European Spatial Planning And Territorial Cooperation

There is a strong international dimension to spatial planning. European integration strengthens interconnections, development and decision-making across national and regional borders. EU policies in areas such as environment, transport, agriculture or regional policy have far-reaching effects on spatial development patterns and planning procedures. Planners in the EU are now routinely engaged in cooperation across national borders to share and devise effective ways of intervening in the way our cities, towns and rural areas develop. In short, the EU has become an important framework for planning practice, research and teaching. Spatial planning in Europe is being ‘Europeanized’, with corresponding changes for the role of planners. Written for students, academics, practitioners and researchers of spatial planning and related disciplines, this book is essential reading for everybody interested in engaging with the European dimension of spatial planning and territorial governance. It explores: spatial development trends and their influence on planning the nature, institutions and actors of the European Union from a planning perspective the history of spatial planning at the transnational scale the planning tools, perspectives, visions and programmes supporting European cooperation on spatial planning the territorial impacts of the Community’s sector policies the outcomes of European spatial planning in practice.

Since its foundation the European Union has gradually developed policies that are aimed at achieving increased economic and social cohesion. This book examines the most recent of these, the concept of territorial cohesion. Territorial cohesion is the pursuit of balanced development, competitiveness, sustainable development, and good governance. These concerns are most readily addressed by the formulation of spatial strategies under the umbrella of spatial planning, that brings together a multitude of public and private actors in a process that requires cohesion, coherence and co-operation. This book traces the development of spatial planning at European level and argues that spatial planning can become a vehicle, not only for territorial cohesion, but for EU policy generally.

This book fills an existing academic literature gap by providing a sound and synthetic analysis on the process of European Territorial Cooperation over the last 30 years. This follows from the support from the former EU INTERREG Community Initiative, since 1989, later transformed into the second main goal of EU Cohesion Policy, by 2007: European Territorial Cooperation - ECT. In order to present the ECT process in a more comprehensive manner, and to be the main literature reference regarding this process in the decades to come, this book is divided into four different sections and 12 chapters. The first section summarizes the main impacts and added-value from ETC experiences while proposing the elevation of the ETC goals within EU Cohesion Policies. The second section addresses the process of cross-border cooperation, and namely its impact in reducing border obstacles and supporting ever growing number of cross-border entities. The third section elaborates on the second most important ETC process (transnational cooperation) with a similar approach. Finally, a last section debates the future scenarios for this process in Europe.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of figures -- List of boxes -- List of tables -- Notes on contributors -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Part I The territorial dimension of policies -- 1 The territorial dimension of European Union policies: a conceptual approach -- 2 The territorial keys of policies -- 3 The territorial dimension of EU policies and spacial inequalities -- 4 Supporting territorial cohesion and the Europe 2020 strategy: tensions in EU Cohesion Policy -- Part II Implementing European territorial cohesion policies -- 5 From theory to practice in place-based development approaches: local, regional and national implementation challenges -- 6 Tracing the place-based coordinative frameworks of EU Territorial Cohesion Policy: from European spatial planning towards European territorial governance -- 7 Implementation of the integrated territorial investments -- 8 Encapsulating the significance of the EGTC for territorial cooperation: a literature review and tentative research agenda -- Part III Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA) of European policies -- 9 From simple to relevant TIA tools for European policies -- 10 Assessing territorial impacts of future trends -- 11 ESPON TIA: balancing between policy orientation, practicability and scientific ambition -- Index

This insightful book provides a comprehensive and comparative account of the current state and trajectories of spatial planning in 32 European countries. The book also explains how European governments are reforming spatial planning to meet new challenges, and how the European Union and its Cohesion Policy have shaped change through the Europeanisation of territorial governance.

The Institutionalisation of European Spatial Planning aims to clarify the enterprise of European spatial planning. The emphasis of the book lies on the need for a better understanding of the process of European integration in general. It particularly points at the emerging middle range theories that used concepts that were showing similarity to those that academics –those writing about planning– were accustomed to, such as networks, discourses and governance. The focus of this book is mostly on the post-European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP)– the Committee of Spatial Development – from 1999 until now. As it is collection of articles, it has a different gestation process and does not tell a story from A to Z. What this book is about, however, is merely the issue concerning the institutional capacity of the ESDP and whether this has evaporated or not. The fact that this book exists at all suggests it has not.

The 1990s ended with the birth of the concept of European spatial planning, which became a unique catalyst of change in Europe and in EU member states and regions. This book examines both the evolution of territorial governance at a European and transnational level and how this new type of governance affects planning at the local and regional level. It not only brings together a number of papers written by academic scholars but also several reflective contributions by practitioners. As such, this book seeks to contribute to various theoretical and empirical discussions: the institutionalization of European policy and integration; the Europeanisation of policy and planning; multi-level and multi-actor policy making; the contested nature of the knowledge base of European territorial governance and the role of visualization in politics and planning. This volume has wide-ranging appeal for academics, practitioners and students in the field of urban and regional planning, geography and European studies.

In this second book in a series on European spatial planning, the authors examine territorial cohesion as a successor concept to the European Spatial Development Perspective. Fundamental ideas about Europe and its distinct "model of society" lie behind the concept of territorial cohesion, which can be understood as a goal of spatial equity that tends to favor development-in-place over selective migration to locations of greater opportunity. This approach contrasts with an American social model that views the equity principle behind territorial cohesion to be diametrically opposed to the efficiency principle based on free mobility of labor.