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"In this innovative book, ten executive politicians with backgrounds in planning from around the world dissect their own political careers. Reflecting on the often structural impact of their work in political decision-making, they also consider the translation of their experiences back into academic life or professional practice. These revealing stories illustrate the vital role of planners in politics. Specific examples show how they were able to make a difference during their tenure by defining problems, setting agendas, using different catalyst for change and raising awareness of issues around sustainability, equity, social justice, poverty and power. Drawing on these experiences to argue for innovative pedagogies and practices in planning, this book illuminates the frequently invisible work of planners in politics, the benefits of their training and education, and the wisdom that they can offer theorists, students and practitioners about transformative planning. This book will be critical reading for researchers and students of spatial planning, urban geography and politics. Urban planners and politicians will also benefit from these insights into the political experience of planning"--

The purpose of the paper is to contribute to the debate on existing planning approaches—more specifically, strategic spatial planning—and the search for new ideas. Therefore, after briefly dealing with the history, logic, aims of strategic planning, and some critiques the paper sketches the contours of a more radical strategic planning, introduces coproduction as a corner stone of this approach, and opts for working with conflicts and legitimacy as additional building blocks. The paper relies on a selective review of critical planning literature and the authors' experience in practice.

There is growing evidence that the problems, challenges and opportunities that our cities, city-regions and regions are facing cannot be tackled adequately by traditional spatial planning. One of the key challenges for planning in this respect is to analyse critically what type of planning is suited as an approach to deal – in an innovative/emancipatory and transformative way – with the problems and challenges developing and developed societies are facing. An expanding literature and an increasing number of practices all over the world seem to suggest that strategic spatial planning may be looked upon as a possible approach. But at the same time critical comments and reactions are raised on the theory and the practices of strategic spatial planning. This paper uses the theory and practices of coproduction to reframe strategic spatial planning. It first looks for a deeper understanding of the meaning(s) of coproduction as it emerged in different contexts and different intellectual traditions and then introduces coproduction as an immanent characteristic of a more radical type of strategic planning. Coproduction combines the provision of public goods/services needed with the building of a strong, resilient and mutually supportive community that could assure its members their needs would be met. This implies changing the perceptions and the approach of many professionals (public and private) about how plans, policies and public services are conceived and delivered, with the objective of enabling the (structural) change needed in an open and equitable way. The paper relies on a selective review of critical planning literature and the author's experience in practice.

This article argues that society as a whole and planning in particular need more creative responses to the problems and challenges they face. Planning needs creativity to imagine and to construct (structurally) different futures. First, the article briefly analyses two case studies: the Hasselt case as an example of creative transport planning and creative local governance; and the Perth case as an example of distorted creativity. Then the article questions the nature of planning creativity needs and looks for a systematic method. Scenario building turns out to be an excellent tool for conceiving possible futures and their processes, what must be changed first and what next. Just as there are many traditions and collective practices there are also many images of what a society wants to achieve. As the opportunities for implementing images are not equal the article reflects on a planning annex governance system that serves all citizens and especially the least powerful. All this has an impact on planners as well. In the final part, the article touches briefly on some preconditions for creativity, on how it could be enhanced and on how realistic the discourse itself is.

Planning is challenged to interrelate four different concepts of rationality: value, instrumental, communicative, and strategic. Working out an emancipatory planning approach needs to focus on conflict and power relations and needs communicative, people-centred, practices. Therefore, the author confronts dimensions in the broader planning process with systems of power. Besides planning literature, the author's experience in practice is used. In this way directions are provided for incorporating an explicit power strategy in planning and for the form it may take.

The purpose of this article is to explore the role of politics in planning and the highly political role of planners. The structure planning process for Flanders illustrates that planners are an active force in enabling change and that political decision-making is a process of its own with its own actors. Interviews with key political actors allow unravelling the planning process from the perspective of the political class. The case brings powerful informal arenas to the open and documents power plays involving planners and politicians. The case also illustrates that much of the actual planning discourse is at odds with the rationale of some politicians.

This booklet explores the contributions of Professor Emeritus Louis Albrechts (KU Leuven) to planning practice, with special reference to the case study of the 'Flanders Structure and Plan'. Albrechts has, through his long academic career, maintained a strong interest in planning practice. His academic work has in many ways been focused on developing more appropriate and responsible ways of doing planning and at the core of Albrechts' academic thinking has been the question of how to improve the practice of planning. His scholarly work has always been deeply rooted in his own experiences and reflections from working closely with and in planning practice. Albrechts has a long and impressive CV, and there are a significant number of projects that I could have explored deeper in this publication. In the end, I decided to focus on Albrechts' perhaps most well-known contribution to planning practice, his work on the first Structure Plan for Flanders in the early 1990s. This choice reflects partly my own interest in strategic spatial planning, but it appeals hopefully also to a broader audience interested in how new planning ideas emerge, gain momentum, and then partly loose legitimacy, as socio-economic and political conditions change. From a personal perspective, important lessons can be learned from the case of the first Structure Plan for Flanders. First of all, the case illustrates some of the challenges in terms of translating ideas from theory into planning practice. Second, the case effectively illustrates some of the difficulties in transforming institutionalised ways of practical planning and understanding the role of planning in society. Third, the case illustrates that to be successful in transforming planning practices and discourses you have to engage with the deeply political and conflict-laden context, which inevitably characterise planning projects that seek to challenge the status quo. ; AESOP Young Academics Booklet Series C: Exploring Place matters in Planning Practice (Edition 1)