Strategic Spatial Planning Research Articles

Governing ‘places that don’t matter’: agonistic spatial planning practices in Finnish peripheral regions

ABSTRACT Economic geographer Andrés Rodríguez-Pose argued recently that declining peripheries are increasingly becoming ‘places that don’t matter’ in the formation or implementation of national or European Union (EU) regional policies. In turn, this might result in a triumph of populist anti-establishment movements in peripheries, posing a threat to well-being in both the prospering and the declining regions. We argue that ‘places that don’t matter’ also exist in Finland, a country that has a long tradition of regional policy and equalizing welfare schemes. Our focus is on administration rather than politics, however. We look at the Finnish peripheral regions of Kainuu and Lapland, discussing the practices of spatial planners, who influence and implement EU and national regional policies in these regions. We ask how strategic spatial planning in Kainuu and Lapland is affected by the revengeful and antagonistic attitudes towards the ‘elites’ who, allegedly, are not directing a sufficient amount of attention to the peripheries. We look at the planning practices and institutional settings within which they work from the perspective of agonistic planning theory, asking whether and how spatial planners can turn the antagonistic and potentially revengeful attitudes into productive forces that could positively affect spatial development in these regions.

Стратегическое пространственное планирование: макрорегионы и субъекты Российской Федерации

Стратегическое пространственное планирование: макрорегионы и субъекты Российской Федерации

Strategic spatial planning through pragmatic blueprints: Forms and levels of adaptivity in modernist planning of the Dutch IJsselmeerpolders

Strategic spatial planning is a governance practice pursuing coordinated improvement of mobility, housing, food production and other functions with a spatial impact. The institutions in this practice marry long-term thinking in the light of societal challenges with strategic action. These activities are intertwined, visionary and pragmatic at the same time.The currently prevalent association within strategic planning of long-term polical determination with rigid, top-down blueprints has prompted reduced national and regional planning efforts in the Netherlands and other European countries. Adaptivity and resilience within planning processes are promoted as novel and more suitable ways of steering spatial conditions within societies today. Adaptive is defined as 'being open for reconsideration'. Choices that were considered good yesterday, may need to be reconsidered tomorrow.The notion of adaptivity in planning, and the desirability of it, needs more nuance. Because, (1) Do changing long-term perspectives imply a need for adaptivity in the strategies used? (2) To which precise aspects of deliberate strategies can adaptivity apply? (3) Does the pursuit of adaptivity require a new planning approach, as is often claimed?We applied these questions within a critical case study: the creation of the Dutch IJsselmeerpolders, prototypes of rigid rather than adaptive planning, a strategy pursued for over 50 years. Despite radically shifting long-term perspectives, the governance practice of plan-making appears to have been capable of serving evolving purposes. Within this masterplanned mega-project we identify five forms of adaptivity associated with different geographical and time scales.We conclude that an enduring strategic governance effort can support shifting long-term perspectives when it is applied pragmatically with regard to selected topics. Rigidity and adaptivity are equally indispensable and inevitable for strategic action.

The compliance of land-use planning with strategic spatial planning – insights from Zurich, Switzerland

ABSTRACT Although many planning systems are based on a combination of traditional land-use planning and strategic spatial planning, the interplay between the two approaches remains insufficiently investigated. Focusing on the Canton of Zurich, we applied a qualitative content analysis to extract strategic planning intentions from the Cantonal Structure Plan (1995). We quantitatively analysed the compliance of changes in municipal land-use plans between 1996 and 2016 concerning the extracted planning intentions. The overall low rate of changes was accompanied by few active contradictions of land-use planning. Minor deviations from the strategic plan were seen in the spatial allocation of new building zones. Considering the socio-economic dynamics of the region, surprisingly few changes were detected regarding the permitted building density for residential and mixed-use areas. This leads us to the conclusion that the Cantonal Structure Plan (1995) was very successful in quantitatively limiting the expansion of building zones. However, it showed a limited active steering capacity regarding their allocation and the regulation of building density. Our analysis showed that margins of discretion play a key role in multi-level planning systems, balancing flexibility for locally adapted solutions against statutory boundaries to prevent their misuse, as such they need to be considered in planning evaluation.

Правовое регулирование стратегического пространственного и территориального планирования

Правовое регулирование стратегического пространственного и территориального планирования

Strategic spatial planning and efficacy: an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach in Lyon and Copenhagen

ABSTRACT Strategic spatial planning has been a key planning practice at the urban regional level to support the implementation of local spatial transformations. Previously, qualitative comparative research has revealed the complexity that characterizes strategic spatial planning processes; it is multi-faceted, highly context-dependent and embedded in multi-level governance configurations. However, to date, little effort has been made to quantitatively evaluate the ‘planning efficacy’ of strategic spatial planning processes comparatively, i.e. to investigate the extent to which strategic spatial plans facilitate or hinder the local implementation of concrete development strategies in different contexts. In this paper, we evaluate the planning efficacy of strategic spatial planning processes by applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in the urban regions of Lyon, France and Copenhagen, Denmark. Analytically, we employ a set of components capturing the governance performance and the impact of external forces that are assumed to contextually influence the efficacy of strategic planning. Our analysis shows that a quantitative approach such as the AHP, is a useful way to compare strategic spatial planning across urban regions.

The Power of Collaborative Planning: How a Health and Planning Collaboration Facilitated Integration of Health Goals in the 30-Year Plan for Greater Adelaide

ABSTRACT This article examines the relationship between theories of urban governance, strategic planning and collaborative planning and the preparation of a strategic spatial plan for the greater Adelaide region. In particular, it analyses the extent to which health professionals involved in the collaborative processes used to formulate the plan were able to advocate for health-related objectives. The analysis was undertaken using data collected in interviews with actors directly involved in the collaborative processes that produced the plan. Interview responses were analysed to understand how factors that can derail or conversely facilitate successful collaborative planning processes were dealt with.

The Role of Organizational Culture on Faculty Members’ Reformation

Introduction: The experts emphasize the importance of organizational culture in relation to development and the specialized and needed human resources of the various departments are trained by the higher education sector. Strengthening and developing universities, especially their faculty members, is of paramount importance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of organizational culture in faculty members’ development. Methods: In the present study, Delphi technique has been used as a separate method in the qualitative stage for achieving the main goals and developing the components of the variables. And a survey method used to reach the secondary goal and validating the organizational culture on faculty reformation of Islamic Azad university - khorasan Razavi , different branches. statistical population included 1200 faculty members and 291 were determined as final sample size Data were collected through two questionnaires of organizational culture and faculties’ reformation with Likert five-point scale. Structural equation modelings in AMOS software were used to test the research hypotheses. Results: The analysis showed that the impact coefficient of organizational culture on faculty members' reformation was 0.57 and the influential components of organizational culture were mission (2.35), job involvement (2.55) and adjustment (1.20). The most important of these components was the engagement. Conclusion: From the present study concluded that strong organizational culture can influence staffs’ obligation and improve behavioral stability therefore, in strategic spatial planning components of organizational culture on faculty development include mission, engagement, and adaptation, the most important of which were engagement. It is suggested formulation of a cultural effectiveness strategy be optimally considered for the transformation and excellence of faculty members.

Networked dynamics of knowledge integration in strategic spatial planning processes: a social network approach

ABSTRACT Planning processes guiding sustainable urban futures are typically complex, non-linear and value-laden, but their knowledge dynamics are still not adequately understood. This paper explores the potential of social network analysis (SNA) as a part of mixed-method approach for analysing the dynamic social context of knowledge integration in planning processes. The empirical study uses detailed longitudinal data of a four-year statutory planning process in the Nordic context, providing a methodological contribution for understanding knowledge integration in planning with visual–analytical methods and actor-relational criteria. Findings provide a new understanding of the actual social realities of planning practice and the further conceptualization of situated process dynamics.

Evaluating Hong Kong’s Spatial Planning in New Towns From the Perspectives of Job Accessibility, Travel Mobility, and Work–Life Balance

Problem, research strategy, and findings: From the 1970s to the 1990s, the Hong Kong government developed several new towns to alleviate pressure on contemporary urban areas and provide housing for a rapidly growing population. Although self-containment is a key objective in building new towns, no research has assessed residents’ behavioral outcomes, limiting the objective assessment of the spatial planning of new towns. In this study, we hypothesize that adequate job accessibility would offer residents shorter commutes and hence more time for noncommute travel and activities and better work–life balance. Drawing on census and household travel survey data, we assess the spatial planning of new towns by investigating the effects of job accessibility on commute and noncommute travel durations. We find that a) there is a disparity in self-containment and access to job opportunities between these towns and urban areas, b) job accessibility strongly influences commute duration, and c) prolonged commutes can reduce noncommute travel duration, particularly for public transportation users, suggesting that this may harm work–life balance for workers with long commutes.Takeaway for practice: Building a self-contained new town requires strategic spatial planning and a concrete plan to develop the local economy. To cultivate local employment, planners should develop a regional plan that differentiates main industries in different new towns. A good starting point would be a thorough understanding of the history, spatial distribution of existing industries and firms, and skills of local workers in these towns. We recommend more proactive efforts to a) establish more self-contained new town communities, b) relocate jobs in certain sectors (e.g., government offices) to new towns, c) strengthen an integrated transit system, and d) adopt alternative work schedules (e.g., telecommuting, flexible work hours) in certain industries to relieve commute burdens, improving both commute experience and work–life balance.

Spatial plans as relational data: Using social network analysis to assess consistency among Bucharest’s planning instruments

Globally, planning instruments help shape the development of places under uncertain future conditions. In the context of a multi-level planning system, both land-use and strategic spatial plans are available, mandated by different policies and adopted by various authorities. Notwithstanding the excellent support consistency among such plans can provide for their transformative capacity, studies analyzing how plans interact, forming complex relationships, are rare. Treating plans as relational data gives insights into the outcomes acquired by a network compared to the transformations enabled by a single plan. As the theory of networks prevails for handling relational data, we applied social network analysis to evaluate external consistency among 10 plans of Bucharest, Romania and the surrounding region. All plans are currently in force, have spatial implications, and refer to different administrative levels and sectors, from the metropolitan to the sub-district level and from land-use and transportation to environmental plans. We first developed a framework for consistency assessment, covering four categories of external consistency. Second, following these categories, we extracted relevant plan statements from all plans. Third, we assigned one-way, symmetrical and contradictory relationships between the plan statements. Fourth, using directed and valued network analyses we assessed consistencies, inconsistencies and contradictions between plans. Finally, we validated the results by applying questionnaires to local experts. Our results indicate that consistency among Bucharest’s plans is high on a temporal scale regarding issues and general measures, but low for spatialized planning intentions on both vertical and horizontal scales. We discuss consequences of these findings for the transformative capacity of plans and the effectiveness of plan-implementation.

Tensions in city-regional spatial planning: the challenge of interpreting layered institutional rules

ABSTRACT The paper studies city-regional spatial planning from an institutional perspective. It applies theories of discursive institutionalism and gradual institutional change to analyse the dialectics of spatial planning and governance between discursively constructed city-regions and the pre-existing regional and local institutional territories. A strained dialectical relationship emerges when city-regional strategic spatial planning is instituted as a supplementary programmatic layer onto the existing strongly regulatory statutory planning, yet leaving intact its deeply institutionalized core-level meaning. Through the case study of the Kotka-Hamina city-region of Finland, the paper explores a situated city-regional attempt to overcome these tensions and generate policy-level change by blending the layered rules and reinterpreting their meaning.

‘Artefactual anchoring’ of strategic spatial planning as persuasive storytelling

This article examines the coordinative capacity of strategic spatial planning conducted as persuasive storytelling. It suggests that spatial imaginaries and metaphors developed in storytelling gain coordinative capacity when they perform as boundary objects. Boundary objects are conceptually flexible to lend themselves to the stakeholders’ varying interpretations, and artefactually robust to provide joint targets and tools for coordinated strategic action. This is demonstrated with the example of Aalborg, Denmark, where the spatial imaginary of the ‘growth axis’ and the associated boundary object of the light rail transit/bus rapid transit spine have played important communicative and coordinative roles in the city’s spatial strategy of transitioning from an industrial city to a knowledge and culture city. The aim of the Aalborg example is to illustrate the feasibility and relevance of the theoretical approach, developed in the article, for future case research.

Does landscape play a role in strategic spatial planning of European urban regions?

Cities and urban regions have become central to ensuring a sustainable future. Many regions employ strategic spatial planning, a transformative and integrative public-sector-led activity, to create a coherent spatial development strategy in order to pursue sustainable development. Due to its encompassing, cross-sectoral qualities, landscape science is expected to strengthen nature-related aspects of urban planning. The aim of this paper is thus to assess the role of landscape in contemporary strategic spatial planning. This study is based on content analysis of the strategic spatial plans of 18 European urban regions. Plans were assessed following a framework that focuses on how plans took advantage of landscape’s integrative power, how plans are based in knowledge on functioning of landscape systems, and how plans show the contribution of landscapes to human well-being. The findings show that landscape science contributes considerably to strategic planning. Overall, the strategic plans of European urban regions had a strong anthropocentric perspective on landscapes. Most of the plans are based on knowledge about landscape functioning and show the contribution of landscapes to human well-being. However, only few use the full potential of the integrative power of landscapes in terms of governance processes. Based on our analysis, we identified research needs and suggested recommendations for future strategic planning with the aim of strengthening nature-related aspects in strategic spatial planning.

Implementation pathways of large-scale urban development projects (lsUDPs) in Western Europe: a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA)

ABSTRACT As powerful landmarks to steer local and regional development, strategic projects are often linked with strategic spatial plans. However, the key question remains as to what extent strategic urban projects and plans can be regarded as aligned. By building on previous international comparative research, we identify five main conditions assumed to enable, in combination, the alignment between strategic projects and plans. By adopting a qualitative, multi-method empirical strategy (interviews, site visits, online questionnaire, additional literature) and by performing fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fs-QCA), we compare 38 European large-scale urban development projects (lsUDPs) and assess which combinations of conditions support concordance of the projects with strategic spatial plans (SSPs). Our analysis shows that there are five pathways, factored out into two main patterns, enabling alignment. Substantial variation in our cases appears to be captured by: (i) considerable involvement of the national state combined with (inter)national private actors and (ii) a considerable involvement of private actors combined with international external events.

A Geodesign Decision Support Environment for Integrating Management of Resource Flows in Spatial Planning

Improving waste and resource management entails working on interrelations between different material flows, territories and groups of actors. This calls for new decision support tools for translating the complex information on flows into accessible knowledge usable by stakeholders in the spatial planning process. This article describes an open source tool based on the geodesign approach, which links the co-creation of design proposals together with stakeholders, impact simulations informed by geographic contexts, systems thinking, and digital technology—the Geodesign Decision Support Environment. Though already used for strategic spatial planning, the potential of geodesign for waste management and recycling is yet to be explored. This article draws on empirical evidence from the pioneering application of the tool to promote spatially explicit circular economy strategies in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area.

The Spatial Development Framework to facilitate urban management in countries with weak planning systems

ABSTRACTThere is an urgent need to develop strategic spatial planning methods adapted to the conditions of countries with weak planning systems facing rapid urbanization. These methods should allow evaluating the territorial qualities of the system of cities and to meaningfully guiding the implementation of national urban policies or strategies. In this context, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UNHabitat) has developed the Spatial Development Framework (SDF) method, which is presented here for the first time, after having been tested in different countries. The SDF method helps to develop an understanding of the roles and inter-linkages of various urban settlements in the territory and to frame the territorial structure in a context of fluidity and uncertainty typical of countries facing uncontrolled urbanization. The method is then discussed and conclusions for the way forward are drawn.

The Strategic Incrementalism of Lahti Master Planning: Three Lessons

ABSTRACTThe city of Lahti, Finland, has developed a unique policy of combining city strategy work with strategic master planning in an iterative process. It thereby offers insights to research on strategic spatial planning, exemplifying how institutional frameworks of statutory planning can be utilized as resources in strategic planning. Three lessons from the Lahti case are drawn: (1) utilize the moments of opportunity in the institutional environment of statutory planning, (2) shift the focus from the level of ‘strategic plans’ to the policy level of strategy work, (3) develop strategic planning as a platform for diverse ‘languages’.

Landscape as Connecting Link of Nature and Culture: Spatial Planning Policy Implications in Greece

The research paper investigates the diverse understandings of “landscape”, along with demonstrating the modes of contribution of the European Landscape Convention (ELC) of the Council of Europe (CE) in influencing national spatial planning systems. The paper, interested in considering the efficiency of landscape policy from a territorial perspective, briefly outlines the perception and understanding of landscape as connecting link of nature and culture and conducts a literature review with the aim to support the prospect of a «European model of landscape planning». Lastly, it critically examines the approach to landscape planning and management by the Greek state, revealing the catalytic role of the Council of Europe (CE) in activating the dimension of landscape in Greece, in a mutualistic perspective between environmental policy and spatial planning, mainly through strategic spatial planning tools (i.e., the Regional Spatial Plans, RSPs). The results point out that (a) the ELC gave new impetus to spatial planning in Greece, providing the tool to manage and coordinate landscape policy, positively influencing the evolving spatial planning paradigm; (b) the decentralized approach adopted, identified landscapes of particular value at a regional level, so as to be given priority in terms of the implementation of coordinated governance arrangements and management actions. However, the implementation of landscape policy continues to rely on the underlying spatial planning level (Local Spatial Plans, Special Spatial Plans) and a general conclusion is that both on land and on sea, it depends on the incorporation of evolutionary trends in planning including an evolutionary perspective for landscape itself, viewed as a complex social-ecological system.

Introducing business regions in Denmark: The ‘businessification’ of strategic spatial planning?

This paper explores the driving forces behind the promotion of new soft spaces of territorial governance in Denmark at the scale of city regions, the so-called business regions. We interpret the emergence of business regions as outcomes of the most recent round of reterritorialisation in Denmark, producing new spaces for promoting neoliberal policy agendas of competitiveness, job creation and economic growth. We argue that the business regions should not only be understood as products of neoliberalisation, but also as spaces of neoliberal experimentation, contributing to the normalisation of policy agendas of job creation and business development as taken-for-granted planning objectives. We conclude that the new business regions emerging at the scale of city regions constitute new political spaces for reworking the Danish planning culture in the context of neoliberalism. We suggest that this development can be conceptualised as a ‘businessification’ of strategic spatial planning.