The unexpected course of institutional innovation processes: inquiry into innovation processes in land development practices across europe

Abstract

Changes in planning practices can be explained from the prevailing theoretical juxtaposition of 'institutional design' and 'institutional evolution'; two schools of thought that are at the extremes of assumptions on modifi ability. The two extremes are considered to be inextricably linked to each other and cannot be separated; institutional design at a higher level highly infl uences institutional evolution at a lower level. In this paper we add the opposite direction of their interdependence. We found that small and sometimes even unexpected efforts of institutional design at a low level of scale can, when aggregated, result into an evolution of collective institutions at a higher level. We participated in a cooperative project between research and practice, which was established as an exchange project on innovation in land development. We investigated the genesis of institutional change in land development, which is a specifi c regional planning instrument. We analyzed 40 planning practices that were presented by land agencies from seven EU regions (Flanders, the Netherlands, North Rhine-Westphalia, Galicia, Portugal, Hungary, and Lithuania) as their most innovative ones. We studied the histories of 14 of them intensively, using grounded data gathered in visits, discussions, and in-depth interviews with key persons. We found great similarity across these 14 cases in terms of the distinctive patterns relating to local processes leading up to systemic innovations: seemingly small, local, often unexpected and unpredictable occurrences appeared to have set the process of innovation in motion. The evidence demonstrates the relevance of the landscape metaphor found in theories on Complex Adaptive Systems for understanding institutional change in planning practice.

Artificial Green Corridors Crossing Large Infrastructure in Metropolitan Areas

“…The planning process of the Craailo green bridge has been described in terms of the behaviour of a complex system. This coincides with earlier fi ndings in landuse planning [1][2][3][4][5], which helps to better understand complex land-use planning processes. The scheme of Fig.…”

“…2 has been developed based on the works of Prigogine [6] in chemistry and physics and Geldof [19] in water management [1]. As stated, the Complexity Theory ideas originally stem from chemistry and physics, but we adopted the Prigogine graph to build a model to understand complex land-use planning processes [1][2][3][4]. The use of the graph is common in transition [67] and innovation literature [33,34] and is used increasingly in land-use planning literature [58,68].…”

“…At the same time, many municipalities in the GNR area handed the authority of their natural and recreational areas over to the GNR (2). The GNR found itself with a much bigger natural territory, which was highly dissected by urban areas and large infrastructure (3). GNR had to change from conservation-oriented to nature development oriented, from highly fragmented territory into better-connected territory, and from only nature oriented to nature and recreation oriented.…”

“…In earlier articles [1][2][3][4], it was concluded that the outcome of complex land-use planning processes can be highly uncertain. Steady and balanced planning processes were described, along with the impact of pressure from new societal events and ideas.…”

Towards Enhanced Resilience in City Design: A Proposition

“…Complexity Theory is seen as a science enabling the gap between social and natural sciences to be bridged [17,[21][22][23][24]. Complexity Science has developed from studying closed systems to the study of open systems, including real-life situations, in a wide range of social sciences [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. The sudden unexpected change from one attractor into another, as well as aspects of dealing with the uncertainty of possible unexpected change, have been thoroughly examined.…”