‘Artefactual anchoring’ of strategic spatial planning as persuasive storytelling

Abstract

This article examines the coordinative capacity of strategic spatial planning conducted as persuasive storytelling. It suggests that spatial imaginaries and metaphors developed in storytelling gain coordinative capacity when they perform as boundary objects. Boundary objects are conceptually flexible to lend themselves to the stakeholders’ varying interpretations, and artefactually robust to provide joint targets and tools for coordinated strategic action. This is demonstrated with the example of Aalborg, Denmark, where the spatial imaginary of the ‘growth axis’ and the associated boundary object of the light rail transit/bus rapid transit spine have played important communicative and coordinative roles in the city’s spatial strategy of transitioning from an industrial city to a knowledge and culture city. The aim of the Aalborg example is to illustrate the feasibility and relevance of the theoretical approach, developed in the article, for future case research.

Urban and Spatial Planning: Pragmatic Considerations for Plan Implementation Improvements (A Case Study of the City of Bor)

“…Therefore, participation should not be limited to decision-making only but also applied in plan implementation (Erdiaw-Kwasie & Basson, 2017;Mäntysalo et al, 2019), whereas the implementation of one's own decisions and actions guarantees a higher level of satisfaction. Both institutions and individuals are to be involved in the participatory process (Sartorio et al, 2018), which is also relevant for the establishment of new partnerships and thus new sources of the plan implementation financing (Mäntysalo et al, 2019).…”

Evaluating regional spatial imaginaries: the Oxford–Cambridge Arc

“…Finally, there are supporting spatial tools. These might include strategy documents and policy processes, institutional and personal relations, spatial forms and assets, infrastructural facilities and the like which serve as 'artefactual anchors' for the imaginary in question (Mäntysalo et al, 2019). We now move on to deploy these six criteria in two recent episodes of the Oxford-Cambridge Arc, after a brief outline of research methods.…”

Working across Boundaries in Urban Land Use and Services Planning—Building Public Sector Capabilities for Digitalisation

“…They also state that this topic is inherently under-theorised in literature, and to understand the transformational shift, it needs to be analysed both theoretically and empirically in future research. As described above, service network planning is a good example of public administration knowledge-intensive work, with several disciplinary work boundaries, varying task arrangements and differing goals [7]. Actors are typically heavily dependent on each other's activities and outcomes of sequential and parallel work processes.…”

“…While recognising the role of technology as an enabler, we argue that, with the revealing of new forms of cross-organisational engagement methods, smart cities are able to reach the full potential of digitalisation and technological progress. Even though our inferences are suggestive at this point, we wish to contribute to the discussion on the feasibility of digital boundary tools for supporting dynamic knowledge management and purposive collaboration among city officials, decision makers and citizens [4][5][6][7].…”

“…In order to tackle disintegration challenges, initiatives that aim to enhance the integrative capabilities of urban planning and develop more usable, democratic and effective practices, which bring diverging interests and understandings together under the same strategic frame, have been developed. [7]. In particular, the so-called MALPE work of Finnish city regions has been fostered as a means of trans-sectoral coordination of land use (M), housing (A), transport (L), services (P) and economic development (E) on different levels and sectors of government.…”