Many countries use spatial planning instruments to coordinate interests in land use and influence land-use change. In Switzerland, the cantonal structure plan (kantonale Richtplan) serves as the main spatial planning instrument at the cantonal level. Coordinating land-use interests and influencing land-use change requires 'regional governance capacities'. This paper presents an analytical concept of regional governance capacities in spatial planning using the policy arrangement approach and drawing from the spatial planning implementation and evaluation literature. The canton of Zurich, with its embedded cases on the regional and local levels, serves as the case study for testing the analytical concept. Empirical evidence from qualitative interviews, observations and document analyses reveals a coexistence of various regional governance capacities within the canton of Zurich. Whereas regional governance capacities regarding the promotion of inner development in urban areas emerge as high, the results unveil mixed regional governance capacities when it comes to coordinating transport and land-use planning. To make judgements about regional governance capacities in spatial planning, it is essential to observe various spatial challenges, spatial scales and local examples.
Most studies use quantitative measures to assess spatial planning outcomes. Instead, this paper proposes a novel qualitative framework to assess spatial planning outcomes that seek to understand why outcomes conform to, or deviate from, the intentions of spatial planning instruments. This novel framework links the conformance perspective with governance research. We tested our analytical framework in six Swiss and German municipalities. Drawing on interviews, observations and planning documents, our findings demonstrate which factors decisively influence planning outcomes. Our findings also demonstrate that high conformance does not necessarily equal spatial planning success. Qualitatively assessing planning outcomes contributes to the evaluation of the success and failure of spatial planning, and improves the implementation of planning instruments and practices accordingly.
In Germany and Switzerland, land use and urban sprawl there has been a central topic of public debate for several years. Cantonal structure plans in Switzerland as well as state and regional plans in Germany contain binding regulations for managing settlement development. Studies that examine the implementation of these regulations are lacking. This paper analyses the implementation of selected instruments of supra-local spatial planning for managing settlement development in Germany and Switzerland using the Policy Arrangement Approach. The case study covers the regions Oberland (Bavaria), Südlicher Oberrhein (Baden-Württemberg) and the cantons of Zurich and St. Gallen. The results show that actors implement spatial-planning instruments in situative negotiation processes in which they exploremargins and alternatives. Central to these processes is a regional specific overlapping of (i) interlinkings of formal and informal instruments, (ii) the interplay between local autonomy, supra-local control and superordinate context factors, and (iii) the overlapping of supra-local and regional discourses. The results show that the Policy Arrangement Approach helps to better understand how spatial planning works.
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