Opening up the Compendium: An Evaluation of International Comparative Planning Research Methodologies

Abstract

It is two decades since the European Compendium of Spatial Planning Systems and Policies was conceived. Since its publication in 1997, the Compendium has become a widely cited reference in comparative planning literature.¹ It remains one of the few comprehensive reviews of spatial planning policy and practice across western Europe. The Compendium also represents one of the few studies to develop a typology for distinguishing between national planning systems. A number of comparative research studies on spatial planning have since built on the methodological foundations laid by the Compendium although its typology of national planning systems is not always used or interpreted as originally intended for a variety of reasons. In the context of extensive reform of planning approaches in Europe, the paper examines what can be learned about methodologies for international comparative research in planning based on the experience of the Compendium study and subsequent major comparative planning studies. We conclude that while broad typologies remain useful in explaining general trends, they may hide as much as they reveal. Future studies should widen the criteria used to build ideal types beyond formal characteristics in order to address planning in practice.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank colleagues at TU Delft and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft.

Notes

1 More than 140 articles currently listed in the Scopus database refer to the Compendium and almost a quarter of these articles appear in European Planning Studies.

2 An example of renewed interest in comparative planning studies is the series of seminars sponsored by the German Akademie für Raumforschung und Landesplanung (Academy for Spatial Research and Planning) between 2008 and 2011 examining comparative planning methodologies and system reforms. A special issue of Planning Practice and Research (Vol. 27, issue 1, 2012) is devoted to questions of international comparative planning methodology.

3 Zweigert and Kötz (1998) also identify the legal families of South East Asia, Islam and Hinduism, making eight legal families in total.

4 Nordic and Scandinavian often refers to five countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden because they share similar political and economic history, but some prefer a narrower geographical definition including only Sweden, Norway and Finland.

5 The INTERREG project COMMIN has provided recent information about various aspects of planning in the Baltic States (www.commin.org).

6 The degree of central power has varied with centralization in the 1980s following abolition of metropolitan counties and the Greater London Council, and considerable devolution and decentralization in the late 1990s with the creation of devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales, and new regional government institutions and the office of the London Mayor.

7 Translated as ‘town and country planning’ in the English version of the Treaty.

8 The Comparative Review of Systems and Policies also contained a section entitled ‘Towards an understanding of systems in operation’.

9 It might be argued that at least some of these countries have returned to more traditional arrangements, especially as regards the organization of regional and local government.