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Metropolitan areas have a growing need for better connections with inter-urban green areas, which are better dissected by large infrastructure networks. This chapter analyses the planning process of the green Craailo bridge in the Netherlands, the world's largest artifi cial and a very expensive nature bridge. The planning process appears to have been far from linear. In fact, many incidents, sudden changes and unexpected opportunities were evident during the planning process, not described in common planning literature. The complexity perspective and planning process of the Craailo bridge were analysed based on several policy documents that were scrutinised, along with 19 interviews conducted with key players. A new perspective on highly complex planning processes in the spatial planning practice was introduced as a fi nal result of this research.

In this paper, a method is developed to identify a typology of interrelated landscapes in the urban-rural realm, in order to describe the connection between landscape characteristics, natural environment characteristics and ecological strategies, finally translated into spatial planning styles. This interrelated complex of physical, social and managerial concepts may at first seem unusual, but the authors are convinced that this approach provides a useful insight. That one of the great challenges for planners today is to connect the best of two worlds: the one actually focussing on differentiation in governance style in the field of planning concepts, as well the one focussing the debate on landscape ecology on connectivity in spatial structures as the key towards sustainability in both nature development and sustainable urban planning.