Spatial planning and Governance

The future of the Dutch planning system

Planning has lost its technocratic aura. Planning proposals are bitterly contested in the political arena. Central government has adjusted its policy ambitions and distanced itself from once well established national think tanks.  Criticisms are expressed in the press, the body politic and in the community of planning professionals. The emerging debate about heart and soul of Dutch spatial planning doctrine touches upon substantive and methodical questions. Substantive issues pertain to the operationalization of core concepts such as ‘sustainability’, ‘spatial and environmental quality’, ‘liveability’ and ‘regional identity’ and the corresponding metaphors and spatial concepts in use. Concepts such as  Randstad, urban networks, corridors and mainports – are disputed because of the underlying models of economic growth and technological development. Methodical issues awaiting thorough scientific scrutiny are the implications of the proposed decentralisation for the functioning of the Dutch planning system, the shift from government to governance, new standards for the science-policy nexus and the implications of new perspectives on planning and design as framing. In the meanwhile the community of professionals in planning and design is challenging scholars to invent new leads and building blocks for a contemporary planning doctrine. Some have given up on the spatial planning system altogether and opt for transition management. Transition management  for sustainable regional development starts from the premise that the actual modernist planning system can no longer cope with major territorial issues. Advocates of transition management explore new roads in sustainable regional development focusing on evolutionary and adaptive development, making use of territorial resilience while constantly searching for a balance between environmental, economic and societal values in a specific territorial and temporal context.

Will the famous Dutch planning system keep its (modernist) characteristics and once more prove its resilience or will the (national) planning doctrine collapse? If not, what are the most urgent adaptations to the system? If yes, what are the foreseeable impacts (policy contents, juridical-organisational, professional) and what will the alternative look like? Research of the state of the art in the Netherlands and comparative research in planning systems will provide clues. The theoretical framework builds upon contemporary planning theory focusing on ‘planning dialogue’, ‘planning and design as storytelling’ and ‘planning in the face of power’. The participants in this interdisciplinary project will constantly be challenged to ‘translate’ and ‘test’ their findings into appropriate spatial concepts and according action proposals conceived in close contact with regional stakeholders, thus implementing a process of joint learning. Research in this track will deliver a synthetic study of recent PhD theses and key-reports and organise the knowledge-action nexus. From a substantive perspective planning and design concepts will be elaborated for addressing sustainability, liveability and identity under conditions of economic contraction. The researchers aim to participate in the emerging international discourse on planning and design theory in Europe and North America.

Literature:

Hoppe, Robert (2008) Scientific advice and public policy: expert advisers’ and policymakers’ discourses on boundary work, Poièsis & Praxis, 29 pp. (on-line doi 10.1007/s10202_008-0053-3).

Robert Hoppe (2010). "Lost in translation? A boundary work perspective on making climate change governable" From Climate Change to Social Change: Perspectives on Science-Policy Interactions. Ed. P. Driessen, P. Leroy, and W. van Viersen (eds.). Utrecht: International Books, 2010. 109-130.