Changing spatial planning systems and the role of the regional government level; Comparing the Netherlands, Flanders and England



1. Introduction

Spatial planning practice in European countries is changing. One of the reasons for this is that
the role of the regional government is becoming more important. What does this change mean
for the formal planning systems in these countries? This is the central issue of this paper.

Several changes in planning practice have influenced the role of the regional government:

- Increasing influence of the European Union. In relation to spatial planning, we concentrate
here on the European guidelines, the structural funds which can be allocated to European
regions, and the development of the ESDP (European Spatial Development Perspective).
However, the EU does not have direct competences in the field of spatial planning. Healey
and Williams (1993) (among others) argue that the two major forces in the change of
planning systems are the EU policy sectors of environment and regional policy. The
increasing European influence has consequences for the field of force in which the various
government levels operate.

- Changes in society. Social, economic, and technological developments have their
repercussions on spatial planning. Examples are individualization, globalization, and
developments in the field of information and communication technology. One of the most
striking developments is the disappearance of the hierarchic planning (based on the central
places theory) of interaction patterns. There is evidence in society and in the economy of a
continuous spatial increase in scale (reinforced by increasing mobility), which has
repercussions on the level at which spatial issues are addressed; this level will increasingly
be the region.

An enlargement of the role of regional government is only one of the challenges which
European planning systems now have to face. Another development concerns the changed
position of the public sector. After the Second World War, in many West-European countries
the public sector took the lead in spatial planning. This situation changed in the 1980s and the
public sector withdrew in favour of the private sector. This situation is often referred to as the
shift from government to governance.

In the last few decades, the planning system has been the subject of radical discussion in a
number of European countries. In this article we ascertain how three different countries have
gone about dealing with the developments which have led to the new role of the regional
level. In the background of these developments two concepts play an important part:
multi-
level governance -
the changing field of force within which the government levels operate;
and
subsidiarity - which government level is the most appropriate for which competence.

The article is structured as follows. First, these two concepts are discussed. Then an analysis
frame is presented and three countries are introduced, the planning systems of which are then
discussed. The article concludes with an analysis and the conclusions drawn from the
comparison of the developments in the three countries.

2. Multi-level governance

Spatial planning is becoming the responsibility of different levels of government. Castells
(1996) was one of the first authors to stress the challenge to sovereign nation states of the
processes of global and continental integration. At the same time the national political
systems have witnessed a process of decentralization and regionalization, which leads to a
more autonomous level of governance on the sub-national level (Keating, 2003). Blatter



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