for a restructured economy and society, replacing 'old' industries viewed as unlikely to survive (Grunzweig, 2010). Reflecting the self-criticism that is characteristic of the Ruhr, Grunzweig dedicated a Ginsberg poem to the conference. The local host committee, Ben Davy, Thomas Hartmann, Gabi Zimmermann, Katharina Schmidt and Heinz Kobs, took the opportunity to educate the delegates on the unexpected experiences of the Ruhr in their welcome address, which was followed by a presentation by two bachelors' students, Mareike Lammert and Julian Nolte, on land and water in India, as an example of student research studies in Dortmund. The opening plenary session was concluded by Professor Michael Wegener (Spiekermann & Wegener Urban and Regional Research) who gave a keynote on the challenge of planning for sustainability in the Ruhr. He questioned the trend from 'government' to 'governance' from the viewpoint of sustainable spatial development. According to Wegener, 'in a situation in which long-term ecological challenges, such as climate change and energy scarcity, are likely to exceed the problem solving capacity of democratic decision structures, these need to be strengthened rather than further weakened' (Wegener, 2010, 1). The evolution of the International Academic Association In the opening plenary, and during dinner on the second day in the Rohrmeisterei Swerte, located in an old pump station with a late nineteenth century industrial flair, the outgoing, but founding president of the International Academic Association on Planning, Law and Property Rights (PLPR), Rachelle Alterman (Technion, Israel), reminisced about PLPR's founding process. After discussions at the AESOP Congress in Aveiro in1998, the first track was organised during AESOP's meeting in Bergen, 1999, around barely a handful of papers. Over the last 12 years, this group has matured and grown into a free-standing academic society with over 250 members, from Europe and other continents, its own statutes and a website.1 The increasing number of participants demonstrates the extent to which PLPR meets a range of growing needs in the field of planning, law and property rights. Given the level of enthusiasm amongst its members, it is to be expected that the group will grow and mature even further over the next decades. Paper sessions Some 93 papers were presented in 21 sessions at the 4th PLPR conference in Dortmund.2 While the papers focused on the relation between planning and law, some came from a legal perspective, others came from a planning perspective; all, however, had been approved in a double-blind review process. …