Strategic Spatial Planning

Spatial planning has evolved from the master planning tradition into strategic forms in order to accommodate rapid urban change and anticipate environmental pressures. The strategic spatial plan is considered an essential element in providing certainty in rapidly changing urban areas while remaining implementation-focused and participatory. Debates persist, however, on the efficacy of spatial plans, particularly in the context of the global South. In South Africa these discussions focus on how spatial plans can contribute to necessary urban restructuring. This article evaluates whether such plans provide meaningful guidance in the continuous spatial unfolding of South Africa's cities, using the Cape Town Spatial Development Framework as a case study. Analysis reveals that this framework is based on contradictory conceptualisations of space which disregard the complexity of the local situation, thus impacting on its efficacy. The study indicates that for spatial planning to be more efficient in this context, plans need to refocus on the reality of a city's spatial evolution and move away from reliance on an end-state ideal.

(in Polish) This publication is a comprehensive manual of heritage management for local authorities, NGOs, leader and other interested actors.
It presents topics in a useful way (measures, advices, traps, step-by-step  proceures and so on).
Covered topics:
HERITAGE ASSETS IDENTIFICATION; MAKING A LOCAL HERIATGE  DATA BASE
I.1. Local heritage identification;
Immovable heritage;
Movable heritage;
Museum objects;
Archives and historical books collections;
Cultural landscape;
Intangible heritage;
I.2 Heritage assets and their value
Basic values of tangible heritage and their assessment;
Basic values of intangible heritage;
Social and economic values of cultural heritage;
Assessment of social values;
Assessment of economic values;
I.3 Diagnosis of state of preservation and dangers to local heritage
Dangers typical to elements of heritage and their values;
Diagnosis of heritage preservation – how to do it –a proposition for local governments;
LOCAL DEVELOPMENT – CULTURAL HERITAGE POTENCIAL
II.1 Cultural heritage in communities/local  development process
II.2 Assessment of heritage potential for local development in the process of local development planning
II.3 Assessment of obstacles of heritage use in development and how to overcome them;
Obstacles in the process of heritage management;
Recognition and assessment of key obstacles for development – how to do it for local heritage;
Overcoming obstacles connected to local heritage;
 PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTING HERITAGE MANAGEMENT – INSTRUMENTS  AND METHODS
III.1 Heritage protection and care – legal rights and duties of local governments
Monuments register;
Monuments of history title;
Cultural park;
Local inventory of monuments;
Community programme of monuments care;
Pre-spatial planning and spatial planning documents:
- Study on directions and conditions of local spatial plans and zoning Policy;
- Local plan of spatial development;
Study of cultural values protection and  its role in conservation policy – supporting municipality promotion;
Substitute performance, Temporary seizure of monument, Expropriation of historic property;
Statutory right of historic property  pre-emption;
III.2 Eliminating most common dangers to heritage;
Search of a new function for monuments, in respect for authenticity and heritage values;
III.3 When and how to design a heritage management strategy – programming  local development
Programming local development – the core of the process;
Models of local development programming;
Model smart of local development programming and possible embracing of heritage  issues;
Heritage in chosen local government documents;
Goals of development and goals of heritage management;
Monitoring;
III.4 Instruments stimulating local enterpreneurship  and economy
Instruments supporting enterpreneurship;
Social entrepreneurship; Clusters – possible cooperation based on heritage;
Possibilities of heritage use and founding economic initiatives;
III.5 Community involvement in heritage management – participation mechanisms and methods;
Community involvement in heritage management – social and public participation;
Stages of the public participation process;
Building communication strategy supporting activities for heritage;
Meaning of the role of social life leaders in c-governing of municipality;
III.6 Sociological instruments – methods and way of use
III.7 Tools of heritage knowledge dissemination and local community activation
Education and social development,
Education and economic development;
Review of tools and methods of using heritage in tourism, education and promotion development;
III.8 Financial instruments supporting local heritage management;
From idea to the Project;
Financial measures in the state budget;
Financial measures in European Funds;
Self-government financial measures;

ATTACHMENTS:
Measuring values of cultural goods of UNESCO world heritage ;
Protection of intangible heritage: national list and listing criteria;
Directory of regulations, legal rights and duties of municipalities
concerning heritage;
Example of a questionnaire of personal interview (social research);

This report commences by offering a summary of the EU’s works on the regulatory environment for the shale gas industry (s 1.1), and is divided into following parts (i) ‘Background’ (s 2), (ii), ‘Legislative Level’ (s 3), (iii) ‘Plans and Programmes: SEA’ (s 4), (iv) ‘Project Level: EIA’ (s 5), and (v) ‘Public Participation in other EU Legislation’ (s 6). Section 2 offers a necessary background of this report by discussing (i) the case for the shale gas in the EU (s 2.1), (ii) the spectrum of shale gas related problems (s 2.2), (iii) public views on fracking and the shale gas industry throughout the EU (s 2.3), and (iv) the concept of the SLO (s 2.4). Section 3 discusses problems of public participation, access to information and access to justice in shale gas related law-making at the EU-level (s 3.1) and Member States level (s 3.2). Section 4 discusses the same problems in developing environmental plans and programmes (strategic environmental impact assessment process) at the level of EU institutions (s 4.2) and at the level of national authorities responsible for the preparation of such plans and programmes (s 4.3 and s 4.4). Section 5 discusses the same problems in the realisation of specific shale gas related projects (in the course of the environmental impact assessment) including EU legislation (s 5.2) and its implementation in Member States (s 5.3). Finally, section 6 briefly discusses the same problems in a number of more specific environment related acts including (i) Habitats Directive (s 6.2), (ii) Birds Directive (s 6.3), (iii) Water Framework Directive (s 6.4), (iv) Industrial Emission Directive (s 6.5) and (v) selected other acts (s 6.6).

Several empirical models aimed at describing human mobility have been proposed in the past. Most of them are based on an unjustified analogy, with a focus on gravity and physical vector or scalar fields. Recently, however, statistical physicists introduced a new category of models that are theoretically motivated by a few simple and reasonable socioeconomic assumptions. The Radiation Model (Simini et al. 2012) and the Radiation Model with Selection (Simini–Maritan–Néda 2013) are such successful approaches. Here, we introduce a new version of the radiation model, the Travel Cost Optimized Radiation Model, and test its applicability for describing the commuting patterns in Hungary. We compare critically the performance of this model with the results of the previous radiation type models.

There is a growing need to integrate ecosystem services into management strategies of protected areas, and only a comprehensive ecosystem services assessment allows effective strategies for biodiversity conservation to be defined. Beneficiaries are largely disregarded or only mentioned in ecosystem services assessments related to protected areas. Thus, we propose indicators for identifying potential beneficiaries on the local and regional level, focusing on 16 relevant ecosystem services of Natura 2000 sites. For a case study in northern Italy, we used spatially-explicit modelling approaches to map and quantify the potential beneficiaries of multiple ecosystem services, including distance decay functions and basin catchment modelling. The resulting maps indicate that for provisioning and cultural services, the majority of the beneficiaries are located outside the protected area, whereas the beneficiaries of regulating services are mostly situated within or very close to it. The indicators and the beneficiary maps offer an important basis for an exhaustive assessment of ecosystem services flows from Natura 2000 sites and support the implementation of conservation policies by involving the local population and the community of users of protected areas.

Effective integration across policy domains and between spatial scales is indispensable in dealing with the inherently complex process of policy formulation and implementation at all levels. In this paper, we examine the key features of Ghana’s spatial planning system focusing on the mechanisms and challenges of policy integration in practice. We show that a combination of path-dependence and recent reforms has inevitably created two distinctly separate planning systems: an established Development Planning System and a newly instituted Spatial Planning System. Under the established notion of the ‘spatial’ being distinctively separate from the ‘socio-economic’ in planning, these two systems deploy separate institutional and legal arrangements as well as policy instruments to accomplish the task of planning. Within this context, mechanisms to ensure effective policy integration were found to be weak and ineffective. Moreover, the absence of a tradition of strategic regional planning and a culture of strategic partnerships among local authorities; the lack of appropriate institutional arrangements and sustainable sources of finance; and duplicitous institutional functions were the key barriers to effective integration within the new concept of hierarchical spatial planning. We argue that a new paradigm of integrated planning under a unified planning system is urgently needed as a pre-condition for effective multi-level policy integration. We suggest that some form of institutional restructuring would be necessary to establish a tradition of integrated planning. Finally, we recommend the use of legally binding mechanisms to institutionalize and enforce a culture of strategic alliance among local governments in cross-cutting matters.

By the year 2025 Rotterdam aims to have halved its CO2 emissions; an ambitious plan that will require a revolutionary approach to urban areas. One proactive response to this challenge is an exploratory study of the Hart van Zuid area. An interdisciplinary team has investigated how to tackle CO2-issues in a structured way. This has resulted in the Rotterdam Energy Approach and Planning (REAP) methodology. REAP supports initial demand for energy, propagates the use of waste streams and advocates use of renewable energy sources to satisfy the remaining demand. REAP can be applied at all levels: individual buildings, clusters of buildings and even whole neighbourhoods. Applying REAP to the Hart van Zuid has shown that this existing area can become CO2 neutral. Best of all: REAP can be applied everywhere.