Towards Managing Nonlinear Regional Development Trajectories

Abstract

Regions can become 'locked' into a spatial-economic development trajectory, thereby losing their capacity to adapt to spatial dynamics. This is in contrast to those regions that seem to be able to reinvent themselves by adapting to processes that drive spatial change, deviating from past development trajectories and giving rise to nonlinearity. This paper focuses on the influence that spatial planning has on stimulating as well as frustrating such nonlinear development. On the basis of an analysis of the development trajectory of the Wadden Sea Region, we clarify the relationship between spatial planning, lock-in situations, and the coming about of nonlinear development trajectories. For conceptual support on nonlinearity we turn to the complexity sciences. This assists us to reflect on planning strategies, and we discuss how spatial planning can contribute to managing emergent nonlinearity.

Towards adaptive tourism areas? A complexity perspective to examine the conditions for adaptive capacity

“…This is also the case for tourism areas as their evolution is shaped by factors such as pre-existing cultural, natural or human resources, adventurers' experience, locational advantage or the economic base (Ma & Hassink, 2013). Also, planning systems or institutional frameworks can influence development paths, being capable of favouring some plans and projects over others (Hartman & De Roo, 2013). These characteristics make systems path dependent.…”

“…But whereas, for instance, global awareness about sustainability is affecting tourism development plans and projects, how sustainability is incorporated still very much depends on the local context. Nevertheless, the structures and functions of places may fundamentally change when innovative microscale projects are amplified and grow out to larger transformative processes and affect wider (geographic) scales and higher (governance) levels (Hartman & De Roo, 2013;Kemp & Loorbach, 2006;. This has occurred in many coastal areas.…”

“…Second, the complexity of interactions within and between systems makes development paths towards the future at least partly uncertain (Albrechts, 2006;De Roo & Silva, 2010;Healey, 2007). Third, structures and functions can be fundamentally transformed over time (Hartman & De Roo, 2013). In this context, the CAS perspective draws attention to the importance of adaptive capacity.…”

Adaptation, interaction and urgency: a complex evolutionary economic geography approach to leisure

“…Spatial structures emerge because such adaptation does not take place in a vacuum, but in a connected system in which entrepreneurs mutually interact. These structures can be spatial in a physical sense (for instance clusters of leisure firms) but can also consist of intangible structures that are determined by the spatialities of environmental change and the spatialities of interactions between entrepreneurs (Hartman & De Roo, 2013). These spatial structures can lead to self-organization, in which new order is created not through any collective intent, but as the cumulative, non-linear result of each actor's individual adaptation (Rauws, 2016).…”

“…Here planning is not limited to a top-down government initiated process, but also deals with the way in which bottomup processes shape the leisure sector and are addressed through governmental and nongovernmental, formal and informal institutions. Planning for leisure, therefore, entails all combined efforts to strengthen the role of leisure in the region as a way of stimulating regional development (Hartman & De Roo, 2013).…”