Definitive Space – Fuzzy Responsibility The 29th Annual International Association of European Schools of Planning conference, Prague, 13–16 July 2015

Abstract

IntroductionThe Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) was established in 1987 in Belgium and is the largest European association bringing together academics working in the field of spatial planning and urbanism. It is the only representation of planning schools in Europe. The association organises several activities, such as summer schools, PhD workshops, the online In Planning platform, thematic groups, lecture series and the cooperation with the AESOP Young Academics Network. Its core activity and biggest event is the annual conference. Traditionally, the AESOP conference is held in July and is hosted by one of the member universities. This year we all gathered in the capital city of the Czech Republic, Prague. The conference lasted for four full days, from Monday 13 to Thursday 16 July 2015.The conference themeThe main theme of the 2015 conference was 'Definitive Space - Fuzzy Responsibility'. This theme is in line with the previous conference themes of Dublin 2013 'Planning for Resilient Cities and Regions' and of Utrecht 2014 'From Control to Co-Evolution'. The conference theme is chosen to address the current ongoing evolution and change of the former public control on spatial affairs towards more bottom-up initiatives today. Countless good practice examples affirmed the endless possibilities these new driving forces can achieve. However, the sense of responsibility hardly overstepped the domain of city halls and ministries. The diverse initiatives on the one hand and the still centralised responsibility on the other led to the current gap between sprawled power and the blurred sense of responsibility.Spatial planning as an instrument for urban and regional management is supposed to overcome these obstacles. However, the main problem is that the spatial planning process itself was affected. The former hierarchic control by state and local governments is now replaced by a shared and dissolved control. The public- private partnership projects led to a situation where it is not clear who has to take responsibility in spatial affairs. Cities and regions are still seen as the actors who are responsible, but the predominance of outsourcing-related activities is preventing this. Therefore, the question these days is how spatial planning can deal with these new relations between actors, spatial developments and responsibility; hence, the theme of the AESOP conference 2015: 'Definite Space - Fuzzy Responsibility'.The opening eventOn Monday 13 July, the congress started with a small pre-congress before the official opening event. This pre-congress comprised different thematic groups, special sessions and roundtables. The thematic groups are long-established working groups on specific theoretical research themes. They are established to create a more effective platform for debate and discussion among AESOP members and many thematic groups organise one of their meetings during the main conference. After a short break, ten round tables were organised around specific theoretical and practical research topics. Everyone was invited to take part with a short presentation or by discussion. As expected, many of these round tables resulted in very interesting and dynamic discussions.After this 'warm-up' part of the conference, the opening ceremony (Figure 1) was convened in the beautiful Bethlehem Chapel in the city centre, presided by Prof. Karel Maier (Czech Technical University Prague) and AESOP President Prof. Francesco Lo Piccolo (University of Palermo).The opening ceremony lasted for four hours. These four hours were filled up with four keynote lectures chosen to fit in with the conference theme. The first keynote speaker was Prof. Erik Swyngedouw (Manchester University). The title of his presentation was 'Insurgent planners and the spectral return of the political in the post-democratic city'. He focused on the current 'Jan Hus-thinkers'1 who are questioning the present political democratic structures, but are not welcomed by current political leaders. …