Suchergebnisse

Regions can become 'locked' into a spatial-economic development trajectory, thereby losing their capacity to adapt to spatial dynamics. This is in contrast to those regions that seem to be able to reinvent themselves by adapting to processes that drive spatial change, deviating from past development trajectories and giving rise to nonlinearity. This paper focuses on the influence that spatial planning has on stimulating as well as frustrating such nonlinear development. On the basis of an analysis of the development trajectory of the Wadden Sea Region, we clarify the relationship between spatial planning, lock-in situations, and the coming about of nonlinear development trajectories. For conceptual support on nonlinearity we turn to the complexity sciences. This assists us to reflect on planning strategies, and we discuss how spatial planning can contribute to managing emergent nonlinearity.

The article introduces the concepts of robustness and flexibility into the discussion on spatial quality to unpack the approach adopted by the Dutch province of Friesland in pursuit of their ambition to stimulate spatial quality. The analysis of how robustness and flexibility are manifested in Friesland, respectively the capacity to counteract negative impacts on spatial quality and the capacity to progress to more enhanced forms of spatial quality, reveals a multi-component, dynamic and selective approach. Multi-component refers to the combination of regulations, the building of purposeful organizations and teams and deliberate actions to influence spatial development projects and plans. It is dynamic because the approach is adapted to the dynamics of the multilevel governance system wherein the province and its actions are embedded. It is selective because spatial quality is reduced to a limited set of factors, decision-making is done by a selected set of actors and some measures tend to address a limited set of themes. The findings suggest that stimulating spatial quality strongly depends on how spatial quality is conceptualized and formalized in the arena of politics and planning, negotiated in multilevel decision-making processes alongside decisions on whether to make resources available for this purpose.