The Place of 'Europe' in Contemporary Spatial Strategy Making

Abstract

Within Western Europe, there is currently a reemergence of strategic spatial planning at the urban region scale. These new exercises in making strategic plans are characterized by vigorous efforts to build cohesive alliances including new stakeholders, often accompanied by well developed spatial images which express the position of urban regions. Within the policy discourses surrounding these processes, the metaphor of 'Europe' is frequently called into play. This has been interpreted by many commentators as a sign of a 'marketing style' in spatial planning, a form of newly emerging 'entrepreneurial' governance practices. In this article, drawing on a study of innovation in spatial strategy making in Europe, it is argued that the metaphor reflects different conceptions of space, place and territory, and is being used to perform different kinds of organizational work.

The Form, Style, and Use of Cartographic Visualisations in European Spatial Planning: Examples from England and Germany

“…Surprisingly perhaps, not much research has been undertaken into the use of cartography in planning, and Jarvis (1994;quoted in Faludi, 1996) even commented that planning theory hardly touches`drawing' at all. More recently, however, there has been increasing interest in the potential role of spatial images in strategic planning, particularly in the Netherlands (Faludi, 1996;Zonneveld, 2000) and the United Kingdom (Healey, 1998;Healey et al, 1999). The use of cartographic visualisations in urban and city planning has also been given more attention.…”

The Europeanization of metropolitan regions from below: Comparing the European engagement of two archetypical metropolises

“…Second, the discursive relevance of Europe becomes visible in metropolitan strategies and policy programmes. In metropolitan strategies, Europe as ‘a powerful image’ (Healey, 1998: 152) appears symbolically relevant for both the internal development of the metropolitan region and its external relationships (Salet, 2007: 10). Thereby, the professionalization of internal and external information policy in the sense of regional marketing presents a potential field for developing a European dimension in metropolitan regions’ activities (Kunzmann, 2002: 343).…”

“…In the meantime, selected metropolitan regions intensified European strategies and engagement. Claims about the relevance of Europe for metropolitan regions range from presenting a symbolic metaphor in strategic plans (Healey, 1998) to developing an adaptational impact leading to the Europeanization of metropolitan policies. One can widely accept that ‘the dynamics of structural economic change associated with European integration impact on metropolitan regions in a complex variety of ways’ (Wilks-Heeg et al, 2003: 21).…”

Transnational Spatial Planning—Insights from Practices in the European Union

“…Much is made of the global -local relationship, and discourses that extend beyond the simple issue of scale (Healey, 1998). Thus the very notion that a European level of spatial planning should even exist stimulates critical and significant questions about the nature and scope of such activities (Bohme et al, 2004).…”