When Strategic Plans Fail to Lead. A Complexity Acknowledging Perspective on Decision-Making in Urban Development Projects—The Case of Kortrijk (Belgium)

Abstract

Nowadays, cities formulate long-term strategies to address the challenges and opportunities they face. Numerous strategic plans or planning instruments are developed for this purpose. In this article, we would like to examine the role, impact and relevance of these types of plans in decision-making processes concerning urban development projects (UDPs) in the Flemish Region of Belgium. To what extent do strategic plans succeed in capturing and steering the complexity of spatial interventions in contemporary urban contexts? We argue that a complexity-acknowledging perspective provides a more realistic and adequate view here by seeing strategic plans as only one among many elements in the set of tangled inter- and intrastrategic processes which together determine UDPs. A comparative and qualitative case study was carried out in the city of Kortrijk. The decision-making of three UDPs was studied thoroughly. Interviewing key actors and analysing policy documents helped us to (re)construct the complex decision-making processes and to stipulate the meaning of all involved formal plans and planning tools.

Notes

The Municipal Decree of 2005 obliges Flemish cities and municipalities to draw up a cross-sectoral strategic plan that covers their entire legislative term (i.e. 6 years) and identifies ideally their main objectives.

As a result of the popularity of the “New Public Management” philosophy (Hood, 1991; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2000) and the strong inter-relation between the public and private actors in the context of public–private partnerships (cf. multi-actor governance), during the past two decades, many consultants and (consequently also) public managers have greatly favoured an order-seeking approach in Flanders.

Within the other layers, we could also show bifurcation points, formal decisions and/or emergent exogenous factors.

We can also consider certain federal and Flemish plans and initiatives as exogenous factors (cf. infra).

For example, the investment company retained a consultant agency himself.

In Ghent, for instance, certain urban projects are subject to choices presented in the spatial structural plan.

Legally binding for public authorities that is, not for citizens.

This part contains goals, priorities, desired spatial structures and actions concerning spatial policy.

In 1988–1989, the Belgian Constitution was again amended to give further responsibilities to the regions and communities. Since then the Flemish region has jurisdiction over public works, housing, water policy, education, etc. in the Flanders.

Technocrats from the city of Kortrijk, the federal administration (AWZ) and the inter-municipal corporation Leiedal searched for a solution to unblock the impasse between the city government (“no harm to the city structure”) and the federal government (“the necessity of a straighter and broader river in the heart of the city”).

W&Z is the Flemish agency that replaced AWZ since 2004.

The fact is that the minister may only on an annual basis formally approve the financial resources that have been entered into that specific investment programme.

It may well be that, in time, just the opposite will prove to be the case: the project Foruminvest can give a strong impulse to the area located around the more distant and subordinate neighbourhood “Spoorweglaan”, certainly when also the nearby and already scaffold project can realize its ambitions.

Specifically, the strategic multi-annual plan and the municipal spatial structural plan (cf. supra).

This is a large “black box” that is seldom or never of any consequence within the decision-making research.