The Treatment of Space and Place in the new Strategic Spatial Planning in Europe

This paper examines the way concepts of place and space are being used in the new wave of strategic spatial plans in Europe, in relation to the intellectual debates in the social sciences and humanities on these concepts. In the 1980s, the practice of spatial or territorial planning in many parts of Europe had deserted conceptions of the strategic development of cities and regions. Instead, the emphasis was on large projects of renewal and transformation of urban landscapes, justified through arguments about the need to break out of strategic spatial organising ideas locked into the urban plans of an earlier era (Healey, Khakee et al. 1997; Salet, Faludi 2000; Albrechts, Alden et al. 2001; Balducci 2001). By the end of the millenium, however, strategic spatial plans, frameworks and perspectives were back in fashion among Europe’s planning policy communities, and were actively being promoted by European Union initiatives (CSD 1999; Salet, Faludi 2000; Albrechts, Alden et al. 2001; Faludi ed. 2002; Faludi, Waterhout 2002).