There is extensive literature on the agency of actors in urban and regional planning which draws on a wide range of theoretical lenses and concepts. One of the recurring themes is the relationship ...between agency and structure—the mutual interdependence between individual actions and collective institutions, rules, and norms. This article provides a narrative overview of the wide range of literature on agency and structure in relation to spatial planning clustered around six interrelated themes: institutions, discretion, pragmatism, networks, leadership, and emotions. It identifies new avenues for research, paying particular attention to empirical, scalar, and methodological issues.
This article analyses the academic concept of “soft spaces” from the perspective of traveling planning ideas. The concept has its origin in the United Kingdom but has also been used in other ...contexts. Within European Union policy-making, the term soft planning has emerged to describe the processes of cooperation and learning with an unclear relation to planning. In the Nordic countries, soft spaces are viewed as entangled with the logics of statutory planning, posing challenges for policy delivery and regulatory planning systems. This article highlights the conceptual evolution of soft spaces, specifically acknowledging contextual influences and the changing relation with statutory planning.
ABSTRACTIn the face of the climate crisis, cities have committed to ambitious sustainability targets. The UN Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a globally shared ...language for decision-makers and policymakers regarding their sustainability objectives. Espoo, Finland’s second-largest city, has become a pioneer in implementing the Agenda, not least due to its recent nomination as ‘Europe’s most sustainable city’. This article investigates the use of the Agenda in strategic governance in Espoo with the aim to identify challenges and opportunities of SDG localisation. Although the Agenda has affected many aspects of policymaking in Espoo and ambitions have been high to shine as an SDG pioneer, a systematic integration of sustainability concerns into policymaking is not yet achieved. Moreover, there is a need to question the reliance of the Agenda framework on the ecological modernisation paradigm, which does not see economic growth and ecological sustainability at odds.
Despite continuous research efforts, the role of the European Union regarding spatial planning remains unclear. This article proposes to employ the concepts of soft spaces and soft planning to better ...comprehend how European spatial planning finds its way into the national planning systems. The EU contributes to the creation of soft spaces, differing from administrative entities, while at the same time, it acts as a driver of soft planning, focusing– both for strategic and legal reasons – on coordination, cooperation and mutual learning, rather than ‘hard’, regulatory planning. The article claims further that instead of depicting the connections between the EU and its member states, research should pay increased attention to the encounter of European and domestic planning within a country. The scales, actors and instruments that deal with EU inputs within a country might prove to be crucial factors that ultimately determine the impact of EU policies on spatial planning. To illustrate the encounter of European and domestic planning in the light of soft and hard planning, the article introduces a conceptual framework and thereby provides an outline for further empirical research.
The potential of city regions to frame spatial development is widely acknowledged, and lately increasingly supported by top-down policy interventions. This article investigates and compares national ...city-regional policies in Finland and Austria. Owing to differences in their administrative systems, planning traditions and political agendas, the two countries rely on a distinct set of policy interventions. Moreover, the article addresses city-regional policies originating from the European Union and discusses their overlap and complementarity with national initiatives. The three cases provide examples of regulatory, discursive and remunerative policy interventions, which either explicitly or implicitly support city-regional cooperation. The plurality of interventions confirms the understanding of city regions as soft spaces, in which there is no single ideal approach to governance and planning. Instead, city-regional cooperation can be understood as diverse and multi-layered processes, which might require a plurality of policy responses.
At the latest since the argumentative turn, the crucial importance of language, narratives and discourses in the field of planning and policy-making is widely acknowledged. This can be particularly ...important for European spatial planning, for which the European Union (EU) does not have any formal competence. Thus, instead of enacting directives or regulations, the EU and its member states release legally non-binding documents, which contain ideas and objectives relevant to planning. In these documents, certain storylines can be identified, for example, regarding sustainability, balanced development and competitiveness. This article argues that there is another storyline, advocating the reduction of borders and the creation of new, soft spaces across Europe, such as city regions, cross-border regions or macro-regions. If picked up by national or sub-national actors, this storyline can play a crucial role in contributing to establish the legitimacy that soft spaces often lack. Based on empirical findings from the city region of Graz in Austria, the article aims to identify the elements of a discourse coalition, i.e. what the EU does to support soft spaces, who the actors reproducing the storyline are and how the storyline supports soft planning in practice.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
At the European level, several strategic documents concerned with spatial and urban development have been published during the last decades. While these documents are essential to communicate ...European ideas and objectives, they are often regarded least influential in practice due to their abstract nature, legally non-binding status and lack of allocated resources. Though these limitations apply to the EU Urban Agenda, this recently published policy paper introduces partnerships as a new implementation tool. The partnerships can be regarded as innovative in two respects: On the one hand, they involve new actors, most importantly cities, in European policy debates. On the other hand, they ensure the anchorage of the Urban Agenda with a broad range of actors at various spatial scales without challenging its legally non-binding status. The Urban Agenda can thus be understood as another example of the move towards soft European spatial planning and urban development. This article investigates the notion of partnership as a soft planning and governance tool within the Urban Agenda. Moreover, based on expert interviews, it presents early opinions and expectations of actors involved in the development of the Urban Agenda and the partnerships on affordable housing.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The enticement of the ESDP Purkarthofer, Eva
Transactions of the Association of European Schools of Planning,
12/2020, Letnik:
4, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The impact of European policies strongly depends on their interpretation and application by domestic actors. This is especially true in fields such as European spatial planning and development, which ...are characterised by informal agreements and fragmented competences. Consequently, EU policies only gain importance if domestic actors consider them relevant and establish links to their respective areas of influence. The European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) is often regarded as a success story in European spatial planning and is relatively well known among planners across Europe. The Territorial Agenda documents, often considered successors to the ESDP, have not been met with the same enthusiasm and interest. This contribution uses the concept of storytelling to explain why the ESDP was at least partly successful in appealing to planners. Moreover, it discusses the role and importance of planning education in fostering interest in European spatial development.
The enticement of the ESDP Eva Purkarthofer
Transactions of the Association of European Schools of Planning,
12/2020, Letnik:
4, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The impact of European policies strongly depends on their interpretation and application by domestic actors. This is especially true in fields such as European spatial planning and development, which ...are characterised by informal agreements and fragmented competences. Consequently, EU policies only gain importance if domestic actors consider them relevant and establish links to their respective areas of influence. The European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) is often regarded as a success story in European spatial planning and is relatively well known among planners across Europe. The Territorial Agenda documents, often considered successors to the ESDP, have not been met with the same enthusiasm and interest. This contribution uses the concept of storytelling to explain why the ESDP was at least partly successful in appealing to planners. Moreover, it discusses the role and importance of planning education in fostering interest in European spatial development.
This article introduces the AESOP Thematic Group “Transboundary Planning and Governance” and its recent organisational and thematic changes. It also scans recent research from the viewpoint of two ...interlinked key dimensions of transboundary planning and governance: scale and scope. By doing so, the article aims to highlight promising research perspectives related to transboundary and integrated planning, crossing administrative borders and siloes respectively. This is especially relevant with a view to the multiple crises society is currently facing. To date, transboundary planning and governance is often portrayed through the challenges it is facing. However, as this article argues, there is a need to move forward and focus on how the transboundary setting – often more flexible and malleable than other governance contexts – can make a contribution to address current crises.
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