Refereed articles
Compact city development: High ideals and emerging practices (#49)
Hege Hofstad
Abstract
Compact city development has, over the last 20 years or so, emerged as the preferred response to the goal of sustainable development. As such, it is pertinent to examine planning practices to see whether the traditional economic bias in planning is now balanced by aims and practices in support of environmental and social sustainability. In this light the social, environmental, and economic goals linked to densification and mixed use development will be the main focus of this article. In addition, the article assesses whether distinct institutional practices support the balancing of these goals. The empirical basis is formed by urban plans in four Scandinavian cities in combination with qualitative interview data. The article concludes that on a discursive level, social, environmental and economic goals are represented in compact city strategies. Institutionalised practices, however, show that economic goals remain at the core of planning. Environmental and social aims still play second fiddle, but new measures are in development that may gradually strengthen their influence over urban development practices.
23 pp (Refereed Articles, October 2012, no 49)
Hofstad, H. (2012). Compact city development: High ideals and emerging practices, European Journal of Spatial Development, 49
Job Matching Efficiency in Skilled Regions: Evidence on the Microeconomic Foundations of Human Capital Externalities (#48)
Daniel F. Heuermann
Abstract
Inspired by the literature on the role of local career networks for the quality of labour market matches we investigate whether human capital externalities arise from a higher job matching efficiency in skilled regions. Using two samples of workers in Germany we find that an increase in the regional share of highly qualified workers by one standard deviation is associated with between-job wage growth of about five per cent and with an increase in the annual probability of a job change of about sixty per cent. Wage gains are incurred only by workers changing jobs within industries. We find highly qualified workers in skilled regions to respond to these wage differentials by changing jobs more often within rather than between industries. Taken together, these findings suggest that human capital externalities partly arise because workers in skilled regions have better access to labour market information, which allows them to capitalize on their industry-specific knowledge when changing jobs.
27 pp (Refereed Articles, August 2012, no 48)
Heuermann, D. F. (2012). Job Matching Efficiency in Skilled Regions: Evidence on the Microeconomic Foundations of Human Capital Externalities, European Journal of Spatial Development, 48
Connecting Territorial Knowledge Arenas – the Interrelationship between CEMAT and EU Activities in Spatial Development Policy (#47)
Matti Fritsch
Abstract
Against the background of the increasing importance of evidence, knowledge and learning in both domestic and transnational policy development processes, this paper analyses how non-EU and intra-European Union knowledge arenas in spatial development policy and planning are connected by focussing specifically on the interrelationship between CEMAT and European Union activities and arenas of co-operation. The Council of Europe Conference of Ministers Responsible for Spatial/Regional Planning (CEMAT) has long served as a platform for pan-European (including both EU members and non-members) co-operation in spatial development, but has recently been sidelined by EU initiatives in this field of activity and even faced the possibility of discontinuation. Analysing potential areas of competition and complementarities/synergies and reviewing the recent Russian CEMAT Presidency, the paper argues that CEMAT retains an important role in connecting EU debates, practices and research with actors outside the European Union. However, institutionalised collaborative mechanisms and the systematic exchange of information between CEMAT and the EU in this field should be strengthened, particularly in a direction from EU to CEMAT and in the domain of research and evidence. Continuing with a sub-optimal level of co-operation between CEMAT and the EU in this field or even discontinuation of CEMAT would undoubtedly hamper the involvement and integration of non-EU members in the debate on European spatial development policy and would probably rather quickly lead to the significant disruption of the territorial knowledge channel linking the EU and Russia as well as that with the EU neighbourhood more broadly, while also significantly inhibiting the processes of learning on a pan-European level and stalling the development of a trajectory towards the emergence of something that would resemble a pan-European ‘epistemic community’ in spatial development policy and planning.
25 pp (Refereed Articles, March 2012, no 47)
Fritsch, M. (2012)., Connecting Territorial Knowledge Arenas – the Interrelationship between CEMAT and EU Activities in Spatial Development Policy, European Journal of Spatial Development, 47
Sustainable Development and Spatial Planning: Some considerations arising from the Greek case (#46)
Pavlos Marinos Delladetsima
Abstract
The paper aims to elaborate on the notion of sustainable development in relation to spatial planning and to question its applicability based on the experience arising from the distinct socio-economic situation in Greece. Experience accumulated in the country with the adoption of sustainable development as a spatial policy concept proves to be in contradiction with perceptions that consider it as a basis for improving the plan making process and the planning system as whole. In this respect, it is argued that sustainable development is not a feasible proposition for planning in Greece and offers little to alleviate urban development and sprawl problems. Further, the paper highlights how a globalised approach to sustainable development and planning in Greece has made a negligible contribution to reinvigorating a weak and disjointed system, while also creating significant adverse effects in spatial policymaking.
21 pp (Refereed Articles, March 2012, no 46)
Delladetsima, P. M. (2012). Sustainable Development and Spatial Planning: Some considerations arising from the Greek case, European Journal of Spatial Development, 46
A Solution in Search of a Problem: A 'Garbage Can' Approach to the Politics of Territorial Cohesion (#45)
David Evers
Abstract
Those who promote spatial planning or spatial policy at the European level have increasingly done so under the banner of ‘territorial cohesion’. Since the inclusion of this term in the draft Constitution as an objective of the European Union, territorial cohesion has drawn the attention of an increasing number of actors and interests. By virtue of its vague but undeniably positive connotation, it is emerging as a successful metaphor in European policy discourse. In this paper it is argued that the territorial cohesion policy process should be understood in terms of the opportunities the concept presents to individual actors to solve contingent problems. Linking the ‘solution’ of territorial cohesion to different problems (garbage can model) has resulted in the production of a plurality of oftentimes mutually exclusive interpretations. Nevertheless, in the discursive struggle for hegemony between these interpretations, some progress is being made towards a common understanding.
24 pp (Refereed Articles, February 2012, no 45)
Evers, D. (2011). A Solution in Search of a Problem: A ‘Garbage Can’ Approach to the Politics of Territorial Cohesion, European Journal of Spatial Development, 45