{"title":"Soft planning in macro-regions and megaregions: creating toothless spatial imaginaries or new forces for change?","authors":"Eva Purkarthofer, F. Sielker, D. Stead","doi":"10.1080/13563475.2021.1972796","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Both planning practice and research increasingly acknowledge the existence of new scales and governance arrangements alongside and between statutory planning systems. Examples of new scales of non-statutory planning are large-scale megaregions and macro-regions. Drawing on examples from North America and Europe (Southern California and the Danube Region respectively), this article examines how new processes of cooperation at this scale can influence other statutory levels of decision-making on spatial development. The analysis of spatial delineations, discourses, actors, rules and resources associated with megaregions and macro-regions suggests that this type of ‘soft planning’ can foster territorial integration when a perception exists that there are joint gains to be made, when informal rules are negotiated in context-specific and bottom-up processes, when soft spaces are used as arenas of deliberation to renegotiate shared agendas, and when actors succeed in ensuring the anchorage of informal cooperation in other arenas.","PeriodicalId":46688,"journal":{"name":"International Planning Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7000,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"6","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Planning Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13563475.2021.1972796","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"REGIONAL & URBAN PLANNING","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 6
Abstract
ABSTRACT Both planning practice and research increasingly acknowledge the existence of new scales and governance arrangements alongside and between statutory planning systems. Examples of new scales of non-statutory planning are large-scale megaregions and macro-regions. Drawing on examples from North America and Europe (Southern California and the Danube Region respectively), this article examines how new processes of cooperation at this scale can influence other statutory levels of decision-making on spatial development. The analysis of spatial delineations, discourses, actors, rules and resources associated with megaregions and macro-regions suggests that this type of ‘soft planning’ can foster territorial integration when a perception exists that there are joint gains to be made, when informal rules are negotiated in context-specific and bottom-up processes, when soft spaces are used as arenas of deliberation to renegotiate shared agendas, and when actors succeed in ensuring the anchorage of informal cooperation in other arenas.
期刊介绍:
Planning, at urban, regional, national and international levels, faces new challenges, notably those related to the growth of globalisation as both an objective socio-economic process and a shift in policy-maker perceptions and modes of analysis. International Planning Studies (IPS) addresses these issues by publishing quality research in a variety of specific fields and from a range of theoretical and normative perspectives, which helps improve understanding of the actual and potential role of planning and planners in this context.