High-tech development and spatial planning: comparing the Netherlands and Taiwan from an institutional perspective

ABSTRACT

High-tech development has been broadly accepted as a prominent matter of regional development policies and plans at the global level. Strategies to enhance it have evident implications for spatial planning policies, plans and visions. Consequently, careful attention should be paid to the role that spatial planning policies play in the national and regional efforts to advance high-tech development in a particular place. This study addresses the relationship between the spatial planning system and high-tech development, searching to explain the spatial implications resulting from this relationship. It approaches the topic by comparing high-tech development experiences in the Netherlands and Taiwan from an institutional perspective. Although both countries have used a range of spatial strategies for economic growth through high-tech development, the results show that their different institutional settings, power relations between different levels of government and conceptions of science park have led to the implementation of two very distinct spatial strategies, shaping different spatial patterns of high-tech development clustering in these two regions. The findings demonstrate the potential of the institutional approach to study international planning issues, and contribute to theories of high-tech development and spatial planning.

KEYWORDS:

• High-tech development
• science park
• institutional approach
• spatial planning
• the Netherlands
• Taiwan

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Wei-Ju Huang http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1389-0551

Notes

1. The term ‘enclave’ in this study means the weak sociopolitical and spatial relationships between science parks and their surrounding areas as well as their special jurisdictional arrangements to bypass local government intervention, rather than describing a low degree of technological spillover. In fact, many studies conclude that national science parks in Taiwan are seedbeds rather than enclaves of innovation (inter alia Chou, 2007; Hsieh et al., 2005; Lin, 2010).

2. In 2001, the EASP Act was revised. Article 14 now offers an opportunity for local governments and private sectors to establish and manage a science park, but its establishment and management have to be approved and supervised by the Ministry of Science.