This article deals with two innovative public policy instruments instituted in North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) over the last two decades: the International Building Exhibition (IBA) Emscher Park and the regionalization of structural policies. Both instruments are characterized by the introduction of a greater flexibility, decentralization and new forms of organization as well as the integration of sectoral policies within the public sector. Paradoxically, these regionalized public policies have not been bottom-up but rather top-down. Their institution reflects the state's determination to show its ability to effect change despite the fact that overall structural changes in the economic and the political subsystems have severely curtailed public sector powers. The state demonstrates that aptitude by initiating diverse and case-specific forms of restructuring the political apparatus. The article looks into the specific features of both policy instruments and tries to position the empirical evidence within the current debate on the shift in importance between various planning levels in Europe.
Concepts of polycentricity and networks take a central place in current thinking about the restructuring of urban regions. This academic discourse will be sketched in view of the search for synergies within the polycentric urban region RhineRuhr. The notion of synergy, which makes the whole network of cities more than the sum of its parts, will be discussed in the light of a fuzzy strategic concept that qualifies RhineRuhr as a 'metropolitan region' constituting a critical mass for international competitiveness on the one hand, but hardly any steps to implement this option on the other. In the final section, therefore, some ideas will be put forward to make regional strategic policies more compatible with both the problems of the specific polycentric structure of RhineRuhr as well as the latent synergetic potentials within this region.
Zusammenfassung
Veränderte Rahmenbedingungen wirken sich in eher widersprüchlicher Weise auf die Regionalplanung aus: Einerseits ist sie im Zuge der allgemeinen Diskussion um eine Verwaltungsreform in die Kritik geraten. Ihr werden mangelnde Flexibilität, übermäßige Dauer der Verfahren, überflüssige Regelungsintensität usw. vorgeworfen. Andererseits wird ihr wachsende Bedeutung bescheinigt, weil unter der Leitvorstellung der „nachhaltigen Raumentwicklung” eine integrative raumbezogene Planung als notwendig erachtet wird. Daraus hat sich in Theorie und Praxis ein paradigmatischer Wandel räumlicher Planung zugunsten eines kooperativen, eher auf Netzwerken basierenden und prozessual ausgerichteten Planungsansatzes entwickelt. Dieser kooperative Ansatz ist aber in einer formalisierten, hierarchisierten und sektoralisierten Verwaltungsstruktur sehr anspruchsvoll.
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