Action-oriented planning methods as a tool for improving regional governance in Switzerland: Evidence from the Sisslerfeld area

Theodora Papamichail and Ana Perić

Land Use Policy, 2023, vol. 134, issue C

Abstract: Faced with challenges such as rapid transformation of existing settlements, reorganisation of mobility patterns, and climate change mitigation management, the governance of spatial development in Switzerland demands institutional and procedural innovations, particularly noticeable at the regional scale. Although cantons, the middle-governmental tier between the federal and communal authorities (municipalities), play a coordinating role supported by numerous formal and informal planning instruments, the small size of the institutional territory, coupled with administrative decentralisation of the country and autonomy of the lowest administrative levels, often challenges a multi-governmental and multi-sectorial approach to regional spatial development. Against the concepts of regional governance, regional planning and the action-oriented planning, and using the mixed-method research approach (focusing on documentary analysis and ethnographic methods), the article critically assesses a planning method – test planning – applied in the process of creating a development vision of Sisslerfeld, the largest land reserve in the Swiss canton of Aargau. Research results highlight the potential and limitations of informal collaborative procedures and elucidate the approaches of critical actors in an effort to achieve joint institutional action.

Keywords: Spatial development; Regional governance; Regional planning; Spatial visioning; Collaboration; Test planning method; Switzerland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837723003939
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:134:y:2023:i:c:s0264837723003939

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.106927

Access Statistics for this article

Land Use Policy is currently edited by Jaap Zevenbergen

More articles in Land Use Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joice Jiang ().