The SPLAMI Framework: Key Components and Interrelationships in Strategic Spatial Plan-Making and -Implementation

Résumé En

Strategic spatial planning is increasingly practiced throughout the world to develop a coordinated vision for guiding medium- to long-term spatial development of urban regions. The ultimate goal is to promote smart, sustainable and competitive cities. However, from a theoretical and conceptual point of view, strategic spatial planning is hard to grasp as it is multi-dimensional, embedded in socio-political and institutional complexity and highly context-dependent. Moreover, current planning debates mainly focus on the outputs of the strategic planning process while largely neglecting the impacts that strategic spatial planning can have on transformations of the urban built and natural environment. The purpose of this study is to disentangle the strategic spatial planning process while focusing on its two phases, i.e. plan-making and plan-implementation. Grounded in an empirical, case-based analysis of 21 European urban regions, we introduce the SPlaMI conceptual framework, representing the main components of plan-making and plan-implementationas well as the key interrelationships among these components. The SPlaMI framework contributes to expanding and organizing existing knowledge, it supports theory-building and reflects current practices in European urban regions. The comparative study reveals that strategic spatial planning is not a simple process of multi-scalar cooperation, but it involves various actors that interact in different governance arrangements, is conditioned by legislation and funding mechanisms, and is shaped and framed within complex power configurations.