Integrated, adaptive and participatory spatial planning: trends across Europe

Abstract

Whether spatial planning systems are equipped to cope with contemporary regional and urban challenges is strongly dependent on their capacity to promote integration between policy sectors, to respond adaptively to changing societal and political conditions, and to involve and engage citizens in decision-making processes. This paper examines and compares how these capacities have evolved in European countries since the start of the 21st century. The findings indicate that many countries have made reforms to spatial planning with significant implications for their capacity to promote integrated, adaptive and collective planning decisions.

Conceptualizing the Policy Tools of Spatial Planning

“…Focusing on the use and calibration of different policy tools provides a useful and practical way of assessing long-term temporal trends in spatial planning. At present, detailed empirical information about trajectories of change remains relatively sparse, especially when it comes to recent comparative evidence (Nadin et al 2021). What is already known is that certain types of policy tools are being increasingly used across many countries while others are not.…”

“…While several recent studies have attempted to compare the governance of spatial planning in different contexts (e.g., Reimer, Getimis, and Blotevogel 2014; Knaap, Nedović-Budić, and Carbonell 2015; Schmitt and Van Well 2016; Nadin et al 2018), very few offer a detailed examination of policy tools. As discussed below, some of the basic ideas about the nature of policy tools can vary substantially.…”

“…Two related studies provide quite a different interpretation of planning tools than the one offered by Leshinsky and Legacy: “The EU compendium of spatial planning systems and policies” (European Commission 1997), which was commissioned and published by the European Commission; and the “Comparative Analysis of Territorial Governance and Spatial Planning Systems in Europe”, which was commissioned and published by ESPON EGTC (Nadin et al 2018). Both reports present comparative reviews of spatial planning systems and policies across EU member states at two different points in time separated by two decades.…”

“…In common with “The EU compendium of spatial planning systems and policies,” the “Comparative Analysis of Territorial Governance and Spatial Planning Systems in Europe” also discusses spatial planning instruments primarily as different types of plans (Nadin et al 2018), as illustrated in Table 3. Clearly, the names of the different types tools contained in Tables 2 and 3, as well as the descriptions of their purpose, are similar.…”

“…The governance of urban and regional planning (or spatial planning) has been analyzed and compared in a number of recent publications, each of which has highlighted the diversity of planning practices and approaches depending on specific social, economic, environmental, and social contexts (e.g., Knaap, Nedović-Budić, and Carbonell 2015; Reimer, Getimis, and Blotevogel 2014; Schmitt and Van Well 2016; Nadin et al 2018). A relatively underdeveloped feature of this literature is the types of policy tools that are used (or could potentially be used) for spatial planning.…”