Interactions between Strategic Spatial Planning and Local State in Weak Institutional Settings

Abstract

Strategic spatial planning, in its widely accepted theoretical conceptualisation, has become the terrain for making balanced decisions about the consolidation of both a city’s international competitiveness and its role in a wider international context. Thus, it has emphasized shared responsibilities between the public and the private sector in economies where the roles of the public and the private sphere are clearly complementary. In countries with weaker institutional settings such distinctions are purposely obscure, as both spheres are enmeshed in statist and rent-seeking structures. Based on an investigation of the strategic spatial plans prepared over the past 15 years for the city of Thessaloniki the present paper attempts to explain the specificities and failures of strategic spatial planning in the Greek institutional environment, within the context of four defining features of the Greek local state, namely: (i) the centralization of the Greek government; (ii) the funding arrangements of local government; (iii) the nature of the local institutional intermediaries and stakeholders; and (iv) a political economy which favours consumption over the production of internationally competitive goods and services – this production being enabled by the local state’s marshalling of location specific assets.

Notes

1 Based on the 1997 “Kapodistrias” Reform, which reorganised local government divisions by merging the previous smaller ones, Attiki (the metropolitan area of Athens) consisted of 120 municipalities and the Wider Area of Thessaloniki of 32 municipalities. The more recent “Kallikratis” Reform, in 2010, reduced the number of municipalities into 66 for Attiki and 12 for Thessaloniki, but once again a local government reform did not include the establishment of metropolitan governance.

2 In the period 1995–2000, the GDP annual growth rate averaged 3.3% nationally and 2.6% in Thessaloniki (county level), a rate that was further increased to 4.1% and 2.9%, respectively, in the period 2001–2007.

3 This report was prepared with the scientific support of Kafkalas, G.; Lambrianidis, L.; Papamichos, N. (Andrikopoulou et al. 2014).

4 Technical Chamber, Department of Central Macedonia, Position statement on the SPSD, http://teeserver.tee.gr/online/epikaira/2002/2189/pg108.shtml.

5 This study was prepared by the following consulting consortium: Shediasmos, S.A.; Dimikas, A.; Papamichos, N.; Kotzampopoulos, Α.; Omikron Ltd, Dimitriadis, H.

6 Hellenic Parliament Proceedings, Session KA’, 29. 07. 2014. http://www.hellenicparliament.gr/UserFiles/a08fc2dd-61a9-4a83-b09a-09f4c564609d/es20140729.pdf [accessed 28. 12. 2015].

7 In 2014 ORTHE was abolished (as part of the cuts made to public services in the wake of the fiscal measures of the period) and its responsibilities were transferred to the main administrative body of the Ministry in charge of spatial planning.

8 The study report was prepared by the Metropolitan Development Agency of Thessaloniki, an inter-municipal agency with the Municipality of Thessaloniki being its principal shareholder.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Antonis Kamaras

Antonis Kamaras (BA ConnCollege, MSc, MPhil LSE) is a political scientist. He has worked as a Research Officer at The Hellenic Observatory at LSE’s European Institute. He has served as an advisor to the Mayor of Thessaloniki and subsequently to the Minister of Finance, as a member of the Council of Economic Advisors. He is currently an associate of the Greek Diaspora Project of SEESOX, a research program that explores the interaction between the diaspora and Greece.

Athena Yiannakou

Athena Yiannakou (Architect Eng. AUTh, MSc, PhD LSE) is Associate Professor of Urban Policy and Urban Development at the School of Spatial Planning and Development, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She has worked as a professional planner for a long time. Her research interests focus on cities and crisis, urban regeneration, spatial planning, sustainable development and climate change, and European spatial planning systems.