Redefining Territorial Scales and the Strategic Role of Spatial Planning

Abstract

This paper argues that spatial planning systems tend to redefine and reinterpret conventional territorial scales through the dual adoption and articulation of legal instru- ments and spatial strategies at different levels of planning administration. In depicting such redefinition, this paper delves into the cases of Denmark and Catalonia through an analy- sis concerned with: i) the strategic spatial role attributed to each level of planning; and ii) the redefinition of territorial scales as a result of changing political objectives and spatial rela- tionships occurring between planning levels. The assessment pertaining to the strategic roles of spatial planning instruments as well as the evolving redefinition of territorial scales in both Denmark and Catalonia suggests that the conventional, hierarchical ‘cascade-shaped’ ideal of policy implementation is superseded. While both cases tend to converge in their alignment with strategic spatial planning, the implications stemming from rescaling processes radically diverge, as illustrated by the opposing fates of the regional scale and the distinctive means to reassure a ‘vertical spatial anchor’ for the stability and permanence of power structures.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank three anonymous referees for insightful comments, suggestions and criticisms on earlier versions of this paper.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daniel Galland

Dr Daniel Galland is Associate Professor in Urban and Regional Planning at Aalborg University, Denmark. He holds a PhD in Spatial Planning from the same university and two Master's degrees from the University of British Columbia and the University of Barcelona, respectively. He is a representative and contact point for AESOP in Denmark and is the Danish delegate to other transcontinental, planningrelated networks. His most recent research and publications relate to international comparative planning with an emphasis on spatial planning policy, metropolitan planning and rescaling. In recent years, he has been guest Assistant Professor at McGill University, the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the Catholic University of Chile.

Pablo Elinbaum

Dr Pablo Elinbaum is Assistant Researcher at the Center for Urban and Regional Studies (CEUR-CONICET) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He holds a Master's degree in Urban Design and a PhD in Urban Planning, both from the School of Architecture of Barcelona at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC). His main research topics are the instrumental and socio-political innovation of supra-local planning and the processes of rescaling of the urban. He has been Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at UPC and the International University of Catalonia, and is currently Assistant Professor of Urbanism at the University of Rosario, a consultant in urban planning issues and editor of RIURB (Iberoamerican Journal of Urbanism).