European Spatial Planning and Territorial Cooperation

There is a strong international dimension to spatial planning. European integration strengthens interconnections, development and decision-making across national and regional borders. EU policies in areas such as environment, transport, agriculture or regional policy have far-reaching effects on spatial development patterns and planning procedures.

Planners in the EU are now routinely engaged in cooperation across national borders to share and devise effective ways of intervening in the way our cities, towns and rural areas develop. In short, the EU has become an important framework for planning practice, research and teaching. Spatial planning in Europe is being ‘Europeanized’, with corresponding changes for the role of planners.

Written for students, academics, practitioners and researchers of spatial planning and related disciplines, this book is essential reading for everybody interested in engaging with the European dimension of spatial planning and territorial governance. It explores:

• spatial development trends and their influence on planning
• the nature, institutions and actors of the European Union from a planning perspective
• the history of spatial planning at the transnational scale
• the planning tools, perspectives, visions and programmes supporting European cooperation on spatial planning
• the territorial impacts of the Community’s sector policies
• the outcomes of European spatial planning in practice.

Stefanie Duhr is Associate Professor in the Department of Spatial Planning, Nijmegen School of Management, Radboud University Nijmegen. She holds a PhD in spatial planning from the University of the West of England, Bristol, and a geography degree from the University of Trier. Her main research interests are comparative planning systems, cartographic representations in spatial planning, and European territorial cooperation. She is the author of The Visual Language of Spatial Planning, and editor of the policy debates section of the journal Regional Studies.

Claire Colomb is Lecturer in Urban Sociology and European Spatial Planning at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London. She holds a degree in politics and sociology from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and a PhD in planning from University College London, and previously worked for the European transnational cooperation programme INTERREG IIIB. Her research interests include comparative urban governance, planning and urban policies in European cities, urban sociology, and European territorial cooperation.

Vincent Nadin is Professor of Spatial Planning and Strategy in the Department of Urbanism, Faculty of Architecture, Delft University of Technology. He is a visiting researcher at Leibniz University, Hannover. His main research interest is comparative planning systems. He is joint author of Town and Country Planning in the UK, and editor of the journal Planning Practice and Research.