PLACE-BASED TERRITORIALLY
SENSITIVE AND INTEGRATED
APPROACH
Authors:
Jacek Zaucha, Dariusz Świątek
Warsaw 2013
Ministry of Regional Development
Wspólna 2/4, 00-926 Warsaw
www.mrr.gov.pl
This report has been prepared at the request of The Network of Territorial Cohesion
Contact Points (NTCCP), with special engagement and contribution from the Steering
Group, however the responsibility for accuracy of the methodological procedures
and overall results of the study lies with the authors.
Special grattitudes for favourable support during entire research process should be
expressed to members of Steering Group: Phedon Enotiades, Jussi Rautsi, Rossella
Rusca, Thiemo W. Eser, Odd Godal, Axel Kristiansen, Maria José Festas, Sverker
Lindblad, Alda Nikodemus, Rigaut Aloys, Christian Svanfeldt (DG), Władysław
Piskorz (DG), Piotr Żuber (MRD), Magdalena Zagrzejewska-Fiedorowicz (MRD),
Kinga Stańczuk-Olejnik (MRD).
The organizational, institutional and factual suppot during entire research process was
provided by the Ministry of Regional Developement (MRD), with special engagement
of Ms. Kinga Stańczuk-Olejnik.
Warsaw, 2013
2
Table of content:
Executive summary .................................................................................................................... 4
Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 6
Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 6
Benefits out of territorial approach ............................................................................................ 7
Methodology of the place-based approach in a nut shell ........................................................... 8
Description of research procedure............................................................................................ 10
Place-based policies at national level - key findings of survey................................................ 11
Conclusions on place-based policy at national level................................................................ 38
The other side of the coin. Case studies on place-based policy at regional and local level..... 39
Interplay between regional and national level.......................................................................... 40
Place-based approach with regard to regional development - Case of Pomorskie Region on
Multilevel cooperation and integrated territorial approach in the regional development
policy (Poland) ..................................................................................................................... 40
Place-based approach with regard to agriculture and rural development policy - Case of
Finland.................................................................................................................................. 44
Place-based approach with regard to sea space - Case of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
(Germany) ............................................................................................................................ 46
Place based approach in regional policy implementation - case of Latvia .......................... 49
Interplay between regional and local level............................................................................... 53
Place-based approach in sparsely populated areas - Norwegian regional case from SørTrøndelag County: “The Coast is Clear” ............................................................................ 53
Place-based approach with regard regional development policy - Case of Region
Västerbotten (Sweden) ......................................................................................................... 57
Interplay between local (regional) and national level .............................................................. 61
Västerbotten County place-based approach with regard regional development policy - Case
of Umeå municipality (Sweden) .......................................................................................... 61
Place-based approach with regard to development of declining areas with use of cultural
heritage - Case of Limassol Wine Villages (Cyprus)........................................................... 64
Metropolitan case studies ......................................................................................................... 69
Introduction to the three German case studies on the place-based approach in functional
regions (urban-rural) ............................................................................................................ 69
Place-based approach with regard to urban rural partnership (functional areas) - Case of
Hamburg Metropolitan Region (Germany).......................................................................... 70
Place-based approach with regard to urban rural partnership (functional areas) - Case of
Stuttgart Metropolitan Region (Germany) ........................................................................... 73
Place-based approach with regard to urban rural partnership (functional areas) - Case of
Nuremberg Metropolitan Region (Germany)....................................................................... 75
Place-based approach in metropolitan regions (functional areas) - Case of urban policy in
Brussels-Capital Region (Belgium) ..................................................................................... 83
Conclusions on place-based policy from cases ........................................................................ 89
List of figures ........................................................................................................................... 90
List of maps .............................................................................................................................. 91
References ................................................................................................................................ 91
ANNEX I – list of survey contributors .................................................................................... 92
ANNEX II – questionnaire sample .......................................................................................... 94
3
Executive summary
As a follow up of adoption in May 2011 of the EU Territorial Agenda 2020 the Road Map
was agreed in autumn 2011 by the Ministerial Conference as a vehicle for the Agenda
implementation. Action no 1 of the Roadmap envisages preparation of a survey on how
Members States integrate place-based approach into public policies on national, regional and
local level and has been contacted under leadership of the Network of Territorial Cohesion
Contact Points (NTCCP) that was created in 2007, to provide technical support for the
cooperation of the Ministers responsible for spatial development in the implementation of the
Territorial Agenda. This document present numerical results of the survey, outcomes of in
depth interviews with selected countries on national models of implementation of the placebased approach as well as short descriptions of the regional case studies from various
European countries in this subject.
The concept of the place-based policy comes from the seminal Barca (2009) report titled AN
AGENDA FOR A REFORMED COHESION POLICY. It essence is in dialogue between
institutions and actors pursuing development at different geographical scales. Such a dialogue
allows to take into consideration local specificities and assets while designing and
implementing various development policies and simultaneously avoid domination of local or
regional self-interest prevailing in highly decentralised policy making models i.e. named by
Barca (2011) as communitarian approach. The assumption is that the place-based approach
improves performance of development policies (by stimulating endogenous development
potentials and catering policy to local circumstances) and properly outlines role of territorially
bound assets (factors) such as settlement structure, accessibility infrastructure etc. in pursuing
key development goals at EU and national level. Place-based approach is opposite to sectorial
approach that usually neglects synergies between different types of public interventions and
makes policy integration difficult and cumbersome at the local and regional level.
The key findings out of survey are following:
1. All the necessary ingredients of the place-based approach are in place.
2. There is no uniform template of the place-based approach. Countries’ approaches
differ.
3. Territory can be considered as an important topic for cross-governance dialogue
within the place based frame.
4. Some elements of the place-based approach needs strengthening, mainly: the way
territorial knowledge is collected, multi-level governance dialogue and its
instruments.
5. While territorialisation of some policies that have already strongly benefit out of it
should be continued (e.g. transport policy, environment policy, urban policy, regional
policy, spatial policy), there is a need to extend the place-based approach to some
other policies with the substantial potential for territorialisation, mainly: R&D1
policy, business policy, employment policy, education policy, health policy, and
perhaps also fishery policy.
Therefore the future work of the NTCCP and relevant national authorities in terms of
pursuing further on the place-based approach should concentrate on the policies and
1
This conclusion was also supported by ESPON research i.e. findings of the KIT Project (cf. Capello 2012)
4
shortcomings indicated above. This would be an important precondition to pursuing placebased approach at EU level and integrating socio-economic and territorial paradigms of policy
design and implementation.
The national in depth interviews and regional case studies clearly showed that the
implementation of the place-based approach to policy development is a dynamic phenomenon
in statu nascendi (just emerging). The methodology on place-based approach is under the
process of constant creation, assessment, examination, adjustment and redevelopment. Thus
there is a need for broader exchange of experience in that field among countries and regions.
Both national and international active debate is necessary. The aim of this report is to start
such a debate and exchange of experience as well as critical examination of the current way of
implementation of different types of development policies.
The survey showed that the place-based approach works and is present in various national
policies. Therefore it seems that there is the high time to intensify place-based efforts
territorially sensitive and integrated policy making also at EU, regional and local level as
concerted efforts of the NTCCP.
5
Introduction
In May 2011 the Territorial Agenda of EU 2020 (TA2020) was adopted replacing similar
document of 2007. In order to enhance its implementation the informal conference of
Ministers responsible for EU cohesion policy, urban and territorial development held in
Poznań on 24-25 November endorsed a Roadmap towards promoting and enhancing an
integrated, territorial approach based on the TA 2020. The key ambition is to strengthen
territorial approach of different policies that so far have not been “territorialised2”. This
means integration of territorial3 and socio-economic development aspects under different
policies.
The first action in this document is related to enhancement of the place-based approach in the
EU countries. The action was composed of three tasks:
preparation of a survey on how Members States integrate place-based
approach into public policies on national, regional and local level,
development of a methodology on how to integrate the place-based approach
into public policies on national, regional and local level,
dissemination of the methodology and results of the survey as good practice
throughout exchange of best practices, workshops, conferences, publications.
In a long run collecting of national experiences on the place-based approach is expected to
influence policy making at different administrative levels in terms of empowering several key
arguments that there is no way back to sectorial disintegrative programming of development
and that the more integrative place-based programming paradigm is our inevitable future.
This paper presents the results of the survey on integration of the place-based approach into
public policies. The survey has been answered by 25 member states and Norway and
Switzerland. It should be treated as continuation of the efforts launched by Portuguese,
Belgian, Hungarian and Polish presidencies of the EU Council aiming at strengthening
territorial thinking among the key decision makers.
In the final part of the paper selected case studies of application of the place-based approach
from regional perspective are also presented. They have been elaborated mainly by the
regional civil servants and experts in order to complement national perspective (depicted by
the survey) with the regional one. They should be treated as good practices showing practical
way of implementation of the place-based approach.
The main aim of this report is to start a pan-European debate and exchange of experience on
policy integration and policy territorialisation as well as to encourage critical examination of
the current way of implementation of different types of development policies.
The NTCCP would like to express its gratitude to all who contributed to elaboration of this
paper namely to countries that answered the questionnaire, came up with the regional case
studies and participated in the debate on the survey findings. The NTCCP Steering Group
composed of NTCCP representatives of Poland, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Norway,
Latvia, Luxemburg, Portugal and Sweden deserves also special thanks for steering the process
of preparation and interpretation of the findings of the survey. Finally the members of the
Working Group that supported Steering Group should be praised as well in particular Kinga
Stańczuk-Olejnik for her unprecedented personal devotion to complete the job.
2
Territorialisation of policies in this document means their spatial differentiation i.e. that policies are run
differently for different parts of territory and therefore are sensitive to territorial specificity in terms of
geographic features, institutional structures, and local and region al development al assets (territorial capital).
3
In this document notions “spatial” and “territorial” are used interchangeably.
6
Benefits out of territorial approach
Place-based approach offers two types of benefits:
1. It covers important elements and mechanisms constituting smart, inclusive and sustainable
growth,
2. It increases policy performance
For instance the Smart growth requires:
•
•
•
strong economies of agglomeration, enhancement of functional relations,
the existence of local development milieus,
a high level of social capital and
•
networking (flows of people and ideas) i.e. ability to constitute and sustain networks
of cities, functional regions, reasonable transport options, and e-connectivity
Sustainable growth requires,
• sufficient space for renewables;
• support compact and sustainable cities with controlled urban sprawl;
• environmentally-friendly transport;
• green corridors (green cohesion).
Inclusive growth requires:
•
•
•
well-functioning small and medium-size cities offering skills and jobs,
fair access to services of general economic interest;
the enlargement of functional areas (including the enlargement of the labour market)
of small and medium-size cities;
• promotion of accessibility to small and medium-size cities.
On top of that place-based approach is able to improve policy performance offering important
synergies and coordination mechanisms as well as enhancing endogenous developmental
forces including territorial capital described in depth in the Territorial Agenda of EU of 2007.
It brings to the political fora important message deeply rooted in the concept of the territorial
cohesion mainly that one-size-fits-all model doesn’t fit well into modern policy making. In practical
terms territorial concepts such as accessibility, economies of agglomeration, services of general
economic interest, functional regions, specific types of territories etc. can e.g. fuel discussion on
policy design namely:
•
rules of prioritisation of actions, rules of concentration (issue-based concentration);
•
issue-based conditionality;
•
possibility of innovative financial engineering use.
In order to enjoy all those benefits the territorial approach to development needs better
recognition and more firm anchoring in the minds of the decision makers. It is necessary to
spread this message out of spatial planning or spatial development domain. This is in
particular important due to economic slowdown and newly emerging challenges. One should
convince all levels of government and different sectorial policy makers that the territorial
approach can offer some solutions how to make policies more efficient and in the same time
more cost-effective. The best way to do that is through demonstrating concrete examples how
place-based approach progressed in the EU member states. Current economic slowdown
should not excuse from the long term thinking as well.
7
Methodology of the place-based approach in a nut shell
Key message out of the place-based approach is following:
Development - both in its economic and social dimensions – can be promoted in (almost) any
place by a combination of tailor-made institutions and integrated public investments designed
through the interaction of agents endogenous and exogenous to that place.
In formal terms the place-based approach means that:
•
a long-term development strategy whose objective is to reduce persistent inefficiency
(underutilisation of the
full potential) and ineIn the original documents introducing this approach to the policy making
quality
(share
of
the essence of this innovation was described as “combination of tailorpeople below a given
made institutions and integrated public investments designed through the
interaction of agents endogenous and exogenous to that place”. This
standard of well-being
means that:
and/or extent of inter• “institutions are not unique and context influences both the needs to
personal disparities) in
be addressed the effectiveness of institutions and investments in
meeting those needs;
specific places,
•
through the production
of bundles of integrated, place-tailored
public goods and services, designed and
implemented by eliciting and aggregating
local preferences and
knowledge
through
participatory political
institutions, and by
establishing linkages
with other places; and
•
promoted from outside
the place by a system
of
multilevel
governance
where
grants
subject
to
conditionalities
on
both objectives and institutions are transferred from higher to lower levels of government.
• strong interdependence exists among institutions and investments,
which calls for them to be designed in an integrated way;
• the knowledge needed to tailor institutions and investments to context
does not pre-exist whether held by the State, the “market” or local
agents - but must be produced through a deliberative process
involving all actors, both exogenous and endogenous to specific
places;
• local values are important but development also requires openness to
values from outside”
• under-development traps result from local elites being incapable,
unwilling (their aim being to maximise their own share of a given
output) or insufficient to deliver the appropriate institutions and
investments, which calls for an exogenous intervention to promote
endogenous change.”
As a result of these assumptions, the place based approach advocates
policy actions that:
• not only take spatial context into account intentionally and explicitly,
• nor just deliver an integrated bundle of public goods that addresses
different dimensions of well-being at the same time,
• but apply a combination of endogenous and exogenous forces - the
exogenous action being needed to bring knowledge and values from
“outside” and change the balance of bargaining power within places where the tension and conflict between endogenous and exogenous
forces is accounted for and governed through appropriate multi-level
governance tools.
[Barca 2011]
In practical terms the essence of this approach can be summarised in the following way
(drawing on Barca 2011):
1. Development requires relations between local decision makers (local developmental
agents) and exogenous forces (e.g. national government) in order to tailor policy
interventions to the specificity of different places (including its territorial capital) and
in the same time avoid rent seeking behaviour (domination of local self-interest). Such
dialogue is also essential for activation of endogenous potential end ensure ownership
of policy interventions.
2. The dialogue should reveal how development of a given “place” is important for
development of the entire country and vice versa how national development (e.g. of
8
the transport infrastructure) will influence well-being of the given place. Therefore
knowledge on a given place and the broader developmental context is necessary
3. Development is therefore a product of context specific institutions and their horizontal
and vertical networking and co-operation.
Despite rather general outline of the concept of the place-based programming of development
there are some common requirements that should be met in order to benefit out of this
approach. The most important universal elements of the place-based approach are following:
1. Recognition of territorial diversity in pursuing overall developmental goals i.e.
different ways of addressing developmental goals and priorities for different part of
the territory i.e. different “places”
2. Institutions:
•
having mandate or capacity to harmonize/coordinate, guide in harmony
development of different “places”(supra-place actors and institutions),
•
having mandate or capacity to guide, influence and foster development of a “given
place”(place specific actors and institutions),
•
capable to asses impact of their own actions on the action of other actors.
3. Knowledge:
•
on the overall developmental context i.e. developmental goals and priorities for all
“places” and the best means for pursuing them and monitoring of the progress to
that end.
•
on developmental specificity of a given place (territorial capital, other type of
local/regional potential etc.).
Institutional frame for multiactor dialogue (including instruments), filled in with real dialogue
between different developmental agents/institutions described above.
Fig. 1. Key elements of the place-based approach
Source: Szlachta J., Zaucha J. (2012) For an enhanced territorial dimension of the Cohesion Policy
in Poland in the 2014-2020 period. Institute For Development. Working paper 002/2012/(06)
If one takes on board as an example (cf. Fig. 1) place-based interplay between national
(exogenous) and regional (endogenous) governments and actors in a hypothetical country the
described above key ingredients of the place-based approach would look in a following way:
9
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
National government responsible for developmental resources and able to deliver
public institutions and services.
Regional government together with variety of regional actors responsible for or
influencing regional development.
National documents identifying key developmental goals and priorities, systems for
monitoring the development of the country.
Development policies specifying different developmental goals and priorities for
different parts of the country, instruments for assessments of territorial impact of
different national, regional and local policies and programmes.
Monitoring systems for development of the regions run by the regional governments
and linked with the national ones.
Instruments for assessments of impact of different national, regional and local policies
and programmes.
Institutional frame for a dialogue between national and regional governments in
different forms e.g. development contracts, hierarchy of plans etc.
The content of the developmental dialogue between national and regional governments
(what policies and themes are covered).
The model described above by definition is not applicable to all Member States, it is used here
only for illustration purposes. In reality place-based approach should not be narrowed to
governments only and it does covers all types of actors. It would therefore need to be further
broken down into alternative patterns in order to match situation of different countries. This
should be done consciously and with a special care.
Description of research procedure
The idea to prepare a survey on how Members States integrate place-based approach into
public policies on national, regional and local level was endorsed by Directors General of
territorial cohesion at their meeting on 8-9 may 2012 in Copenhagen. The survey was
elaborated, executed and the report was prepared under guidance and supervision of the
Steering Group of NTCCP composed of following countries: Poland, Cyprus, Denmark,
Finland, Italy, Norway, Latvia, Luxemburg, Portugal, Sweden. The research capacities were
provided by Polish Ministry of Regional Development that led the Working Group composed
of the Ministry Officers: Kinga Stańczuk-Olejnik, Magdalena Zagrzejewska-Fiedorowicz and
Piotr Żuber and contracted researchers: Jacek Zaucha from Institute of Development in Sopot
and University of Gdańsk as well as Dariusz Świątek from Polish Academy of Science. The
entire process is depicted at the figure Fig. 2.
The survey consisted of two phases. The first phase focused on respondents on the national
level and covered experiences of various EU countries plus Norway, Switzerland and Croatia.
The experts (representatives of countries in the NTCCP) in those countries were approached
with a standardised questionnaire that covered various aspects of place-based policy. There
were collected 27 questionnaires all (see plain questionnaire in the annex II) together, which
allow performing a diagnosis of place-based approach across Europe (cf. Map 1). The first
phase was continued by follow-up in depth interviews in some of the countries which
interesting examples of place-based approach. These interviews focused on particular aspects
of the process of territorialisation of various policies (e.g. indicators, evaluation and control
processes), the role of autonomous regions, the role of various actors in the policy
territorialisation process, etc.) and they were performed in 7 countries (Finland, Sweden,
France, Austria, Luxemburg, Romania and Portugal).
The second phase of the survey focused on the regional and local levels. At this phase, the
case-studies were selected on the base of application of place-based mechanisms. The
10
Steering Group tried to cover at this phase various specific areas across Europe, which were
facing particular issues (sparsely populate areas, metropolitan regions, rural-urban fringe, sea
space, cultural heritage, touristic areas etc.) and different policies. However, finally only cases
that were voluntarily offered by different developmental actors and authorities were executed
in fact. Within the second phase respondents received a set of questions designed for the
particular conditions of their case, which allowed obtaining detailed information about
specific experiences of policies territorialisation. Altogether 12 regional and local level case
studies were examined, which were classified on four axes/dimensions: (i) interplay between
regional and national level, (ii) interplay between regional and local level, (iii) interplay
between local and national level, and (iv) metropolitan case studies. The case studies were
located in Norway, Belgium, Germany, Cyprus, Sweden, Finland, Latvia and Poland (cf. Map
1).
Fig. 2. Process of the preparation of the report on how Members States integrate place-based
approach into public policies on national, regional and local level.
Source: elaboration by Kinga Stanczuk-Olejnik
The main goal of those regional cases was to act as a source of inspiration, Therefore it was
decided that they should be short, concise and focused on lessons learned.
Place-based policies at national level - key findings of survey
All the necessary ingredients of the place-based approach are in place.
All four elements of the place-based approach (Barca 2009) listed under previous section of
the paper are on place in the examined countries. This can be seen from the answers to
different parts of the questionnaire.
Dialogue between different developmental actors (referred afterwards as a place-based
dialogue) is a reality. In all examined countries the economic policies and measures such as
grants for local/regional governments have been formulated in dialogue between different
actors (cf. Fig. 3). For majority of policies such a dialogue encompasses at least two or more
than two types (active at different geographical scale) of development actors as an average. In
11
the survey three different government levels were recognised (central, regional and local) plus
the level of other stakeholders taking part in the dialogue. Therefore maximum amount of
“levels” for a dialogue under given policy would be four and minimum one. As presented at
figure Fig. 3 there are only few policies with an average level of involvement (for all
examined countries) close to 1.5. For some of them e.g. macroeconomic policies such
situation is acceptable. Some others e.g. health policy, education, R&D policy, land use policy
or environment and nature policy offer some scope for improvement. For instance the
environment and nature policy has been described as a one actor policy in 15 countries and
land use policy in 13 countries.
For a place-based dialogue various instruments have been used as illustrated at figure Fig. 4.
Many of them are not directly related to the EU Cohesion Policy and find their roots in the
specificity of the governance system of the examined countries. This is an evidence for
common acceptance of the need for a dialogue between different types of development actors
despite, some reservations to the quality of the dialogue that are discussed in the next sections
of this paper (cf. Fig. 17).
Territorially sensitive knowledge necessary for place-based approach has been collected.
This is the case both with regard to typical territorial phenomena and processes and to socioeconomic ones both at national and subnational level (Fig. 5,6,7,8). Lack of such knowledge
seems to be an
exception rather than
Collecting data- case of Luxembourg
the
rule.
Various
Luxembourg has created National Territorial Observatory (l’Observatoire du
Développement spatial) monitoring development of the country but also
methods have been
adjacent territories of France, Germany and Belgium. The main reason for
used and many of
creation of the Observatory is conviction that many development problems
those efforts are of
have territorial dimension that is difficult to be easily seen at a first glance.
systematic character.
Therefore hard evidences should be collected to allow proper focusing of the
policy interventions. For instance more than 160 thousand people commute
In some countries even
each day for work to Luxembourg (inhabited by approximately 509 thousand
permanent monitoring
of permanent citizens). This daily inflow is important for the prosperity of the
systems are in place
country. Thus reliable information on commuting patterns is of key
(cf. box on Collecting
importance for Luxembourg government in order to ensure relatively easy
access to its labour market for the daily commuters. The evidence gathered
data), whereas at EU
helped to understand the nature of the problem which is not in quality of the
level this task is only
transport infrastructure as a such but in its concentration and lack of
to be accomplished by
alternatives. The Luxembourg case proves that sound territorial monitoring
plays important role regardless of the country size or level of development and
the ESPON in the
that understanding of territory can help to solve socio-economic problems.
nearest future.
Capable and placebased institutions exist. The survey did not examine directly the quality and capability of the
institutions to run policies in line with the place-based approach. However, the answers on the
reasons of the success of place-based dialogue show importance and existence of such
institutions and their ability to enter into a dialogue (cf. Fig. 9). The survey checked ability of
those institutions to enter into evidence based dialogue with other development actors i.e. the
frequency they assess impacts of policies run by other authorities on socio-economic and
territorial development of their jurisdiction. The result is promising the survey proved that this
has been done both by local and national development actors, however mainly at ad hoc basis
(cf. Fig. 10).
12
Fig. 3. Intensity of dialogue between different types of development actors for various policies
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
Fig. 4. Instruments and procedures used for place-based dialogue
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
13
Fig. 5. Collection of knowledge on territorial differentiation of socio-economic development by
national authorities by different methods (N=26)4
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
Fig. 6. Collection of knowledge on territorial development by national authorities by different
methods (N=26)
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
4
Number N refers to countries that provided answers for particular question.
14
Fig. 7. Collection of knowledge on territorial differentiation of socio-economic development by
subnational authorities by different methods (N=26)
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
Fig. 8. Collection of knowledge on territorial development by subnational authorities by
different methods (N=26)
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
15
Fig. 9. Main reasons of the success in place-based dialogue (N=26)
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
Fig. 10. Impact assessments of policies run by local/regional authorities on socio-economic and
territorial development of the country and impact assessments of policies run by national
authorities on socio-economic and territorial development of the regions/municipalities (N=26)
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
There is no uniform template of the place-based approach. Countries’
approaches differ.
The survey revealed that although place-based approach has been implemented (too different
degree) in almost all examined countries its composition and focus differs. The differences
and similarities were checked using the Ward method that clustered the examined countries
together on the basis of questions on non territorialised (spatially blinded5) policies, intensity
and procedures used for place-based dialogue under different policies (cf. Fig. 3 and Fig. 4
right hand part), assessment of effectiveness of such a dialogue (cf. Fig. 17), collection of
5
In this paper under the notion of spatially blinded policies and non-territorialised policies are used
interchangeable. Such policies are run in uniform way at the entire territory without differentiation of their goals
in space and without spatial concentration of their interventions.
16
knowledge (cf. Fig. 5-8) and transparency of the dialogue (i.e. ability of different level of
governments to explain their interests towards other level of government in formal documents
– cf. Fig. 21). The results are shown in the figure Fig. 11.
Fig. 11. Typology of the examined countries with regard to key ingredients of the place-based
approach
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
Also the more in depth investigations (in depth inquiries) done at the national level, that
accompanied the survey, revealed some clear differences between countries with regard to
implementation of the place-based approach. Those differences mirror specificities of the
countries. The main factors behind those differences seem to be following:
a) small versus large countries,
b) federal versus unitarian
countries (and on top of that
countries with autonomous
regions),
c) differences in division of
responsibilities
between
local, regional and national
governments,
d) differences in planning and
administrative cultures.
Informal cross-governance dialogue in Sweden
The main initial role of the National strategy for regional
competitiveness, entrepreneurship and employment was to become a
reference document for the EU Cohesion Policy. But the Swedish
government also decided that this should be the main national
document guiding growth policy in the country. The strategy was used
to strengthen horizontal and vertical integration of policy making
based on informal dialogue. The national Forum for regional
competitiveness, entrepreneurship and Employment was established
2007 as a result of the strategy. Top politicians from different levels of
government including State Secretaries from various ministries and the
highest politicians from regional level (21 territorial units) were
invited to participate. The Forum meets four times a year and is used
for revealing key concerns of different authorities related to growth
policy. This is informal but very powerful tool for orchestrating
development priorities of various level of government and ensuring
synergy between growth related actions of different ministries and
regional governments.
Place-based approach is
possible in both large states
with
many
levels
of
government
and
large
territories (e.g. national government plus three levels of self-governments in Poland, or
countries with very different types of territories e.g. Nordic countries) and smaller states with
only two level of government and more homogenous territory. In larger states the spatial
differentiation of various policies, in many cases, cannot be avoided due to complex nature of
regional problems, differences in endowments and high costs of overcoming distance. But
also in smaller states place-based approach has been implemented and considered as
17
beneficial. The example is the case of Luxembourg in which many of policies have been
territorialised in order to fight with excessive concentration and trying to establish new
growth poles outside the city of Luxembourg. As illustrated at figure Fig. 12 the number of
different types of stakeholders engaged in policy making has not been correlated with the
complexity of the country governing system (measured by the number of level of
government), but rather it is dependent on country specific factors such as planning or
administrative culture etc.
Fig. 12. Relation between size of the country and number of different types of stakeholder
engaged in the place-based dialogue (N=26)
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
As a rule in federal states place-based approach has been recognised and implemented many
years ago sometimes under different name or headings. The reason is straight forward.
Policies run at
federal level and
Case of ÖROK
at the level of
The Austrian Conference on Spatial Planning provides a good example of successful
federal states are
informal vertical and horizontal coordination mechanism combined with monitoring
and knowledge creation. The conference integrates spatial policy, EU funds, regional
usually
development and brings together wide spectrum of authorities and stakeholders. In the
interlinked and
federal structure of Austria responsibilities for regional policy and spatial planning are
strongly
affect
divided between federal government, governments of nine federal states and
each-other. An
municipalities. The existing legal provisions do not cater for formal co-ordination
mechanism. Thus Federal Chancellery and federal states developed informal
example can be
consultation mechanism and established in 1971 the Austrian Conference on Spatial
Germany.
The
Planning (ÖROK). The membership of ÖROK includes: federal chancellery, federal
federal level runs
ministries, federal states (provinces), Association of Cities and Towns, the
several policies
Association of Municipalities, economic and social partners. The main task of ÖROK
is coordination of spatial planning & regional policy among the different
e.g. transport or
governmental levels in Austria and coordination of EU Structural Fund Programmes
environmental
in Austria. Coordination tasks of the Conference cover facilitation of discussions on
policy, whereas
relevant issues and harmonisation of policy design (set-up). The decisions are taken at
federal states are
consensus basis but the conference has no formal decision-making competences as it
is based only on political agreement. So the ÖROK partners commit themselves to
responsible for
voluntarily comply with the decisions of the Conference. Several committees and
socio-economic
working groups prepare material to be discussed by the Conference such as spatial
and
territorial
development scenarios (trends, challenges, opportunities and alternative ways
forward) or the “Austrian Spatial Development Concept“ (ÖREK). The Conference
development.
also release various publications such as reports on spatial planning or the ÖROK
Such
situation
Atlas on spatial development in Austria. Even the Conference looks very informal at
makes a dialogue
the first glance its work is based on jointly agreed rules of procedures, and multiinevitable. Speannual work programmes and is supported by a permanent Secretariat (with two
directors appointed by federal government and by federal states) coordinating various
cial ministerial
initiatives, efforts and discussions and being responsible for information exchange.
conferences unThis has been considered as one of the key preconditions for the ÖROK success. Also
der
different
informal rules (on openness and mutual appreciation) have been regarded as important
policies
have
catalytically factor in the work of ÖROK.
been
therefore
18
established in order to discuss co-operation and political priorities under each policy among
federal government and federal states. Such conferences have not formal decision-making
power but they ensure policy support for the most important tasks and solutions. An example
can be extension of terrestrial planning of the federal states to the sea up to 12 nm border
while leaving exclusive economic zone to the planning of federal level that changed the
existing spatial planning logic in Germany.
Similar situation
Case of DATAR
is in Austria
The French place-based model presents an important institutional feature of vertical
where the fedand horizontal coordination strengthening the territorial approach. The
eral states (LänInterministerial Delegation for Spatial Planning and Regional Attractiveness –
der)
play
a
DATAR- is a unique governmental organization bridging State administrations
strong role in
between them on issues dealing with territorial development and with regional-local
governments fomenting cross-cooperation and support in national and regional
development
policies and territorial projects. DATAR is also involved in the coordination of
policies - not
operational programmes and state regional contracts. At the national level, DATAR
only
constituis in charge of inter-ministerial coordination of policies, for which it brings in a
tionally but also
territorial perspective and vertical coordination; thus integrating sub-national
governments and avoiding spatially-blind policies.
politically (via
A main acting area of DATAR is facilitating the evaluation of policies and
parties and parprogrammes. For this purpose, DATAR develops, together with other institutions,
liament) and also
tools for communication, monitoring, auditing and reporting. Among the tools,
indicators for policies are crucial for ensuring that a place-based approach is
as "private acsuccessfully implemented.
tors" (in Austria,
DATAR articulates the development of indicators, especially giving a territorial
both the federal
perspective to sectorial indicators traditionally used by the ministries and promoting
ministries
and
constant assessment of them by means of including different expertise in the
process. A continuous process of creating, evaluating, adapting and recreating
the Länder not
indicators is then taken up by DATAR. This is made by negotiations between state
only act on the
and regions. Public authorities use indicators depending on their competences.
basis of public
The National Institute for Statistics (INSEE) and Ministries develop indicators for
law but also on
monitoring policies at the national level in horizontal coordination with formal and
informal consultation to stakeholders carried out by DATAR. INSEE plays a major
private
law;
role, being responsible for the evaluation of data availability for the indicators, their
these
publicly
relevance and efficiency, as well as checking the existence of any indicator for the
owned but priissue that is supposed to be measured. Indicators are, therefore, created in
vately run instiaccordance with the actual demand of policy-makers. With the creation of such
system in the national level, regional bodies took the opportunity to have additional
tutions / agenand customized indicators as well.
cies / companies
Currently DATAR is checking specific EU indicators used by regional and
/ funds / promanaging authorities. Specifically for cohesion policy, three types of indicators are
grammes do play
generally created: i) indicators proposed by the European Commission (compulsory)
with European coverage; ii) national indicators (developed by DATAR, INSEE and
an important role
ministries in charge of Structural Funds); and iii) specific indicators for the
e.g. in economic,
operational programmes. Those indicators cover various administrative levels.
research
and
When an indicator is assessed as not efficient (or not relevant or not providing
enough information) informal contacts are carried out, namely discussions with
infrastructure
managing authorities, evaluators, consulting companies etc.
policies). In addition, competences of the local level are quite strong in the field of spatial planning and local service
provision. Sector policies formally in the hand of the national level in Austria such as labour
market, higher education, science & research, agriculture, mining, transport, energy are run
under a sophisticated system of sharing power and complementing different level of
government. In general in Austria place-based policy making benefits out of a particular
stable network of relationships which is based also on informal networking (cf. box on
ÖROK) and cooperation and a high level of trust. Institutional innovations normally go only
step-by-step and on the basis of compromise and consensus - applying the principle of
continuity rather than disruptive reforms.Other specificity is associated with autonomous
19
regions policy formulation process. Such regions in some areas allow influence from
governmental level only on voluntary basis (cf. box on autonomous regions).
In the unitarian
states place-based
Case of municipalities in Finland
approach is strong
In Finland municipalities are responsible for providing basic services for citizens.
when sub-national
This is financed by municipal tax added with state support. Municipal Councils
governments have
have the right to adopt strategic development plans and land use plans.
clear responsibility
However, in order to ensure cohesive development of the entire country, the
over some develvision of the long-term spatial development of Finland as well as key national
objectives with regard to spatial management are formulated at the national level.
opment policies but
The Ministry for Environment prepares and the Government approves the
national level reNational Land Use Guidelines. Some specific guidelines and programmes are
tained some guidformulated for different types of territories. These can be sparsely populated rural
ing forces. An exareas, for establishing e.g. new enterprises in stagnating areas and ones with
declining
traditional industries, urban regions, coastal zones, the Helsinki region
ample can be Finand Sami region (Lapland).Those guidelines should be taken into account in all
land (cf. box on
land use decisions and land use planning.
municipalities
in
The Ministry of Environment has a right to guide local planning by the
Finland)
with
ratification of regional plans. Therefore local municipalities assess the impact of
strong local govand take into consideration the national spatial policy while planning their
development. They apply the National Land Use Guidelines to local
ernments but with
circumstances. Also central authorities guide and assess the spatial plans prepared
clear function of
at regional and local level. For local plans this is done by Finland’s Centres for
national
governEconomic Development, Transport and the Environment within their respective
ment to harmonize
regions.
development of the
Those ingredients make the place-based dialogue in Finland very active and result
oriented. The Central government cannot impose on municipalities or regions any
entire country. Deconcrete planning solutions whereas subnational authorities have to respect
centralization
of
national objectives and principles. An example can be a guideline stating that
responsibilities is
“Major retail trade units should be located so as to support the urban structure.
not a sufficient
Exceptions can be made in cases where it is possible to show, on the basis of
studies of needs and impacts, that the use of the area is in line with sustainable
condition for the
development”. On that basis central authorities can refuse acceptance of the plans
place-based
ape.g. providing location of big shopping-malls outside urban areas without proper
proach. In Poland
evidence-based discussion on the impacts of such decisions.
strong mandate for
A similar approach is used in other policies, however tools might differ. For
local governments
example under health policy local governments are responsible for running
hospitals. Because of high costs, this is done by associations of municipalities.
in land use planFrom
the spatial point of view, the recent national objective is to concentrate
ning used to comhealth care services in order to maintain and develop them to match i.e. the needs
promise harmony
caused by the increase of the ageing population. In this case, the main vehicles
of spatial developempowering place-based approach are financial instruments i.e. grants and
subsidies from national level that guide the development of the health care
ment of the entire
facilities according to national objectives and principles.
country. The reason
was
non-hierarchical spatial planning system.
Also planning and administrative culture matters. In case of Austria (cf. box on ÖROK) or
Sweden (cf. box on informal cross-governance dialogue) informal vertical and horizontal
consultations (between different ministries) have been successfully conducted despite lack of
legal obligation to do that. This allowed taking advantage of the place-based benefits in these
countries. In Germany the stimuli to start programming of development of functional regions
came from Federal level but then it was shaped by the other development actors in line with
their needs with focus on informal relations and processes (see regional cases in the final part
of the report).
In some countries place-based approach is evidence based e.g. in France (cf. box on DATAR)
or in Netherland. Numerous indicators are collected on regular bases and used as a starting
20
point in multi-governance discussions. In some others the dialogue is based on the tacit
knowledge or easily available expert knowledge. The first approach is transparent but
resource (money and labour) intensive. The second approach requires less time and works but
is prone to the risk of being captured by well organized groups of stakeholders.
The result of all those differences is different mix of policies tools and actors involved in the
place-based policy making and implementation in various countries. For instance both in
Sweden and Finland place-based approach make use of strong position of municipalities.
However, in Sweden the
informal tools prevail (cf. box
Case of functional regions in Sweden
on informal cross-governance
Sweden has a long lasting tradition of promotion of the concept of
dialogue),
the
main
functional regions in an informal way without changing the existing
administrative system or boundaries of municipalities or regions.
characteristic feature of the
The labour markets were identified in Sweden as important areas of
Finnish model of a placepublic interventions more than 20 years ago. Numerous analyses
based approach is suitable
were conducted showing intensity and directions of the commuting
processes. Those analysis influenced decisions of local and regional
legislation providing solid
politicians that had under their disposal resources for public
frame to the formal placeinvestment in transport or related to location of public services of
based dialogue. In Poland the
general interest. Periodically repeated analysis appeared a tool for
main vehicle for enhancement
convincing municipalities to work together in order to improve their
economic situation as a win-win solution. The process of building
of place-based integrated
joint understanding of the challenges and agreeing on joint solutions
policy making was merge of
(e.g. dividing location of municipal services as an answer to
national spatial strategy into
demographic problems etc.) was time consuming and usually
long term strategy of the
dependent of the intensity of the challenges (more acute problems
resulted in shorter time to reach an agreement). But the most
country development (cf. box
important was emergence of the conviction among local leaders that
on long term development
only through co-operation and creation with the others a critical
strategy) whereas in Sweden
mass of development their municipalities can maintain competitive
the National strategy for
position in a long run. Even though more co-operating in functional
regions is desirable, the Swedish example shows how clever
regional
competitiveness,
awareness rising and analytical studies can lead to actual coentrepreneurship
and
operation and influence real investments and decision making
employment was deliberately
process of administrative units enjoying high level of political and
chosen for testing place-based
financial independence.
policy making.
Territory can be considered as an important topic for place-based dialogue.
Application of spatial categories is one of the key methods of ensuring policy differentiation
in space, which in turn is a key element of the place-based approach. The other methods are:
monitoring of territorial impacts of the policies, adoption of different goals and outputs for
different parts of the territory, territorial concentration of interventions (e.g. special allocation
for development of Eastern Poland or better funding conditions under agriculture policy in
Northern part of Finland).
The survey revealed that territorial issues have been frequently used as discussion topics in
the place-based dialogue under different policies. They played important role in spatial
differentiation of policies i.e. adjusting them to the specificity of different places and in
integrating socio-economic and territorial policy paradigms. The most frequently applied
spatial categories for framing dialogue between different levels of government and
stakeholders were following (cf. Błąd! Nie można odnaleźć źródła odwołania.): strong
cities, functional regions (cf. box on of functional regions), accessibility and transport, public
services of general interest, rural regions, problem regions, environment and nature. This
means that the place-based dialogue was not only focused on investments and financial grants
but also on important territorial challenges for addressing which those investments or
financial grants were directed.
21
Fig. 13. Frequency of application of the spatial categories in the place-based dialogue (N=26)
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
One should also note that the categories most frequently chosen by respondents are in line
with the findings of the contemporary research on how territorial structures contribute to the
socio-economic development. Among those categories the most prominent developmental
role play economies
of
agglomeration
Case of autonomous regions in Portugal
(strong cities), acPortugal has two levels of territorial administration (local and national). Although,
cessibility,
local
there is no regional level of administration in the continental mainland, there are
assets (services of
two autonomous regions - Azores and Madeira (considered as ultra-peripheral
regions of the EU), which function with a considerable degree of autonomy due to
general interest) as
their distance, isolation, geographical context and socio-economic circumstances.
well as backward
Since these regions possess their own political and administrative status, they
and forward linkcreate their own policies. However foreign policy, defence and internal security
are areas beyond the responsibility of the regional authorities. For others areas of
ages
(functional
public life, despite the autonomy from central government, the regions are
networks).
Some
informally and voluntarily consulted about some documents prepared in Lisbon
other choices are in
(e.g. guidelines, technical documents, etc.) are . For example, albeit the national
line with the congovernment does not have competence regarding territorial planning in the
autonomous regions, the National Territorial Development Policies Programme
cept of territorial
has to include regional territorial plans and the latter must be compatible with the
cohesion promoted
National Programme.
under TA2020 i.e.
The interactions between central government and the regions include vertical
territorially
balcontrols and exchange of information. On one hand, both Madeira and Azores
host Representatives of the Republic, whose main tasks are to preserve the
anced development
national sovereignty in the regions, ensure the constitutionality of regional laws
and solidarity and
(e.g. veto of regional law if against the Constitution), homologation the elected
match
some
president and secretaries of the Regional Government. On the other hand, the
TA2020 priorities.
autonomous regions have representatives in the National Parliament and the
Council of the State (a consultative body of the President of the Republic). There
In fact all spatial
are also mechanisms of consultation which allow the autonomous regional
categories presented
authorities to express their opinions on national documents or policies (e.g.
at figure Błąd! Nie
national budget). Regional Authorities are normally invited to provide their views
on new regulations or guidelines. Throughout these mechanisms, regional
można
odnaleźć
authorities can impact on policies created at the national level.
źródła odwołania.
The autonomous regions must follow national laws as established by the
are applied in more
Parliament, however with the right to adapt them to regional specificities. This
than 40% of the
adjustment is a crucial feature of place-based policies.
countries examined
with one exception
22
of location of the settlement units. This provides evidence-based support to the mandate to
integrate spatial policy with some other sectoral policies as advocated under the concept of
the policy integration in the aforesaid Road Map and by various Presidencies of EU Council6.
One could expect the spatial categories are most frequently used under policies with strong
territorial impact such as regional policy, transport policy or land use policy. The survey
substantiated aforesaid expectations identifying clear set of policies in which spatial
categories have been most frequently applied. This means that the categories presented at
figure 13 have been mostly used in those policies. As shown at figure Fig. 14 this set includes
such policies as: land-use policy, urban policy, regional policy, urban policy, rural
development and environment policy. One can even ask why there are some countries that
have not applied spatial categories under those policies at all. Also transport policy is injected
with many spatial categories. However, what is also important, with few exceptions spatial
categories are also present in other policies, in particular those regarded as a rule of thumb as
spatially blinded or not requiring territorialisation such as research or health policy (cf. Fig.
15). Application of spatial categories into such policies has been indicated by representatives
of 4-5 countries out of 27 examined which gives impressive record of almost 20%.
In depth inquires at national level revealed concrete cases. For instance in Luxembourg
accessibility to the public services of general interest is a key dialogue topic between different
development actors under
education policy. As the
Strategy for Danube Delta
In Romania, territorialisation of policies at the moment takes place
result the University of
considering only the spatial planning documents made at different
Luxembourg was located
administrative territorial level – national, regional, county and local or for
outside the city of
different functional areas. The objective of the spatial planning
Luxembourg as a key
documents is to harmonize the economic, social, ecological and cultural
policies for all territorial levels. Also, for specific areas, spatial planning
function of a newly
documents are prepared considering topography, geography and sociocreated Southern growth
economic context of places. For instance, regional contextualization
pole (new urban centre
policies disconnects regions from the traditional administrative division
Belval-Ouest)
of
the
of the country; it yet considers e.g. Coastal Areas, the Danube Delta
Areas or Mountainous Areas. These above mentioned areas have spatial
country. The location of
planning plans which focus on preserving the environment and
other educational facilities
maintaining sustainable development. A good exemplification for
is also assessed from point
attempts of introduction a place-based approach are actions for
of view of their contribudeveloping the Integrated Territorial Investment for the Danube Delta.
Tulcea County (where Danube Delta is located) is famous for its great
tion to the deconcentration
natural potential and unique environmental value. However, due to the
of the settlement and
geographic specificity of the area, features as transport accessibility or
economic structure of the
provisions of services of general interests are unsatisfactory,
demonstrating the high need for improvement. The launching of the
country. In Sweden the
Territorial Investment for the Danube Delta had a bottom-up origin, since
concept of functional
the local authorities of the county pursued the assistance of two national
region in terms of labour
ministries (the Ministry of Regional Development and Public
markets
influenced
Administration and the Ministry of European Funds) for the Integrated
Territorial Investment preparation. It combines funding from several
various local policies: land
priority axes of more than one Operational Programme for the purposes
use (physical planning),
of multi-dimensional and cross-sectoral intervention.
education policy, health
Presently (January 2013) the Integrated Territorial Investment is during
care policy and some
the preparatory phase. The Strategy for Danube Delta will be prepared
based on the study of the World Bank on the region. In the next steps
others. In Poland National
regional actors will have to develop projects which will improve living
Spatial
Development
conditions of inhabitants of the region (in line with Strategy for Danube
Concept with its network
Delta) and seek both national and European sources of funding.
metropolises has been
6
Böhme, K., Doucet, P., Komornicki, T., Zaucha, J. & Świątek, D. (2011) How to strengthen the territorial
dimension of Europe 2020 and the EU Cohesion Policy. Report based on the Territorial Agenda 2020, prepared
at the request of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union. http://ec.europa.eu/regional_
policy/sources/docgener/studies/pdf/challenges2020/2011_territorial_dimension_eu2020.pdf
23
merged into long term development strategy of the country (cf. box on Polish case on policy
integration).
Integration of policies in Poland
In Poland One document gives foundations for other key policies that have been reduced to
nine all together. All other policies should be in line with those key integrated strategies with a
strong territorial dimension.
The National Spatial Development Concept 2030 is a part of this system which ensures
implementation of the developmental goals on lowest governmental levels and secure the
territorial approach in all documents.
Long-term national development strategy
National Spatial
Development Concept
(NSDC)
Medium-term national development strategy
Transport Development
Strategy
National Security
Strategy of the Republic
of Poland
Energy Safety and
Environment
Social Capital
Development Strategy
Strategy of Innovation
and Economic Efficiency
Strategy for Sustainable
Development of Rural
areas and Agriculture
Human Resources
Development Strategy
9 integrated
strategies
with a strong
territorial
dimension
Efficient State
National Strategy of Regional Development
1
Fig. 14. Methods used for territorialisation of policies (N=26)
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
24
Some elements of the place-based approach needs strengthening.
The survey revealed several challenges for introduction of the place-based approach in policy
programming related:
•
to the way the knowledge necessary for place-based policy programming and
implementation is collected,
•
to the place-based dialogue both its efficiency and instruments,
•
and to the capacity of some public authorities to reveal and express their preferences
towards the other actors of the place-based dialogue.
The survey didn’t have ambitions to examine the results of the dialogue in terms of grants,
investments, innovations etc. matching the criteria of the place-based dialogue described in
the introductory part to this paper.
In terms of the knowledge collection various methods are used in the countries examined.
This shows that such collection is important and takes place in reality. However, the national
authorities mainly relay on easily available statistical information for assessing progress both
on territorial and socio-economic development. The second source is tacit knowledge of
national authorities themselves revealed in the policy document. As shown at figure Fig. 15
regular monitoring systems are present and used in ca. 40% of the countries examined. The
problem is that information from statistical sources is usually lagging behind in terms of time
and not always fit the needs of the territorialisation of a concrete policy. In other words such
source of information is usually sufficient for making ex post analysis but it offers limited
value for prognostic work not speaking about warning functions. Therefore perhaps it is
sufficient for policy programming but can hardly be used in policy implementation. Here
comes tacit knowledge of the authorities which can be verified in the course of public
discussions. However, regular monitoring systems fit into purpose would make such debate
more evidence based and better focused (cf. box on acquiring policy relevant territorial
knowledge in Latvia).
Fig. 15. Methods of collecting territorially relevant knowledge necessary under the place-based
approach by national authorities (N=26)
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
25
Also local and regional authorities mainly relay on their tacit knowledge. Local and regional
monitoring systems are used on regular basis only in less than 40% of the countries examined
(cf. Fig. 16). The specificity of regional authorities is more frequent use of other methods of
knowledge collection mainly national and territorial observatories, data base of court
decisions, annual surveys (e.g. Farm Accountancy Data Network), data base of local,
municipal and regional spatial plans.
An important source of knowledge for place-based approach is assessment of the impacts of
policies run by other authorities on socio-economic and territorial development of a given
place or the entire country. As it has been already mentioned such assessments have been
conducted in majority of the countries (cf. Fig. 10). However, the figure Fig. 14 clearly shows
that monitoring of territorial impacts (impact of policies on territorial structures) has been
concentrated on limited number of policies regarded as having spatial dimension. For other
policies such monitoring has been much less frequently conducted even though they might
have important territorial impacts e.g. education and health policy on access to the services of
general interest or labour market policy on formation of functional regions. The case of those
policies will be discussed in the last section of the paper. However, here one might
recommend paying more attention to monitoring their consequences on territorial
development.
Fig. 16. Methods of collecting territorially relevant knowledge necessary under the place-based
approach by local and regional authorities (N=26)
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
Satisfaction with the efficiency of the place-based dialogue was expressed by 48% of
respondents (cf. Fig. 17). The opposite opinion was revealed by 44% of them. Minority, i.e.
8% of them, were dissatisfied only with one aspect of the dialogue i.e. either with its informal
or formal aspects. So the dialogue exists but it offers an impressive scope for improvement.
26
Acquiring policy relevant territorial knowledge - case of Latvia.
Regional development monitoring and evaluation in Latvia is oriented towards measuring development
tendencies among different territorial units (inter alia at local level). The instruments of a measuring
development context for place-based dialogue and main actors that take part in this process can be divided
into three groups:
1) A Territorial Development Index (TDI)
Which has been used for the assessment of development of different territorial units for ten years already in
Latvia. TDI is a generalised indicator which is calculated with determined weight coefficients by summing up
standardised values of the most important basic indicators of statistics which characterise the development. It
demonstrates higher or lower development of the territories from the average social economic development
level of the state in the relevant year.
The initial data for calculations of development index shall be taken from the Central Statistical Bureau,
Treasury, State Land Service, State Employment Agency and Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs
using the statistical indicators accumulated during a year (GDP, amount of personal income tax, non-financial
investments) and statistical indicators of the moment (demographic indicators) in accordance with the status in
the beginning of the year to be reviewed. The development level index characterises the development level in
the relevant year demonstrating higher or lower development of the territories from the average level in the
state, but development level change index characterises changes of the development level in comparison to the
previous year, showing falling behind or overtaking development of the territories from the average
development level in the previous year.
2.
Regional development indicators module
The objective of „Territorial Development Planning Information System" (TAPIS) project run by State
Regional Development Agency is to develop an advanced information system for territorial planning and
management of infrastructure and immovable properties which would ensure efficient possibilities for
territorial planning and management of immovable property for sustainable and balanced development of the
state. One of the sub-projects of TAPIS is the development of Regional Development Indicators Module
(RDIM) which provides the establishment of the instrument for monitoring of regional development and
support in decision taking. It will be an auxiliary instrument for the assessment of territorial development
trends of local governments, as well as for the preparation and supervision of development programs.
In addition to the development of technical solution for RDIM a methodology for comprehensive assessment
of territorial development with sufficient set of indicators characterising it from the most different aspect is
formed. The development shall be looked from the point of view of the level achieved and also positive or
negative changes taking place, as well as peculiarities characteristic to each territory or development potential
which is the basis for its development possibilities shall be assessed. New system of development indicators is
being developed for the module of regional development indicators. RDIM will include two sets of
information:
social economic indicators will be used in order to analyse social and economical development
trends of certain state territories.
implementation instruments of sector policies will be created, in order to assess what influence is
made by the implementation instruments of sector policies on the development of the state territories
and how co-ordinated they are.
3.
Study to detect impact of the EU structural funds and Cohesion fund on territorial development
In order to analyze the EU structural fund and Cohesion fund activities in terms of balanced territorial
development the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development of the Republic of Latvia
(MoEPRD) has classified all EU fund activities taking into account their territorial impact (national - 45% of
total activities, regional - 26% of total activities or local - 29 % of total activities).
Activities with regional and local impact have a significant direct impact on the socio-economic development
of the territory. Analysis show that distribution of paid money to beneficiaries for per capita could potentially
contribute to balanced territorial development, because regions outside Riga region (only region with positive
territorial development index) have received largest amount of funds.
However the MoEPRD has discovered that it is hard to evaluate territorial impact of EU funds activities due to
comparability problems. There is a need for common indicators which capture results of EU funds activities
with different content. Without such approach it is hard to answer to what degree EU funds have actual impact
on fostering balanced territorial development. Therefore the MoEPRD is carrying out a study currently. The
approach is adopted from the Commission which for the next planning period proposed a list of common
indicators, which would be used as a reporting basis across the Union. It would facilitate aggregation of data
on main indicators at EU level and facilitate robust reporting on the achievements on the ground. We propose
the following indicators for the Latvian case: jobs created, jobs maintained, employed persons who have
improved their professional skills, change in amount of salary for beneficiary, change of turnover for
beneficiary, change of non-financial investments for beneficiary, change in expenses to deliver public
services, change in amount of persons who have received public services.
27
Fig. 17. Assessment of the place-based dialogue (N=26)
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
As shown at figure Fig. 18 the most demanding improvements have been requested with
regard to culture of dialogue and public debate. The second most acute shortcoming is
behaviour of local and regional stakeholders that nowadays are not sufficiently active and care
mainly about local issues (only my backyard matters). Insufficient knowledge on territorial
development has been indicated as a barrier only by 2-3 countries and problems with
monitoring impacts of policies by 4 countries. Therefore it seems that increase of efficiency of
the place-based
dialogue would
Why cross-governance dialogue needs strengthening even in Sweden.
require specific
Sweden is a country of dialogue and consensus building with long-lasting tradition of
capacity building
co-operation between different levels of government and stakeholders. But even in
Sweden cross-governance dialogue needs strengthening. The Swedish model of
measures coupled
vertical dialogue is like an hour-glass: strong local and national level and relatively
with redefinition
weak middle part–i.e. regional level. Strength and expertise of local level is in
of the role of difphysical planning, national level runs various policies while regional level is
ferent stakeholdresponsible for regional-socio-economic development. Its financial and human base
is weaker comparing to other two levels of government, but an idea is that regional
ers in policy
government should act as an intermediary between physical plans and national
programming and
policies through regional non-binding development plans (strategies). Elaboration of
implementation.
such plans is compulsory but the legal provisions don’t stipulate the concrete shape
One of the way
and contents of those plans.
The main problem is that the task of regional level to become a liaison between
forward can be
national and local policies is extremely demanding while competencies of different
strengthening of
level of governments and even know-how and experience do not match each other.
contractual
Planning architects and engineers responsible for physical planning speak another
language than economists or geographers running regional level policies. The result
relations between
is that regional plans lack territorial dimension whereas local plans not always are in
different level of
line with regional priorities. Therefore new instruments are necessary in Sweden
governments or
incorporating spatial planning and sectoral policies into regional socio-economic
more serious use
development and vice versa. Thus the idea is that regional socio-economic
development should be planned physically whereas spatial priorities should reinforce
of open method of
the economic ones.
coordination
within countries.
28
Fig. 18. Main reasons of problems with the place-based dialogue (N=26)
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
Fig. 19. Assessment of instruments most frequently applied in place-based dialogue (N=26)
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
29
In spite of a wide variety of instruments supporting the place-based dialogue also here the
respondents indicated some shortcomings. Around 33% of countries indicated some problems
with planning beyond administrative borders and hierarchy and legal relations between
planning documents (cf. Fig. 19). As the result administrative regions were most frequently
used as a geographical unit for policy territorialisation. Some notable exceptions are
metropolitan regions under urban and transport policies (applied in up to 6 countries) as well
as commuter regions
under
Contractual arrangements in Luxembourg
transport policy,
In Luxembourg the contractual relations for implementation of the main policy
regional
policy
goals proved their effectiveness. The government of Luxembourg makes frequent
use of the tool called “convention” i.e. initiated by the government, carefully
and employment
prepared and negotiated formal agreement between the national government and
& labour market
several municipalities on development process rather than concrete development
policy (applied in
projects or measures. The agreement settles down the main goals to be achieved and
1-2
countries).
responsibilities of its participants both in financial and activity terms. Is concluded
for certain time period but can be extended. Usually national government try to
Also coastal zone
finance the larger share of all expenditures of the convention. Such type of
has been someagreements were used for establishment of a new growth poles in the country (i.e.
times mentioned,
Belval-Ouest and Nordstad located outside the Luxembourg cities – part of the
in particular in
agreement with Belval-Ouest was location of Luxembourg University there) for
creation of three landscape parks and for reaching many other policy objectives
relation to marispecified in the General Planning Guidance. Concrete example of using such an
time and fishery
instrument can be Inter-municipal and integrative development convention “Air
policy.
InternaRégioun”that was launched in 2008. The convention aims at coordinated and
integrated development between five municipalities (Luxembourg, Sandweiler,
tional exchange of
Schuttrange, Niederanven, Contern), located around the Grand Duchy’s national
experience
on
airport. Those cities and Ministry of Sustainable Development and Infrastructure
planning beyond
are the convention participants. The partners developed under the convention a joint
administrative
working programme that defines a series of concrete tasks and objectives as well as
necessary governance forms. According to the working programme, the interborders and hiermunicipal cooperation focuses primarily on mobility, development of activity
archy and legal
zones, landscape and tourism, cooperation forms, and organization of the
relations between
convention. Partners meet regularly in order to identify strengths and weaknesses,
planning
docudevelop new ideas, launch studies, organize surveys, and initiate projects that will
be implemented at a later stage by the municipalities. The results of these work
ments should be
programmes are then coordinated by a technical and a political committee. The
supported in the
technical committee includes national and foreign expert practitioners, universities
future. There are
and also neighbouring regions that validate the work and propose suggestions
many examples of
regarding the selection and implementation of issues addressed. The expected
results include a common mobility concept for the entire area as well as a shared
good practices in
geographic information system (GIS) that simplifies inter-local planning, optimizes
this field. For inpedestrian and bicycle infrastructure and promotes better connections within the
stance in Luxemwhole region. The convention has been prolonged in 2011 for another 2 years due
bourg with 106
to the good collaboration between all the partners involved during the first phase of
the cooperation.
municipalities
(many of them
with population below 1000 inhabitants) special incentives were created for voluntary cooperation of municipalities in order to cope with key development challenges. The result was
creation of convention areas that work together with central government on key
developmental issues on contractual basis (on the basis of formal conventions/agreements –
cf. box on contractual arrangements and DICI convention in Luxembourg).
30
The most promising instrument the examined
countries plan to introduce is territorial impact
assessment. Three countries informed about such
an intention (cf. Fig. 20).
This is a promising development since impact
assessments, despite numerous international efforts, still remain at the
fringe of place-based discussions. Two countries
intend to make use in the
future of EU funding as
an instrument for enhancement of the placebased dialogue. This
seems very rational since
EU funding is one of the
most frequently used forum for framing such a
dialogue in the examined
countries (cf. Fig. 4 left
hand side) and such shift
is in line with the ambition of policy integration.
DICI –a planning tool for the southwest Luxembourg agglomeration
The Convention DICI* is a horizontal and vertical cooperation that take
place in the southwest part of Luxembourg agglomeration zone. DICI
represents novelty in the Luxembourg planning system, which allows
partners’ participation to extend their planning visions beyond the limits of
administrative boundaries. The actors taking part are five municipalities
(Bertrange Hesperange, Leudelange, Luxembourg, Strassen), four
ministries (Ministry of Sustainable Development and Infrastructure,
Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Housing, Ministry of Economy)
and other actors (Zeyen & Baumann, Trafico, Schroeder & Associates, PTV
France and others), for which the Convention represents new paths for
consultation and planning. It addresses the most important issues of
development in modern metropolitan areas (e.g. increase of population,
relocation of jobs locations, needs of public transport etc.). The main aims
of DICI are integration of planning, decentralization and polycentric
concentration, preservation of natural and cultural heritage at national,
regional and local levels.
DICI is formalized by agreements signed for 5-year periods (the first
convention was signed in 2005), which provides opportunities for interregional cooperation and improving communication between municipalities
regarding their general development plans (PAG plan d'aménagement
général). By the agreement, the signatories commit themselves to
collaborative planning with the aim of achieving a balanced distribution of
jobs and housing, reducing individual motorized traffic and promote nonmotorized traffic and motorized public transport within the perimeter. These
elements will enhance economic competitiveness, quality of housing and
social cohesion as well as to improve transport and protect natural areas.
Cooperation between involved actors takes place on three levels: political
(decision-making level), coordination (technical committee and process
coordination) and working groups (which act towards the development of
various aspects of the Integrated Development Inter-Communal Plan PIDP). The cooperation within working groups is an exemplification of the
requirements of a place-based approach, for it presents horizontal
cooperation with participation of different organisations (public and
private), there are 5 working groups:
Urban Development Group – focuses on future urban
development, housing, mobility, and landscape planning
Mobility Working Group – mobility planning, future development
scenarios and traffic simulations
PIDP Working Group – interdisciplinary development,
harmonization of urban development
Parking Management Work Group – development and
implementation of parking management concepts
Bus Working Group – development of coherent public transport
systems with scope of urban space and mobility development.
Although assessment of
impact of different policies on a given place or
entire territory of the
country seems not to be
perceived as an acute
problem, the survey revealed that the national
authorities are more experienced in revealing their
*DICI stands for Convention on Coordinated, Inter-communal and Interactive
suggestions, expectations
Development of Southwest Agglomeration of Luxembourg (Développement
Intercommunal Coordonné et Interactif du sud-ouest de l'agglomération de la ville de
and requirements towards
Luxembourg).
the other stakeholders and
levels of governments in
a formal way than local governments do (cf. Fig. 21). This is perhaps a part of the broader
story already described as too focused orientation of the local and regional governments, that
frequently limit their interests to local and regional problems (only my backyard matters
attitude). The issue is more severe with regard to socio-economic development (50% of
countries examined) then with regard to the territorial development proving better vertical
integration within the spatial domain. However, it seems, that as a general task, both local,
regional and national governments should be encouraged in the future to reveal their claims
and expectations towards the other types of governments in order to make place-based
dialogue more concrete and create better preconditions for contractual relations.
31
Fig. 20. Plans to introduce new instruments for the place-based dialogue (N=26)
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
Fig. 21. Explicit expectations towards other level of governments in the official programming
documents (N=26)
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
32
There is a need to extend the place-based approach to some new policies with
the largest potential for territorialisation.
The survey revealed which policies are not so much spatially sensitive in the examined
countries i.e. conducted without hardly any attempt of their differentiation in space (cf. Fig.
22). The results achieved match the expectations with macroeconomic policies scoring the
highest and the spatial, urban policy and regional policy scoring the lowest. However even the
macroeconomic policies are not entirely spatially blind at least in some countries.
Fig. 22. Spatially blinded policies (N=25)
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
The respondents have also revealed their preferences whether given policy should be territorialized (i.e. spatially differentiated) or can remain uniform for the entire territory (spatially
blinded).The results are presented at figure Fig. 23. The results are also close to the
expectations i.e. the policies with evident spatial dimension scoring the highest. Comparing
answers concerning the reality (cf. Fig. 22) and the ideal i.e. preferred situation (cf. Fig. 23)
one can identify the policies with the greatest potential for territorialisation i.e. the policies
that will need further concerted efforts in all examined countries. Such policies are presented
at figure Fig. 24 under category “is territorially blinded but should be territorial”. By comparing both types of answer one can come up with three different categories of policies in terms
of need of territorialisation.
In the first category there are spatially blinded policies that should remain as a such e.g. macroeconomic policies. In the second category there are policies that require territorialisation
and this has already been achieved. (e.g. regional policy, spatial policy, urban policy, land use
policy and transport policy). For these category key recommendation is to continue efforts
and widely disseminate good practices assisting further strengthening of territorial dimension
33
of those policies. For instance in Luxembourg there is a long-lasting tradition of
territorialisation of sectorial plans of such policies as landscape policy, housing policy and
transport policy (cf. box on territorialisation of sector policies). The practical reason for that is
inability of a single policy to solve the complex problems (for instance congestion can be
caused by insufficient supply or infrastructure or by concentrated economic structure
combined with incompact settlement structure).
In the third category there
Territorialisation of sector policies the case of Luxemburg
are policies which have
not been run so far in line
In Luxembourg many policies are developed by responsible ministries
together with Department for Spatial Planning of the Ministry for
with the place-based
Sustainable Development and Infrastructure. One of the most advanced
paradigm but according to
examples of such integrated approach is Integrated Transport and
the survey would benefit
Spatial Development Concept for Luxembourg (IVL – Integratives
out of such a shift. This
Verkehrs und Landesentwicklungskonzept) prepared (in 2004) as a
result of collaboration of several ministries: the Ministry of the Interior
concerns mainly such
and Spatial development, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of the
policies as R&D , labour
Environment, the Ministry for Public Works, as well as the Ministry of
market/employment
Economic Affairs and Foreign Commerce and the Ministry of MiddleClass Enterprises, Tourism and Housing as well as Road and Bridges
policy, education, and
Administration. The IVL merges questions of the landscape, housing
perhaps also business
and transport within one integrated concept. For instance development
policy, health policy and
of the housing structure is designed in such a way that it helps to avoid
fishery and maritime
and relocate transport and to reduce the use of the landscape. As the
result the share of public transport is expected to increase from the level
policy. Those policies
of 12% to 25% by the year 2020. The same document stands behind
have been territorialized
creation of regional landscape parks and has also initiated changes in
in some countries (so the
the rail commuter systems by creation of new commuter railway
experience is available)
stations in the city of Luxembourg. The ILV is used as a contribution to
preparation of guiding sector plans e.g. Guiding Sector plan for
and only few countries
Housing (plan sectorial logement PSL) or Guiding Sector Plan for
prefer that they would
Transport (plan sectorial transport PST).
stay uniform (spatially
blinded). It is important to
note that, as it has been already mentioned, some of those policies play important role with
regard to supplying society with services of general economic interest or promoting so called
functional geography (e.g. labour market policy) both considered as important elements of the
territorial cohesion (cf. box on why health and education policy need territorialisation).
Therefore it is proposed that the efforts on extending place-based approach in policy
programming and implementation should be focused on those policies.
Why health and education policy need territorialisation- case of Sweden.
Health and educational facilities are treated in many countries as important public services of
general interest. The political goal in many countries is to grant citizens equal access to them in
terms of quality and time accessibility. Swedish case shows that this might be difficult without
territorialisation of those policies i.e. their implementation in line with specificity of different
territories. For instance in sparsely populated areas the regional governments grants citizens access
to health care through e-facilities with direct internet access to high quality physicians and
important health tests. Air and road ambulances are among the solutions as well. Those
ambulances are equipped in such a way that treatment of patients can be started inside without
waiting for arrival to hospitals.
Also higher education policy in Sweden aiming for a more place-based approach. The tasks of
regional universities have been reformulated. They are responsible not just for teaching students,
but should also be resources for regional development i.e. upgrading the innovative capacity of the
local and regional businesses and matching them with right skilled students. To that end the
university curricula is more tailored to regional needs. For instance the northernmost technical
university of Lulea has been specialised in mining, steel, wood and arctic issues. The
territorialisation of the education policy in Sweden appear to be quite successful with the ambition
to not compromise on a principle of a high quality of higher education regardless the location of
higher educational facility.
34
Fig. 23. Preferences on policy territorialisation (N=25)
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
35
Fig. 24. Discrepancy between the current and desired situation in different policies in terms of
their territorialisation (N=25)
Source: author’s own elaboration based on survey results
36
Integrated Territorial Investments in Poland
Poland decided to use the new territorial tool promoted by the European Commission for the next financial
period. Taking into account the objectives of territorially-oriented development policy, formulated in the
national strategic documents, Integrated Territorial Investments (ITI) will be realised mainly in the functional
urban areas (FUA) of the larger cities (first of all in voivodeship cities but also in smaller cities). Regions may
decide to use this tool also in other areas requiring integrated approach and cooperation incentives.
The implementation of ITI in the functional urban areas should result in improvement of cooperation and
integration of actions in these areas, above all in places with the largest scale of problems resulting from the
lack of cooperation and complementarity of actions of various administrative entities – namely in FUA of
voivodeship cities. The voivodeship cities and their FUA will be given a special incentive in form of an
additional allocation from the structural funds for implementing ITI. But these funds will be given only when
certain conditions are fulfilled.
Following conditions need to be met in order to receive funding for ITI realisation in functional areas:
Launching an institutionalised form of partnership among the municipalities from one functional urban area –
so called ITI Association (different legal forms are possible);
Appropriate institutional capacity of the ITI Association;
Preparation of a joint strategy – so called ITI Action Plan;
Agreement on the undertakings to be implemented within ITI;
Signing an agreement for the realisation of ITI between the ITI Association and the Managing Authority of
the Regional Operation Programme.
It is expected that with the use of ITI formula integrated projects responding in a comprehensive manner to the
needs and problems of Polish cities will be implemented. Given the scale of funds involved in the ITI
implementation, as a general rule, it is assumed that within the framework of ITI bundles of minor projects or
integrated projects implemented within the entire ITI area will be implemented. Moreover the use of ITI
should increase the influence of urban areas on the shape and realization of actions financed form cohesion
policy on their areas.
37
Conclusions on place-based policy at national level
In terms of the most important tasks that might enhance place-based approach under various
policies the survey offers following conclusions:
There is a large range of already territorialised policies such as: transport policy,
spatial policy, regional policy, urban policy, land use policy, environment policy etc.
These efforts needs further systematisation, continuation and wide dissemination.
Few policies have been identified as offering higher benefits out of introducing to
them more of a place-based approach. This concerns mainly such policies as, R&D,
labour market/employment policy, education and perhaps also business policy, health
policy and fishery and maritime policy.
Territorial categories/ issues/ problems have been used as important topics for placebased dialogue but only under some policies (transport, environment, spatial, urban,
regional policies). This approach might be extended to other policies if relevant.
The survey revealed key bottle-necks in applying place-based approach in terms of ad
hoc nature of monitoring efforts, quality of place-based dialogue and available
instruments. Those bottle necks require attention of policy-makers at various
geographical levels,
Work on permanent territorial monitoring systems integrating different level of
governments should be enhanced which may be harmonized in the future on EU level.
Instruments for assessment of the territorial impacts of the sector policies should be
developed,
Culture of the dialogue and public debate needs improvement. Awareness rising and
capacity building actions might be used to this end,
Capacity building of local governments and stakeholders might also address their
awareness on their responsibilities beyond administrative borders,
National legislation should encourage public authorities responsible for development
policies to reveal, if possible, their expectations, considerations and suggestions
towards other stakeholders and authorities,
In a long run redefinition of the role of different stakeholders in decision making
process and policy programming and implementation coupled with strengthening
contractual relations between different development actors might be necessary,
Cooperation and international exchange of experience on planning beyond
administrative borders and hierarchy as well as legal relations between planning
documents should be supported and underlined.
38
The other side of the coin. Case studies on place-based policy at regional
and local level
The following case-studies are presented to deepen and complement the survey on placebased, territorially sensitive and integrated approach which was performed on the national
level. The cases illustrate the diversity of place-based approaches in different European
contexts and on various level of public administration. Although it would be possible to find
within the European space a number of examples showing how various actors profit from
place-based policies, due to organizational and financial feasibility, the quantity was limited
to 13 experiences in 8 countries (Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Poland,
Norway and Sweden). The specificities of the presented material allowed grouping them in
four categories: (i) interplay between regional and national level, (ii) interplay between
regional and local level, (iii) interplay between local and national level and (iv) metropolitan
case studies.
Each case-study describes the territorialisation of various policies or strategies used for
shaping public space, actors that participate in the processes, interactions, instruments used
for construction of dialogue, lessons learned and description of the background in which the
whole situation takes place.
Map 1: Survey and case study areas
Source: elaboration by Piotr Siłka
39
Interplay between regional and national level
Place-based approach with regard to regional development - Case of Pomorskie Region on
Multilevel cooperation and integrated territorial approach in the regional development
policy (Poland7)
1.
The Place
The place is Pomorskie Voivodeship (Region/Province) in Northern Poland, part of the Baltic
Europe and South Baltic Region (cf. Map 2). It has a population of 2.2 million (5.7% of the
population of Poland) and an area of 18,000 thousand km². The region’s major cities include
Gdansk, Gdynia, Sopot (Three-City metropolises) and regional centre of Słupsk as well as
sub-regional centres of Chojnice-Człuchów, Kwidzyń, Lębork, Malbork, Starogard Gdański,
Kościerzyna and Bytów. The administrative power in a voivodeship is exercised by the selfgovernment authorities and the central government bodies. The self-government authorities in
a voivodeship are the voivodeship council elected in universal and direct election for the term
of 4 years and the marshal office, an executive body led by the marshal who is elected by the
voivodeship council. Marshal is responsible for various Policies of regional significance
(welfare, health, rural transport, education, spatial and some others) among them also regional
development policy. He/she runs also the regional operation programmes funded from EU
Structural Funds as a powerful tool for regional development. The central government is
represented in the province by the voivodeship office led by the governor appointed by the
Prime Minister and supervising the lawfulness of the activities of the voivodeship selfgovernment.
In Poland self government also exists at lower administrative level i.e. county and municipal
level with exceptionally strong (from financial point of view and policy mandate) local
governments. They are independent and not subordinated to the regional self-government.
2.
The Policy
According to its statutory position and competences, regional self-government in Poland is
responsible for planning and implementing of regional development policy. Overall the SelfGovernment of Pomorskie Voivodeship (Region/Province) is committed to the organization
and implementation of interventions aimed at the development processes taking place in the
region. Its main task is to strengthen the competitive position of the voivodeship, preventing
the deepening of disparities within the region and ensuring a stable base for its long-term and
secure development. By definition then, the regional development policy covers a wide and
diversified range of potential undertakings, of both – investment and organizational nature and
corresponding to different thematic fields. The same time, many of those thematic fields,
crucial for the regional development, are covered by duties and competences of actors other
than regional authorities. An important part of the powers and resources crucial for the
regional development lie in the hands of other national or regional actors, who – in a
decentralized and democratic system – are not in any way subordinated to the regional
authorities.
The region’s policy must be then conducted with the knowledge of real possibilities and
limitations resulting from the legal status of the voivodeship, its responsibilities and the
resources remaining at its disposal.
7
Elaborated by Dr. Adam Mikolajczyk from University of Gdańsk, Faculty of Law.
40
Map 2: Case study Pomorskie Region – Poland
Source: elaboration by Piotr Siłka
Therefore, for the regional authorities in Poland, the partnership and multidimensional
cooperation in the course of planning and implementing regional development policy is not
just a luxury or a formal requirement, but the practical – “to be or not to be” - necessity. It
particularly concerns the formulation and realization of regional development strategy, which
is a main regional development tool, along with various implementation instruments.
3.
The dialogue and interactions
Taking all these into consideration, the Strategy of the Pomorskie Region that was recently
revised (September 2012) proposes a set of a new solutions and mechanisms, aiming to better
integrate regional development policy of the Pomorskie Province into developmental policy
of the country.
As stipulated by the revised Strategy the Self-Government of the Voivodeship will play three
basic roles in the implementation of the Strategy:
− as an Investor – acts as the entity directly implementing and co-financing actions identified
in the Strategy through its own projects or projects undertaken together with the partners;
− as a Coordinator and leader of development activities – acts as the entity compiling and
updating the Strategy, responsible for its implementation, defining the obligations, marking
41
the realization units and monitoring the implementation, as well as managing external
resources (including those of the EU) aimed at achieving the objectives of the Strategy ;
− as an Inspirer – as the originator and supporter for the region's key development projects
arising from the Strategy that are implemented at other levels of public governance,
particularly at the national and European level.
In order to fulfil the third function the Strategy has listed the Pomorskie Region expectations
towards central government. This is a novelty in the Polish system of conducting development
policy. This is the first example of such bottom-up instrument of influencing upper-level
policies and trying to harmonise them. The expectations spelled out in the Strategy cover the
issues that lay outside the competence of regional bodies and out of direct influence on
regional self-government. However, they still are key issues for the region’s development. As
a key role in their realisation will play the instruments in disposal of central government, they
define areas of future dialogue with the government.
The system of goals of the Strategy determines also the extent of the offer of joint action of
Self-Government of the Voivodeship addressed to the key partners in the region. It refers to
selected barriers and development potentials inclusion of which creates the greatest chance of
triggering noticeable and positive changes in the region.
In addition to that, the regional self-government commitments, i.e. each particular operational
objective listed in the Strategy document, are a starting point to define and detail a concrete
common undertakings, based on top-down partnership and cooperation within the region.
4.
The actors and instruments
By setting the list of expectations towards national authorities, the Strategy document gives
the ground for “upwards” cooperation and partnership, based (inter alia) on so-called
territorial contract (TC). Territorial contract was designed as a tool of multilevel
coordination (within the frames of decentralized regional policy system) of actions between
the region, represented by regional self-government, and the national authorities, represented
by the Ministry of Regional Development. Both parties have in their disposal different legal
and financial tools, accordingly to their statutory position. Through the territorial contract
they can mutually obliged themselves to coordinate the support decisions towards listed
development undertakings. Those undertakings, cover by the contract, complement eachother, but are predestined to be supported by instruments managed on different levels –
regional or national.
In fact, central government administration will be an important partner. TC should be used in
order to identify and agree strategic development projects and organisational solutions
important both from the point of view of the country and the region. This will enhance
coordination of the intervention carried out from the national and regional level for achieving
the objectives of the Strategy.
The position paper of the Self-Government of Pomorskie Voivodeship, which will be the
basis of commitments entered into with the government, will be prepared on the basis of the
Strategy and in consultation with the partners in the region, with particular emphasis on the
entities directly involved in the implementation of specific projects.
Within the Region the contractual agreements named will integrated territorial agreements
(ITA). ITA will cover functional areas around large cities and rural areas in need for support
for development processes. They are designed as a form of integrated and holistic territorial
approach to the management of the functional areas in which sectorial understanding of the
42
problems and socio-economic challenges is replaced by problematic and territorial recognition.
The essence of that tool is a negotiative procedure applied in order to identify and well-focused
"packages" of projects, dealing with different thematic issues, but complementing each-other,
and contributing to the functional area development. Their application should:
5.
•
•
Help to run a long-term and jointly agreed policy towards specific territorial areas
•
•
stimulate cooperation in place of competition between local partners
Deliver coordinated support from different financial sources (programmes, Priority
Axes)
Give a frames for a more creative and substantive role of the regional self-government
– active harmonisation of local policy and regional development policy
Lessons learned
Revised Pomorskie Development Strategy designs new regional development policy making
system. Basic premises for this are: multilevel cooperation outside and inside of the region,
partnership and negotiative approach, territorial orientation of strategic objectives and
implementation actions. The Strategy lays ground for directives: who with whom and in what
form should cooperate, in what thematic fields that cooperation should concentrate, and on
what (how delimited) territory should it have an impact.
Multilevel management in the field of regional development policy in Pomorskie is going to
be based on two types of contractual instruments:
• the territorial contract is a tool to agree and coordinate actions in cooperation with
national level actors, national government in particular.
• the integrated territorial agreements will be used to organized cooperation and
partnerships within the frames of selected functional areas localized within the
region’s space.
In both cases, the idea is based on coherent combination of horizontal and vertical partnership
and involve the negotiative procedures.
In case of territorial contract, horizontal partnership means that the regional proposals has to
be agreed within the region, with local administrations and other public and privet partners as
a common negotiative position, before issuing them to the government. Vertical partnerships
is a second step in that process, as the proposals identified has to be negotiated and agreed
between the regional and national side, considering, that their nature and thematic scope call
for the involvement of national means and resources to make them realized.
In case of integrated territorial agreements, horizontal partnership result from the requirement
to establish a single tri-sectorial representation of the particular functional area, as well as to
agree a common action plan and key development undertakings. Thereafter, that single
representation of functional area becomes a part of a vertical partnership with regional
authorities, as a partner in negotiations and a party of a final agreement.
43
Place-based approach with regard to agriculture and rural development policy - Case of
Finland8
1.
The Policy
The main aim of the Finnish rural development policy, covering whole area of the country (cf.
Map 3) is to support development and socio-economic transformation of rural areas. This is a
complement to the agriculture policy that aims at securing a high quality domestic food
production. Community Agriculture Policy CAP has made food production with a reasonable
market price possible in harsh Nordic growth conditions. This policy has made it possible to
secure national agriculture with a rather reasonable income for framers.
Agriculture policy has been only partially subject to the place-based approach whereas rural
development policy is place-based oriented in order to take advantage of local/regional
potentials and specificities.
Map 3: Case study Finland
Source: elaboration by Piotr Siłka
8
Elaborated by Mr Veli-Matti Pura.
44
2.
The Place
Agriculture policy is run slightly different for the Northern most part of Finland and for the
rest of country. Here the main criterion is density of population and climate conditions. The
Northernmost part of Finland is characterized by law population density (sparsely populated
area) and harsh climate conditions.
The rural development policy is differentiated according to the administrative entities i.e.
municipalities and regions. In Finland municipalities play important role. They are run by
powerful local self-governments supported by the own local financial base (e.g. local taxes
collected by them). Regions in Finland, can be regarded as interaction of state institutions
(e.g. Regional Centres for Enterprise, Transport and Environment belonging to the national
government administration) and self-government institutions (Regional Councils associations of municipalities).
3.
The Actors.
national government
regional governments
National government (NG) is
responsible for the implementation
of CAP in Finland by harmonizing
EU regulations to suit Finnish
conditions.
The Regional administration
does
not
deal
with
agriculture
policy
in
Finland.
The NG negotiates the agriculture
policy
funding
with
the
Commission. The NG integrates
national programmes to utilize EU
funding.
The Centres are responsible for
supervising agriculture support as
well as paying and supervising
funding for investments. Therefore
the final responsibility for paying
and
supervising
agricultural
funding belongs to the NG.
4.
local governments
Municipal i.e. local
authorities are responsible for the
practical side of
To a certain extent, the re- farmers’ customer
gional level is involved in service, such as
applications
for
rural development policies
agriculture support.
both Regional Centres for
Enterprise, Transport and
Environment and Regional
Councils.
The Instruments
Agriculture policy is regulated with national legislation. The same toolbox is in use in the
entire country. For the agriculture policy the main place-based instruments are local land use
plans and financial incentives. The use of land for different purposes is included in regional
and local land use plans. Local plans are adopted by the Municipal Councils. In financial
terms Finland is divided in two parts. The Northern part has slightly better support / funding
conditions. Bigger amounts of support can be used in sparsely populated rural regions to
compensate their initial smaller endowments and developmental resources.
For the rural development policy the main instrument are local development programmes
financially supported by Structural Funds e.g. Leader. A lot of rural development factors such
as production and product development of food for consumers are include in those
programmes. The programmes take into consideration inter alia the following local
characteristics: location of the given region/municipality with regard to big urban centres
(polycentricity), density of population, demographic characteristics of the rural population,
45
regional or local accessibility, urban-rural partnerships, climate, natural environment and
cultural landscapes. There are also some other local tools for rural development.
5.
The Interactions
Agriculture policy: Mostly (national laws and regulations etc.) guide agricultural policy very
precisely. National and local authorities also participate in execution of the agriculture policy
in Finland. The local level is effectively heard on issues of implementing agricultural policy.
Local opinions are taken into account when implementing national legislation and regulations
in (local) practice. The main topics of the debate between different levels of authorities and
stakeholders are following: the high price of food (this is a complex issue including the whole
chain from the producer to the consumers table), country’s ability to secure a sufficient
domestic food production capacity (mainly at national level), a question of a territorial right to
choose rural lifestyle (at individual level). As far as monitoring of the results is concerned
only the national authorities monitor results of the agriculture policy. The State Agriculture
Support Monitoring System shows all information on agricultural production in real time. In
addition to this, there are example farms for gathering information on productivity in a certain
location.
Rural development policy: rural development programmes are made by national actors such
as the Agriculture Producer’s Union and national related authorities such as Regional Centres.
Regional authorities (regional Councils) have a rather significant role in rural policy and the
local authorities are effectively heard in the process. Regional Centres for Enterprise,
Transport and Environment and Regional Councils cooperate to some extent in structural
funds allocation. Monitoring of the results of rural development policy is executed
simultaneously by national authorities, regional authorities, local authorities and other
stakeholders (e.g. nongovernmental organisations, business representatives, labour unions
etc.).
In both cases i.e. agriculture policy and rural development policy local and regional
authorities in Finland collect available statistical data and discuss them with the
representatives of the national government and they frequently contract reports from the
experts to make the debate with the national government more evidence based.
6.
The lessons learned
•
Keep the administration as close to the farmers /producers as possible.
•
Keep support monitoring clear, understandable and transparent.
•
Avoid resource consuming overlapping control mechanisms.
Place-based approach with regard to sea space - Case of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
(Germany9)
1.
The Policy
Because of the growing pressure in the maritime areas, Germany started to extend its
terrestrial planning laws about Maritime Spatial Planning since 2004. The initial start-up has
come from the Standing Conference of Ministers responsible for Spatial Planning in
Germany. This applies for the North Sea as well as for the Baltic Sea. Spatial planning is
based on the Federal Spatial Planning Act and the Spatial Planning Acts of SchleswigHolstein and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (in the case of Baltic Sea). This kind of law
overrides sectorial plans/settlements. In the German legal system, spatial planning takes the
9
Elaborated by Dr. Petra Schmidt and Susan Toben.
46
position of higher-ranking legal matter. It affects the sectorial planning without being part of
that.
2.
The Place
The responsibility for Maritime Spatial Planning in the Exclusive Economic Zone is on
national level. The responsibility for Maritime Spatial Planning in the 12-sm-zone is on
regional level, i.e. on Länder level (Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Vorpormmern in
the Baltic Sea, Bremen, Hamburg, Niedersachsen and Schleswig-Holstein in the North Sea).
As a result, Germany has three spatial development plans for the Baltic Sea: One for the
Exclusive Economic Zone, another for the 12-sm-zone of Schleswig-Holstein and last but not
least the plan for the 12-sm-zone of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (cf. Map 4).
Map 4: Case study Mecklenburg-Vorpommern - Germany
Source: elaboration by Piotr Siłka
3.
The Actors Interactions and Instruments
The formal process starts with the decision of the organization responsible for setting up of a
spatial development plan. This includes the performing of Strategic Environmental
Assessment. Part of the Strategic Environmental Assessment and of drafting the plan is an
assessment of the environmental and socioeconomic conditions of the planning area. Based on
this, the content of the plan is developed.
For a first internal consideration on elaboration of the spatial development plan, it is necessary
to make an enquiry of recent and proposed future uses involving all relevant bodies as well as
neighbouring regions and states. The same is true for the Strategic Environmental
Assessment.
47
After this, the responsible organization consults regional and local planning authorities as well
as sectorial institutions and all other relevant stakeholder. In parallel, an adjustment of frame
and depth of investigation with the essential environmental authorities based on the first
internal consideration takes place. Based on this, a draft spatial development plan and a draft
environment al report are elaborated.
The public participation starts with the announcement and public review process of the draft
plan. The general public and all involved parties are requested to comment on the draft spatial
development plan within a deadline. The same is true for the Strategic Environmental
Assessment.
After this participation procedure a comprehensive, final balancing and final weighting of
interests is carried out, taking all the received comments into consideration. On this basis, the
final spatial development plan and the final environmental report are elaborated. After that,
the responsible authority decides on the spatial development plan. In addition, the
environmental statements are summed up and compiled. The process closes with the
statement of liability and by publishing the spatial development plan and summing up the
environmental statements.
4.
The lessons learned
Maritime Spatial planning is an ideal case of the place-based approach. It has to take into
consideration interests of local, region and national level, various sectors represented by
national and international interest groups as well as international organizations (e.g.
HELCOM10, IMO11). On top of that planning sea as having no physical border requires
thorough attention to cross-border impacts. Moreover data and information on sea features
and characteristics are less developed and less accessible than on the land, so the knowledge
is more limited and the risk of wrong decisions is higher. All these calls for genuine placebased dialogue and joint efforts of sharing knowledge and information. The detailed concerns
stemming from the German experience are outlined below:
Ownership
Of key importance is assigning the responsibility for planning sea space to a concrete body
acting as an initiator and a core for a place-based dialogue.
Stakeholder Consultation:
A good stakeholder map is necessary because of different communication needs. Sometimes
ways must be found to involve missing groups of stakeholders. It is a good procedure to have
separate thematic meetings for selected groups of stakeholders.
Cross-border consultation:
Neighbouring states were involved in the public participation during the spatial planning
process. In order to achieve good results information must be provided in the respective
national language or at least in English. Cross-border impacts of national decisions have to be
taken into account. This requires the greatest possible transparency regarding all steps and
decisions in MSP both within the Member States as well asvis-á-vis the adjacent Member
States.
Content of maritime plans:
As mentioned above, as result of legal basis, German maritime spatial plans differ from
content, art of presentation, design and kind of regulation for uses. Beyond that, the
prioritisations of use may differ. Therefore, it is a common aim of the federal level and the
Länder for the future to establish more cross-border consultation and coordination.
10
11
Helsinki Commission.
International Maritime Organisation.
48
Data:
Data collection and exchange should be streamlined. A comprehensive list of required data is
needed right at the beginning of the process, which allows to check the availability of this data
and to set up information on where data can be acquired at the right scale. In case of lack of
data, appropriate solutions must be found.
Monitoring of the Maritime Spatial Plan:
Because of its binding nature, it is necessary to examine the maritime spatial plan regularly
and to update it if necessary in order to meet the requirements of changing framework
conditions. The place-based dialogue should not be stopped after adoption of the plan.
Against this background, the current national and regional spatial monitoring/observation as
well as the results of ESPON are playing a prominent role. ESPON should create foundations
for coordination in the maritime area by analysing the effects of European sectorial policies
on spatial development. Additional reporting duties are not considered necessary in this
context.
Place based approach in regional policy implementation - case of Latvia12
1.
The place
Place based implementation of regional policy has been implemented in Latvia under the
competence of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development of the
Republic of Latvia (thereinafter – MoEPRD) and covers entire territory of the country (cf.
Map 5)
Map 5: Case study Latvia
Source: elaboration by Piotr Siłka
12
Material elaborated by Indra Ciukša.
49
2.
The Policy
With an objective13 to foster polycentric development, European Regional Fund 2007-2013
priority “Polycentric development” has been implemented (total funding 323 mlj. EUR) with
the following activities:
1. Growth of national and regional development centres – oriented towards growth of
cities and towns which according to national regional development strategy are
recognised as national and regional development centres;
2. Sustainable development of Riga – oriented towards capital city competitiveness
through development of deprived neighbourhoods;
3. Growth of amalgamated municipalities – oriented on growth of new amalgamated
municipalities, established in 2009 after finalizing administrative territorial reform,
with an emphasis on urban rural linkages.
The priority is exclusive in Latvia, as it provides an opportunity for local municipalities
(which are identified as beneficiaries – in general 35 municipalities – cf. Map 6) within the
Priority to come up with their own project ideas which are essential for their development,
ensuring complex solutions for specific local circumstances (thus applying place-based
approach).
Map 6: Beneficiaries of “Policentric Development” in Latvia
Source: MoEPRD
There are several preconditions that should be fulfilled in order to attract priorities funding
that form both place-based dialogue and instruments.
13
Objective: To foster polycentric development in Latvia by providing support to strengthening competitiveness,
accessibility and attractiveness factors for development of the urban environment and city-regions according to
integrated development programmes of local governments
50
3.
The actors and dialogue interactions and instruments .
(A) Local municipalities must elaborate qualitative local development strategies, according
to integrated approach and in close collaboration with involved and interested parties.
Local development strategy (for 7 years period) should reflect clear vision on
municipality’s development, identify development challenges, growth resources as
well as complex development solution and particular measures (Investment plan).
These strategies serve as a real tool for investment planning and implementation.
a. Support under the European Social Fund is available for elaboration of
qualitative local development strategies. 14
b. MoEPRD prepared special methodological guidelines for elaboration of local
integrated development strategies (see attached), explaining the main
principles of integrated development planning, preconditions for successful
preparation of development strategy, as well as giving practical
recommendations. Additionally ministry provided methodological support on
the ground.
(B) Demarcation of support should be ensured. For that purpose Coordination Council was
established at national level. Representatives from line ministries, planning regions as
well as from local municipalities are involved in the Councils work. Main tasks of the
Council are:
a. Evaluate the quality of integrated local development strategies;
b. Discuss the project ideas proposed by beneficiaries of the Priority (project
application can be submitted for evaluation only after Councils agreement on
the particular project idea);
c. Prevent demarcation of available support for particular territory.
(C) Available Priority’s support should be diverted for implementation of municipalities’
functions, in order to foster business development, mobility, accessibility of jobs and
services, as well as improvement of living environment.
(D) Impact of particular project need to go beyond administrative borders of municipality,
providing that also neighbouring territories can benefit from the results of the project.
Supported fields under the Priority up to date are the following (cf. Fig. 25):
12%
55%
8%
25%
Transport infrastructure
(incl. support for
enterprises)
Energy efficiency of
public buildings
Education infrastructure
Culture infrastructure
(incl. heritage& tourism)
Fig. 25. Fields supported under the Priority
Source: MoEPRD
14
Activity “Specialist recruiting for the planning regions, cities and amalgamated local municipalities” and
“Enhancing the administrative capacity and the capacity of development planning in regions and local
municipalities”. Under these activities 72 projects are supported currently with an aim to increase development
planning capacity at regional and local level, as well as to develop qualitative local development strategies.
51
4.
Results achieved (examples)
Daugavpils fortress infrastructure
Fortress forms a separate Daugavpils city suburb, including the housing area. The project has
a vital importance in the development of the suburb i.e. complex improvement of streets and
engineering networks like heating, water supply, street lighting, rain water drainage combined
with planned development of entrepreneurship and different services for local residents as
well as for tourists. Thus complex development of the fortress area will be ensured, in an
integrated manner providing environmental attractiveness, availability of services as well as
growth of employment.
Valmiera business and innovation center
Valmiera city available support has been used for building industrial and office premises for
maintenance the work of Valmiera Business and Innovation incubator (providing space for
offices and manufacturing, equipped with necessary infrastructure and facilities) as well as for
reconstruction of streets and roads, incl. those passing along the incubator (ensuring optimal
transport routing system).
As a result preconditions were created for development of new innovative enterprises; better
linkage among science, education and business (collaboration with Valmiera higher education
institution concerning realisation of applicable scientific results); as well as for better mobility
and accessibility of different services, thus increasing regional competitiveness of Valmiera
city.
Creation of tourism and culture-education center in Jelgava
Within the project new innovative tourism product was created, renovating Trinity Church
Tower and surrounding area.
Consequently, within the project attractiveness and identification of surrounding area were
improved; preserved historic and culture heritage; created innovative tourism product, thus
promoting availability of different up-to-date services, collaboration of private and public
sector, as well as for tourism development.
Development of the narrow-gauge railway as cultural and historical object, the landmark
of Ventspils city
The historical narrow-gauge railway is a cultural heritage of the Ventspils city located in the
open-air museum near the sea. Within the project an extension of the railway has been
constructed, the unique historic buildings related to the railway have been renovated and
landscape improved.
As a result attractiveness of territory was improved, preserved historic and cultural heritage
characteristic for particular local area, created innovative tourism product, as well as ensured
preconditions for organizing new interesting enterprises related to this historic object, tourism
and business development.
Development of transport infrastructure for improvement of the accessibility to the Jelgava
city centre and surrounding territories.
The accessibility of Jelgava city has been improved by carrying out complex reconstructions
of street sections, incl. by making a quadruple and arranging new public transport stops. Street
sections have been reconstructed, thus improving the street infrastructure and ensuring the
accessibility to the public institutions of regional importance, incl. educational establishment,
the Business incubator, Zemgale Olimpic Centre and hospital.
New building of elementary school in Valmiera city
The project significantly improves availability of educational services in the city and its
functional area. The project is excellent from technological, energy efficiency and practical
solutions. Builder association of Latvia nominated and awarded this building as the best
building in Latvia in 2010.
52
5.
Lessons Learned
Such kind of support can be considered as a good practice because it:
•
provides support for real needs of a particular territory in accordance with the
individual situation of each territory (place-based approach);
•
gives an opportunity to make complex investments that cover more than one sector;
•
allows to coordinate in time and space investments related to different sectors
•
allows for cross-governance dialogue on vital development questions for a given
“place”.
Analyzing implemented projects it can be concluded that local municipalities can effectively
and in a complex manner implement priorities identified in the local development strategy,
creating preconditions for business development, fostering accessibility of public services,
developing transport infrastructure, preserving cultural heritage and in the same time
voluntarily fulfil objectives of national development policy (in line with three objectives
specified under point no. 2).
Interplay between regional and local level
Place-based approach in sparsely populated areas - Norwegian regional case from SørTrøndelag County: “The Coast is Clear” 15
1.
Place
The theme for the Norwegian case study for place-based approach is “sparsely populated
areas” based on experience of the Sør-Trøndelag County. Sør-Trøndelag county is located in
Mid-Norway (cf. Map 7) and has 300.000 inhabitants, distributed on 25 municipalities, with
the city of Trondheim as the natural centre with 180.000 inhabitants. The county consist of
three sub-regions; The Mountain-/ Inland Region, the Coastal Region, and the Trondheim
Region. In the last few years all three regions have made developed plans according to what
may be termed a “place-based approach”.
The project “The Coast is Clear” has been chosen as the case. The coastal region consists of
11 municipalities with a total of 37.000 inhabitants (cf. Map 8). The region is sparsely
populated and the municipal centres are relatively small. The population density is 7 people
per km2, compared to Norway’s 15 people per km2 and EU’s 116 persons per km2.
2.
Main actors
”The Coast is Clear” was initiated by Sør-Trøndelag County Authority, which is a regional
political body with a directly elected County Council as the upper body, consisting of 37
regional politicians. All the 11 municipalities at the coast are taking part in the project, which
was established in 2007. The project will be closed after 2014.
15
Elaborated by Pål Ranes - International Coordinator in Sør-Trøndelag County Authority in Mid-Norway.
53
Map 7: Case study Sør-Trøndelag County - Norway
Source: elaboration by Piotr Siłka
3.
Analysis
“The Coast is Clear” made an analysis of the industrial and economic situation for this coastal
region. The analysis described a region in change. Most of the coastal municipalities, like
most small district municipalities in Norway, had over the last decades experienced a decrease
in population. The problem at the coast has been a decline in employment in the traditional
fisheries. However, the Sør-Trøndelag coast also sees some very positive tendencies these
days. Aquaculture has become a strong industry with the Mid-Norway coastline as leading in
the world on farming of Atlantic salmon. Also tourism, wind farms, and the establishment of
Norway’s new combat aircraft base at Ørlandet, one of the 11 municipalities in the region,
mean many new jobs. Even the traditional fisheries are picking up. Another challenge is a
generation shift in the public sector in the coming years, with a demand for new and educated
civil servants. It will actually be a challenge for some of the coastal municipalities to manage
recruiting enough workers in the years to come, and the tendency of population decrease has
to a certain degree halted, and some municipalities are already experiencing an increase in
population.
The findings of this analysis led to the choice of the following three thematic priorities:
A. Improvement of life quality and regional reputation
B. Knowledge and competence
C. Area Planning
54
4.
Organization and funding
“The Coast is Clear” has a Steering Group consisting of all the 11 municipal mayors and five
politicians from the County Council. A Project Leader and a Program Board is responsible for
the implementation of the project. The Program Board consists of two administrative
representatives from the municipalities, one administrative representative from the County
Authority and four representatives from local businesses.
“The Coast is Clear” is funded by the 11 municipalities (25.000,- EURO per year per
municipality) and an equal amount from the County Authority (275.000,- EURO). The project
receives additional funding to thematic sub-projects from programs administrated by the
Norwegian Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development and from “Innovation
Norway”. The participating municipalities and local businesses also contribute extra funding
to projects of special relevance to them.
5.
Partnership
“The Coast is Clear” partnership involves a broad range of institutions and groups:
• Municipal departments/employees
• Local business
• Local «Business gardens» (Buildings with offices and production facilities where local
enterprises are located and share administrative services, and also may receive
business advices).
• Local chambers of commerce.
• Six upper secondary Schools (pupils 16-19) and their “Resource Centres” (which are
responsible for co-operation between the school and local business).
• «Trøndelag Tourism» (An Institution responsible for tourist development in the whole
region of Trøndelag, i.e. the two counties of Sør- and Nord-Trøndelag).
“The Coast is Clear” makes use of services from R&D institution, mostly located in the
regional centre Trondheim:
• SINTEF (The largest independent research organization in Scandinavia ), Trondheim
• NTNU (The Norwegian University of Science and Technology), Trondheim
• Sør-Trøndelag University College, Trondheim
• BI – Norwegian Business School, Trondheim
• Nord-Trøndelag University College, Steinkjer
• Trøndelag R&D Institute, Steinkjer
6.
Interventions
“The Coast is Clear” has implemented many sub-projects within the three thematic priorities.
Some of the most important are:
A. Improve life quality and regional reputation:
a) Housing: Most district municipalities have too few houses and flats available for
renting. The house market does not work well as the municipalities are sparsely
populated. The four smallest municipalities in the project, each with approximately
1000 inhabitants, now cooperate in a housing project to facilitate a better supply of
rental houses.
b) Tourism: The tourism industry is co-operating and is now establishing a common
destination company for the coastal region.
c) Industry area and harbours: All the municipalities have been mapped
concerning available area for industry, and harbour capacity, to attract new
establishments.
55
d) Inclusion of foreign workers: The share of foreign workers is high at the coast,
especially in fisheries and aquaculture. These industries are totally dependent of
work immigration, and the municipalities are very concerned about how to include
these workers and their families in the local communities. This project is a cooperation between five of the coastal municipalities and the goal is to develop a
«best practice» guide about inclusion.
e) Work force recruitment. This project will tailor measures for different target
groups; high school- and college/university students, local people who have moved
out of the region, etc., to attract people with relevant education and background.
B. Knowledge and Competence
a) «Coast Trainee»: A trainee scheme for private businesses and the public sector,
with 18 member companies/employers and 12 trainees.
b) Decentralized college education, in co-operation with resource centres at some of
the upper secondary schools and The University College of Sør-Trøndelag. The
first studies are in the health sector; especially nursing.
c) Leadership and executive training, in co-operation with different schools and
colleges.
d) Arrangement training. The coastal region has a varied and flourishing cultural
life, with many festivals, sport events and other cultural arrangements.
Arrangement training will strengthen existing arrangement and encourage new
initiatives.
e) Students to the coastal region: Both business and the public sector want to
recruit more students from NTNU and other university colleges. “The Coast is
Clear” has initiated partnerships with these institutions and provide information to
students about the possibilities in the costal districts. Students are also invited to do
paper- and thesis work, summer jobs etc.
C. Area Planning
1. A common coastal zone plan will be ready in 2013, made in a co-operation
between the 11 municipalities, the County Authority, national sectorial authorities,
and experts – the first of its kind in Norway.
2. Technical harmonizing of municipal area plans, as a logic consequence of the
co-operation concerning the common coastal zone plan.
7.
Lessons learned
It is too early to judge the results of some of the long term interventions like “Housing”, “The
inclusion of foreign workers”, and “Work force recruitment”. Other interventions like “Coast
trainee”, “Decentralized college education”, and “A common coastal zone plan” are
considered to be successful.
The main challenge has been to build trust among the municipalities and among the
enterprises, because both groups have a history and tradition of internal competition. The
main success is actually the degree of trust that already has been built during the first 4-5
years of “The Coast is Clear”, which has convinced both private and public partners of the
benefits of regional co-operation. One strategy to avoid old conflicts arising is to avoid
“dangerous” matters like transport and road building, which automatically triggers
competition between different transport corridors etc.
There is also a new and growing pride on behalf of the coastal region, which to a certain
degree is a result of “The Coast is Clear” co-operation.
56
Map 8: The 11 municipalities participating in “The Coats is Clear” in
the County of Sør-Trøndelag”
Source: provided by Pål Ranes
Place-based approach with regard regional development policy - Case of Region
Västerbotten (Sweden16)
1.
The Place
The county of Västerbotten is situated in northern Sweden (cf. Map 9), just south of the Arctic
Circle. It consists of 15 municipalities (cf. Map10) and is the second-biggest county in
Sweden in terms of area -the same size as Denmark, or 17 times the size of the island of
Gotland -and Around 255 000 people live in the county, which has three cities: Umeå,
Skellefteå and Lycksele.
The Region Västerbotten is a co-operative body which is responsible of regional development
in Västerbotten County established by County Council and the county’s municipalities The
Region is a political organization which is responsible for regional development issues and
regional growth.
2.
Introduction the pilot project on integrated policy
In order to secure an efficient and integrated approach for regional development and the
region of Västerbotten has run the pilot project Governance for Regional Growth, with the
purpose to develop a model for national and regional growth policy within the county based
on local conditions. The project aims at elaborating coordinating tools and approaches (e.g.
funding and skills among different operators/stakeholders/actors such as firms, universities,
NGOs and public authorities) that are necessary for implementation of the concept of
multilevel-governance. This will lead in turn to better usage of targeted funds for growth and
development within the county of Västerbotten. The project has been finance by Region
Västerbotten and The Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth (during 20122014).
The methodology adapted, is that models and approaches are being tested and developed in
close relation and cooperation with 12 selected pilots within the county of Västerbotten. Four
of the pilots concerns different groups of territories such as municipalities, groups of
municipalities or the entire region of Västerbotten and adjacent regions. These pilot cases
represent urban rural relationship, functional urban areas, cross-border regions and sparsely
16
Elaborated by Peter Hedman Project leader Governance for Regional Growth Region Västerbotten and Aurora
Pelli Analyst Governance for Regional Growth Region Västerbotten.
57
populated areas. All of them could be platforms for community led local development, CLLD
and the new proposed instrument Integrated Territorial Investment ITI.
Map 9: Case study Västerbotten County - Sweden
Source: elaboration by Piotr Siłka
Other pilots are more sectorial or thematic oriented, for example focusing on R&D in
Healthcare, culture, lifelong learning, bio-refinery, cross-border cooperation between business
and public sector. These pilots need to be integrated to the overall project with a place-based
approach. In these cases it is obvious that a “one-size-fits-all” model will not create the right
tools for economic and sustainable growth. Rather, a place-based policy including vertical and
horizontal coordination of developmental policies together with local actors (both private and
public stakeholders) and external actors enables output of investments and clarifies value
chains.
3.
The Policy
The policy in sake is regional (county´s) growth and development policy in order to increase
the attractiveness and create the best possible living conditions for the citizens of the region.
In Sweden the regional governments usually are responsible for monitoring and influencing
the processes and decisions at EU and national level that affect the region and to manage the
county´s growth strategies and development priorities. One compulsory and important task is
to co-ordinate the regional development plan in the county and the Regional Growth
Programme for the county (in the case described this is the growth programme for
Västerbotten County (2014-2020) and the Regional Development Plan for Västerbotten
County 2014-2020) that define the goals and strategy areas for future development of the
region.
58
Pursuing regional development policy in Sweden means inter alia paying attention to local
potentials, securing multi-level governance perspective, adapting sector policies to the needs
and the opportunities of the region (as most sector policies have a significant territorial
impact, influencing the development in the region) In result this tailored policy mix need to be
coordinated on all territorial levels.
Regional growth, and growth policy in general, includes a spectrum of policies; Social-,
Enterprise-, Innovation-, Education-and Research policy, ICT-policy, Transport and
Infrastructure, Rural Affairs, Energy and Environmental policy etc. However, since the
structure of Västebotten easily can be compared to the whole country, a Sweden in miniature,
the pilots’ uniqueness determines the policy areas concerned. Through methods and
instruments like
• Community led local development (CLLD)
• Integrated territorial Investment (ITI)
Place-based management can be seen as a way to unlock regional and local potentials to reach
the EU strategy for the Baltic Sea Region as well as Europe 2020
4.
The actors and dialogue interactions and instruments
One of the projects main aims is to improve the effect of growth policy through new
instruments and methods of multi-level dialogue that are developed and tested in 12 pilot
cases. The approach is to develop methods for multi-level dialogue both in a vertical and
horizontal perspective in a territorial context with the basis in local and regional conditions.
The method aims to a closer dialogue between place managers from different levels through
the whole development chain (cf. Fig. 26).
Fig. 26. Multilevel-governance
Source: provided by Peter Hedman and Aurora Pelli
59
The expected result is that all involved place managers on different levels – local, regional,
national and EU – should take part in the dialogue, that the methods of dialogue should be
more effective and that the conditions for business organizations and companies to take part
in the process should be improved. The project has so far focused on collective action
between regional and national authorities.
4.
Lessons Learned
Among lessons learned is that place-based development with a bottom up perspective to
multi-level governance and a sectorial integrated approach can create a more coordinated and
effective growth policy with a better use of knowledge, funding and joint learning process on
all levels. It is important to start with a concrete result-based discussion and focus on real pilot
cases involving all different stakeholders/place managers. Such approach enables a release of
local and regional potentials and hence improves the possibilities to reach the EU2020 and
national goals with smartness and sustainability. Otherwise the discussion will be top down,
static and hypothetical. To succeed the development of methods must be demand-driven with
committed process leaders and stakeholders at different levels.
Map 10: The county of Västerbotten
Source: provided by Peter Hedman and Aurora Pelli
60
Interplay between local (regional) and national level
Västerbotten County place-based approach with regard regional development policy - Case
of Umeå municipality (Sweden17)
1.
The Place
The municipality of Umeå is situated in the County of Västerbotten (Map11) and is one of
Sweden’s foremost growth municipalities, with two universities, a dynamic business
community and a richly varied cultural life.
Umeå municipality applied place-based approach to policy making within two pilot projects
described below: “The Barnahus” (”Children´s House”) and ”Vindelälven kust i fjäll”
(“Vindel River from coast to mountains”). Both of them are rooted in the territorial and social
context and therefore provide good illustration of the place-based implementation.
One of the cases described concerns Vindel River (in red at Map 12) that runs mainly in
Västerbotten but has some of its sources in Norrbotten. The entire river system is a Nature
2000 site.
Map 11: Case study municipality of Umeå - Sweden
Source: elaboration by Piotr Siłka
17
Elaborated by Aurora Lindberg Head of Strategic Development Umeå municipality.
61
2.
The Policy
Two policies have been chosen: social welfare policy in case of the Barnahus and
environment policy in case of Vindel River project.
Barnahus (Children´s House) and Centre against Violence:
In 2005, the National Prosecution Authority, the National Police Authority, the National
Board of Medicine and the Social National Agency received the mission to improve the
coordination between their services in order to improve the management quality of crimes
involving children. The main focus was to build a better coordination between all involved
services.
Vindel River project – From Coast to Mountains (Kust till Fjäll)
This project started in 2007 as an initiative of the municipality of Umeå and the energy
utilities company Vattenfall. Some main goals of the project were to examine and implement
measures that can significantly increase the Vindel River production of salmons. This
cooperation was a constructive initiative for resolving problems encountered by salmons
during their upstream migrations and an alternative to a judiciary process from which results
would be non-sustainable, unpredictable and that would have only led to monetary
compensation for the damage done to fisheries activities.
3.
The actors and dialogue interactions and instruments
Barnahus (Children´s House) and Centre against Violence:
Civil servants advised the municipal council to involve the County Council in the debate in
order to offer a fully integrated answer to the challenge of violence. The result of this
cooperation was materialized in March 2005 with a joint missive in which the municipality,
the Västerbotten County Council and Umeå University joined forces to develop an
experimental facility.
The territorial conditions and diagnosis pointed directly to Umeå as the most suitable city host
since it is a regional centre, grouping all the necessary services (children and teenagers
psychiatric support, forensic medicine, police, justice and social services) and also
concentrating high competences entities in these areas. Moreover, all these entities already ran
a cooperating and consultative process with each other. For example, the municipality and the
county were already working together in supporting children victim of crimes.
An initial joint investigation outlined the following coordinated decisions and goals:
•
•
•
•
The child victim should not have to visit each authority in different offices, but should
instead be able to meet them all at the same time and in the same place.
Make sure children rights and needs of support and protection are secured.
Improve the quality of investigations from all the services.
Increase the percentage of crimes against children that lead to prosecutions.
This investigation also settled a number of requirements on the physical location and qualities
of the Children House. It had to be well linked to the regional communications infrastructure,
close to most partners’ official desks, to medical equipment such as x-rays, and to basic
accommodation facilities. But above all, the place had to be "neutral", safe (not at the ground
floor, close to the surveillance personnel) and offer the possibility to a future expansion.
Thanks to a strong political commitment and collaboration between different levels of
government the “Barnahus” project could begin its work in December 2005, only two months
after the initial “Expression of intent” was submitted.
62
Nowadays this initiative has evolved to the creation of a Centre against Violence. The
Centre has been established as the result of a collaboration between the local (Umeå
Municipality and other few cooperating municipalities in the county), regional (Västerbotten
County Council, the police) and national (Prosecution, Forensic Medicine, Umeå University)
levels and with diverse voluntary organizations (Women's Shelter et al). It is a collaborative
effort of different organizations and public authorities:
• The “Barnahus” part invites children from the whole county of Västerbotten to meet all
necessary professional support under a unique safe and child friendly roof. Overall, the
children receive support and meet the staff from the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
structure, social workers, police and doctors.
• The “Women's Clinic” offers abused women an accessible and safe place where they can
receive help with a similar single agency support approach. Women can get counselling
and receive help with financial and housing questions. They can also receive assistance
from the various agencies, receive medical support and file police charges.
• The “Men's Clinic against violence” works professionally with the male population in
facing their act of violence in intimate relationships. The aim is that the violence against
the partner or the children shall stop. Men are offered individual counselling and group
activities.
Coupled with the Centre, a phone service offers support to HBT individuals who are exposed
to violence. There is also a consultation forum for questions related to violence in domestic
relations.
Vindel River project – From Coast to Mountains (Kust till Fjäll)
The project was run using an integrated approach, covering the entire Vindel River valley, the
lower part of the Ume River and the coastal area. It affects six municipalities and a large
number of villages and properties with fishing rights.
The project “Kust till Fjäll” is a joint project between the local (Umeå Municipality, upstream
communes of the river, fishing protection agencies and fishing authorities), the regional
(county administration) and the national levels, regional level (County Council) and the
national levels (the Board of Fisheries and the Administrative Services Agency, Umeå
university and the Swedish University of Agricultural Science).
Due to its large scale and huge challenges, the project has been divided into several sub
projects:
• Sustainable development of joint fishing areas along the entire water system.
• Environmental restoration of Vindel River.
• Environmental Restoration in Vindel River tributaries rivers (LIFE).
• Salmon upstream migration improvements.
• Improvements for smolts and keltens downstream migration
• Information activities
The project has been administered by the Vindeln Development organization and is led by a
steering committee with representatives from the project partners. Each sub-project has its
own project manager and is staffed with qualified members from the participating
organizations. Investigations and expertise have been supplied by the participating
universities, but also from Luleå University of Technology and experts from USA and
Canada. Major decisions were taken by the steering committee and then implemented by the
sub-working groups. Volunteers such as the Nature School have been widely involved in
projects.
63
It has been a great advantage for the project to include all stakeholders that are in any way
involved in the implementation of initiatives, also to benefit from the participating expertise
ranging from universities, municipal planners and decision-making authorities, Vattenfall
experts and other actors. One example is the County Administrative Board in Västerbotten
who, with support from expertise in the project, has been able to consider nature conservation
interests as one of its tasks and as a process of cultural heritage interests (from the timber
floating era).
Map 12: Vasterbotten country, municipality of Umea
Source: provided by Aurora Lindberg
Place-based approach with regard to development of declining areas with use of cultural
heritage - Case of Limassol Wine Villages (Cyprus18)
1.
The Policy and Strategy
Cyprus is exploring ways to effectively move towards place-based policy making, particularly
in the field of spatial planning and also in the framework of Cohesion Policy Funds allocated
to Cyprus.
One practical example is a pilot local development project for the Limassol Wine Villages,
being implemented by the Department of Town Planning and Housing, part of the Ministry of
the Interior, together with the Council of Europe. The aforementioned plan falls within the
remit of a wider project of the Council of Europe namely: ‘Local Development Pilot Projects
(LDPPs): the contribution of heritage to local and regional development’.
18
Elaborated by Ermis Klokkaris, Eleni Zouppouri and Phaedon Enotiades.from the Department of Town
Planning and Housing Ministry of the Interior.
64
LDPPs involve the drawing up and implementation of local development strategies. They
promote a model of multi-sectorial and sustainable development, underpinned by the active
involvement of citizens. The LDPP procedure provides an antidote to the homogenisation of
territories and promotes place-based development focusing on specific identity and optimum
use of locally available cultural and natural resources. Among other things it aims to improve
the standard of living of local inhabitants, address the shortcomings of rural areas, and create
opportunities for employment and economic development.
2.
The Place
The region of the Wine Villages is located at the foothills of the largest mountain range of
Cyprus and falls within the administrative boundaries of Limassol District (cf. Map 13). It is
known for its wine producing tradition, its rich flora and its religious buildings and vernacular
architecture. It consists of 15 traditional settlements (with a total population of 3369) scattered
in the landscape, connected by mostly cultivated or abandoned agricultural land, with
vineyards and dry-laid stone terraces. It is a functional region based on physical, historical,
environmental and socio-economic similarities.
Map 13: Case study Limassol District Vine Villages – Cyprus
Source: elaboration by Piotr Siłka
The area is in decline due to a certain degree of isolation, economic downturn, depopulation
and dereliction. Nevertheless, its rich cultural and natural heritage is a potential for
sustainable development, offering the opportunity to activate a proper mechanism for the
planning and development of the region as a single unit through the cooperation of local
authorities.
65
3.
The Actors
At the moment there is a gap between existing practices for preparing statutory regional and
urban development plans and local development projects. Participation and transparency need
further improvement, while planning is often prepared from the top, with solely spatial
components, standardised, and without adequately taking into account the specific
characteristics of each place as differentiated from a generalised norm. For this reason it was
worth exploring, at a strategic level, whether it is feasible and effective to introduce a local
development approach in the preparation of statutory development plans. This could lead to a
more appropriate formulation of a project’s vision, role and development strategy, which
could also constitute the common basis or a guideline for sectorial policies. At the same time,
such a project will be backed up by economic or social measures and programmes with a view
to achieving a more complete result.
The LDPP is developed in three phases: Diagnosis, Strategy and Implementation Programme.
Considering that the cornerstone of local development is participation in decision-making
(bottom-up approach), effective participation measures were introduced. The pilot
methodology used for the LDPP was based on broad participation and a holistic approach,
both at the spatial and multi-sectorial levels.
4.
The Interactions and Instruments
The process of the LDPP started with a meeting organised by the Department of Town
Planning and Housing in conjunction with the Cyprus Academy of Public Administration, an
institution with the mission of contributing to the efficiency, effectiveness and continuous
improvement of the public service for the benefit of individual citizens and society at large,
and was attended by representatives of all participating local authorities. During this meeting
it was decided to establish a working group assigned to elaborate a common vision within a
participatory framework, the methods to be used during the various workshops towards this
end. The vision would mark the completion of the diagnosis phase of the LDPP and would
form the basis of the next steps (strategy and implementation programme).
The main methodological tools used in the various workshops were SWOT Analysis and the
Structured Democratic Dialogue Process (SDDP). The SDDP (developed by Dr. A. Christakis
and J. Warfield) is a deeply reasoned, scientific methodology for large-scale, collaborative
(cf. Figs 27 and 28) design. It was selected for its efficiency in resolving multiple conflicts
and complex problems in a reasonably limited amount of time, gathering the collective
wisdom of a wide range of different stakeholders who experience a specific problem, and
assisting heterogeneous groups in collectively developing a common framework of thinking
based on consensus building.
A core group of people, the ‘Knowledge Management Team’ (KMT) composed by the local
stakeholders, representatives of competent government agencies and the SDDP experts,
played a crucial role in coordinating the process (identification of stakeholders, drafting of
triggering questions, preparation of reports, invitation of participants etc.).
66
Fig. 27. Wall of Obstacles: diagrammatic representation of interrelations between obstacles to
place-based development, with the “root causes” identified at levels VI-VII
Source: Department of Town Planning and Housing, 2012 (based on SDDP methodology).
The identification of stakeholders was of paramount importance. They had to accurately
represent elements of the subject and cover all of its facets (local stakeholders, relevant public
and semi-public organisation, NGOs etc.). Until now, 150 individuals from about 60 different
stakeholders’ groups (both local inhabitants and key partners from outside the area) were
involved in 12 SDDPs and 5 SWOT analysis workshops. The methodology used enabled to
make a snapshot of the territory, combining a set of actual (through data collection) and
perceived (through public participation) reality in different sectors. This wide representation,
with the help of the SDDP, allowed structuring the stakeholder representatives’ ideas on the
current situation (problems), the desired situation (vision) and actions/ options to achieve
regarding the sustainable development of the Limassol Wine Villages, through consensus
building. The Vision will be used as a roadmap to establish the Collaborative Action Agenda,
in the framework of the Strategy Development.
67
Fig. 28. Vision Tree: scheme of project descriptors, with the “fundamental actions” indicated at
levels VI-VII
Source: Department of Town Planning and Housing, 2012 (based on SDDP methodology).
5.
Lessons Learned
The preliminary outcome of the whole process is more than satisfactory. The SDDP is
undoubtedly an effective instrument of community-led local development, designed in such a
way as to effectively address complex issues. Citizens are involved in decision-making and
decisions taken at local level are inherently democratic and transparent. But there is no
question that the method needs systematisation, in order to overcome some of its limitations.
The application of this paradigm in the preparation of development plans is still in progress,
and has to be further experimented throughout all steps of the planning process. The priority
now is to customise this method in spatial planning, aiming to improve planning procedures
and participatory practices. The legal umbrella of the process also has to be well defined, in
order to be implementable not only in physical planning terms but also in socio-economic
planning.
68
It remains to evaluate the Limassol Wine Villages LDPP and to measure its contribution to
the concepts of place-based approach and territorial cohesion. The Limassol Wine Villages
LDPP is perhaps a new aspiration into what models of development we should seek after in
the future, especially during the current period of economic crisis. The substantial
involvement of local actors in the place-based approach, as experienced in this project, has
encouraged a certain attitude: a better understanding of the place, a clearer reference to quality
values, and a return to what heritage is about, which could become an opportunity to reassess
EU’s development paradigm.
Metropolitan case studies
Introduction to the three German case studies on the place-based approach in functional
regions (urban-rural)19
New form of globalisation has reached the European cities and rural areas. The fall of the Iron
Curtain, the implementation of the interior market as well as the enlargement of the EU,
subsidies as a consequence of EU cohesion policy, progress in GATT leading to the WTO
foundation and the internet age have forced cities and regions to accept a new role within
global competition: All European regions are forced to position, to present and to develop
their locational factors more than ever before, whereas states have lost importance. In Europe,
where, in global terms, most cities are small in size, one answer to globalisation is to set up
metropolitan regions in order to keep or gain global visibility. In the 1990s they have started
joining forces with neighbouring cities and rural areas. Big cities have always had a functional
region around themselves, which can in the easiest way be characterised as the commuter
catchment area. As a rule, such functional regions do not correspond to administrative entities
or NUTS-regions. A formalised, systematic and visible cooperation within such emerging
metropolitan regions therefore leads to immediate tensions with existing administrative
structures. In Germany, when in 2003 the seven existing metropolitan regions pointed out that
globalisation demanded a fundamental change in federal regional policies and a strengthening
of the role of big cites as motors of innovation and European competitiveness, a violent
political discussion was triggered off.
In Germany where policies just like in the rest of Europe focus on cohesion in the sense of
transferring funds to regions that are structurally less developed, some actors and lobbyists
deliberately misinterpreted the big cities’ demand as “strengthening the already strong by
taking money away from rural areas”. Nevertheless, in 2005 four more metropolitan regions
where officially installed by the Federal Ministers Conference on Spatial Planning as well as
the whole nationwide approach to regional reshaped by a formal decision and urban-rural
compromise in June 2006. Furthermore, a model project approach investigating metropolitanrural interaction and cooperation was proposed. Model projects in spatial planning (“MORO”)
are an instrument of the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development
allowing the enquiry into certain spatial policies by offering federal co-funding and scientific
support as well as analysis.
19
Elaborated by Dr. Rolf-Barnim Foth, Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg Ministry for Economy, Transport
and Innovation Head of Task Force Northern German Cooperation, Hamburg Metropolitan Region, Marketing &
Tourism.
69
Place-based approach with regard to urban rural partnership (functional areas) - Case of
Hamburg Metropolitan Region (Germany20)
1.
Introduction
On the basis of the MORO federal competitive approach the Minister Presidents of northern
Germany offered the participation of Hamburg Metropolitan Region as one of the model
projects. MORO Nord started in 2007, the final conference took place in June 2010 – with full
participation of Director General Dr. Ahner of DG Regio. Since then MORO Nord has been
continued on a regular basis as PPN-Project Partnership North. MORO Nord aimed at setting
up a new neighbourhood policy of Hamburg Metropolitan Region. The concept met two main
requirements: The City of Hamburg with its 1.8 million inhabitants needs a broader basis to
be successful in a global environment and the neighbouring Federal States whose territory is
affected by Hamburg’s functional region were and are interested in a broader regional
approach.
2.
The policy
As an answer to globalisation, Hamburg set up a comprehensive growth strategy in 2001 –
together with the region. Strategy has covered the entire Metropolitan Area as already existing
functional region i.e. beyond administrative borders of Hamburg (Map 14). The metropolitan
development policy based on the strategy combines cohesion and international
competitiveness.
Schleswig-Holstein took over the chair and a broad bottom-up approach was chosen: Mayors,
County Mayors, representatives of the Federal State level, chambers of commerce and
industry, companies and universities as well as representatives from Danish authorities
defined joint projects of mutual interest and mainly in fields without existing cooperation and
set up working groups: (i) Campus Nord (Northern German university network),
(ii) Preparing the fixed Fehmarn Belt link, (iii) Installation of a cluster „Maritime Industry“,
(iv) Expansion of Hamburg‘s „Logistics“ cluster, (v) Expansion of the cluster „Life Science“,
(vi) Regional food initiative, (vii) Joint tourism projects, (viii) Joint North German marketing,
(ix) Initiatives in public transport, (x) Strengthening the role of rural regions, (xi) Qualified
workforce in technical sectors Territorial Partnership Northern Germany – Metroregion
Hamburg (cf. Fig. 29).
MORO NORD funding came from the Federal Ministry (100.000 Euro), Federal States
(140.000 Euro), from the Chambers of Commerce (20.000 Euro), Hamburg Metropolitan
Region (20.000 Euro) and INTERREG (140.000 Euro). The concrete implementation of
projects was or is being funded by separate contributions from partners.
3.
The Place
The MORO Nord cooperation went beyond Hamburg’s main functional region, the commuter
region (cf. Fig. 30). The territorial basis was the existing (official) structure of Hamburg
Metropolitan Region from which cooperation was extended to the neighbouring county
structures. In the case of universities and some cluster policies a “géométrie variable”approach was chosen (Federal States level).
20
Elaborated by Dr. Rolf-Barnim Foth, Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg Ministry for Economy, Transport
and Innovation Head of Task Force Northern German Cooperation, Hamburg Metropolitan Region, Marketing &
Tourism.
70
Map 14: Case study of Hamburg Metropolitan Region
Source: elaboration by Piotr Siłka
4.
Actors
The main Actors are following: Federal States, cities, counties, Denmark, Chambers of
Commerce, Companies and Universities. Cooperation was at eye level; decisions were taken
unanimously and on the basis of win-win-projects. One of the projects aimed at capacity
building: A special enquiry was launched in order to help rural partners to define their
interests independently from the big city as well as projects. A joint declaration on the role of
rural areas within Hamburg Metropolitan Region was formally adopted (Bad Bevensen
Declaration) and concrete projects in the fields of new energies as well as health are being
implemented now within the framework of PPN and additional co-funding from the Federal
Ministry.
5.
Dialogue and interactions and instruments
The MORO process was triggered off as a joint initiative on the Federal States level by
organising a number of sub-regional conferences which identified projects and organisations
willing to take the responsibility of further defining, coordinating and implementing the
projects (mentors). A steering committee was set up which consisted of the partners who
secured the financing as well as of the project mentors and scientists from the urban and
regional development faculty of HafenCity University Hamburg. 2007-2010 SchleswigHolstein, a Federal State consisting of many rural areas, took over the chair and the initial
political set up which led to a formal cooperation agreement. Later on, in the PPN period,
Hamburg took over. At certain stages public hearings took place and specialised conferences
to disseminate results and to rouse support. Cooperation was based on the individual legal
systems of each participating Federal State.
71
Fig. 29. Enlarged Hamburg functional area
Source: provided by Dr. Rolf-Barnim Foth
6.
Pros and cons (lessons learned or to be shared)
The following can be highlighted for other regions and countries in order to enhance or
improve place-based policy making.
72
•
Cooperation should bring together actors from different spheres - and open stake
holders‘ minds for cross-administrative-border activities and projects.
•
Long term partnership for broader cooperation should be triggered off. This requires
time (regional processes tend to take 10 years!), some of the MORO partners have
now become official members of Hamburg Metropolitan Region.
•
Win-win situations could be achieved by joining forces and comparative advantages.
•
The metropolitan partner Hamburg is getting a broader basis for securing their
international competitiveness (of the whole Metropolitan Region and beyond)
•
The rural partners are getting into “the driver‘s seat”, i.e. participate in policy making,
and receive a strong partner at eye level.
•
It is believed that metropolitan-rural partnership contributes to securing jobs in remote
regions.
•
More value creation remains inside the common region.
Fig. 30. Hamburg commuting area
Source: provided by Dr. Rolf-Barnim Foth
Place-based approach with regard to urban rural partnership (functional areas) - Case of
Stuttgart Metropolitan Region (Germany21)
1.
The Policy
The policy subject to place-based approach is an extender region al policy. It aims at the
improvement of certain location factors, (e.g. access to supraregional gateway-infrastructure,
provision of logistic facilities), an advanced quality of living (e.g. development of open
spaces, “Green Infrastructure”), sustainable and resilient development (e.g. regional transit for
commuters, locations for the use of renewable energies, adaptation to climate change).
The tasks aforementioned have a strong territorial impact. All areas and tiers involved in the
process have different but corresponding potentials – especially in spatial terms. Therefore, a
territorial approach has been applied right from the beginning.
The process was initialized by the regional authorities responsible for regional planning with a
strong support from the Federal Agency for spatial Planning (BBSR). Other administrative
organization joint the cooperation later. For several issues the goodwill of several
development actors was an important driver for territorialisation. However, binding
instruments are still crucial for sustainable development – especially in the more densely
populated areas.
Most important reason for introduction of the place-based approach in the described above
policy was the expected (and achieved) efficiency: i.e. more success with less effort.
21
Elaborated by Thomas Kiwitt Verband Region Stuttgart Leitender Technischer Direktor Bereich Planung,
Kronenstr. 25, 70174 Stuttgart.
73
As the policy was initiated and is still driven by well co-ordinated regional stakeholders the
integration in local circumstances was well assured in every phase of the project.
2.
The Place
The place-based metropolitan (regional) policy described above comprises the area of
Stuttgart Metropolitan Region – a functional area (Map 15), consisting of the administrative
planning regions. Besides their important position, both, the functional area and the
administrative planning regions are not represented in the European statistic nomenclature
(NUTS).
The core area is densely populated, coined by a significant share of the GDP produced in
industry and engineering, and provides most of the gateway infrastructure and
research/development facilities. The surrounding hinterland is home to mostly small and
medium enterprises, but also provides space for agricultural and recreational use.
Map 15: Case study of Stuttgart Metropolitan Region
Source: elaboration by Piotr Siłka
3.
Actors
Elected officials from the regions and municipalities are members of a committee that meets
on a regular base. Other stakeholders, e.g. chambers of commerce, developers, experts, NGO,
are invited to take part in workshops, where specific topics are discussed and decision making
is prepared.
74
The actors involved try to gain an additional support for their specific interest by either
joining forces with others or increasing their spatial scope. As the cooperation is based on the
mutual benefit of the participants, influence can be taken best by providing solution for
existing challenges or ideas with clear advantages for other partners. However, the final
responsibility of the elected bodies is not influenced by the described above place-based
approach.
Capacity building measures for third parties are currently not provided. However smaller units
– especially on municipality level – can get support in several fields of interest (e.g.
development and realization of pilot projects)
4.
Dialogue and interactions and instruments
Discussions and debates are in the committee aim at the definition of common interest. More
specific positions for parts of the functional area primarily are formulated in the elected
bodies of the participating authorities.
The dialogue instruments are selected according to the specific aims and challenges. In
general the approach is based on informal elements (e.g. marketing strategies, lobbying,
information, database) as well as the use of formal instruments – the latter carried out within
the competences of the member jurisdictions in a territorial co-ordinated way.
The initiative to start debate on certain subject can be taken from any participant. Decision
making within the committee is based on broad consensus. Conflicts have therefore to be
settled by compromising i.e. finding a solution that can be accepted by all participants
involved.
5.
Pros and cons (lessons learned or to be shared)
Functional areas, especially on regional level, are crucial for a successful and sustainable
territorial development. This importance is – by now – not adequate reflected on national and
European level. A more elaborated focus should be put on the role of functional areas – as
territorial challenges (climate change, energy supply demographics) call for an area/level of
actions beyond the municipalities and counties.
Place-based approach with regard to urban rural partnership (functional areas) - Case of
Nuremberg Metropolitan Region (Germany22)
1.
Introduction
The optimization of intra‐regional cooperation ‐ based on urban‐rural partnership ‐ is one of
the main strategic goals of the Nuremberg Metropolitan Region. (Strategic Goals: 1.
Development of an international brand „Nuremberg Metropolitan Region“, 2. Expansion of
metropolitan functions, 3. Intensification of European work, 4. Optimization of intra‐regional
22
Elaborated by Dr. Ruppert Kawka from the German Das Bundesinstitut für Bau-, Stadt- und Raumforschung.
75
cooperation). The base for the common activities is the priority on equal living conditions and
integration of urban and rural areas.
In order to make the association of shared responsibilities a vibrant reality, in 2006, the
Metropolitan Region adopted the Bad Windsheim Declaration “Strengthening Strengths –
Rural Areas within the Nuremberg Metropolitan Area”. The Bad Windsheimer Declaration
sets the objectives and benchmarks for future cooperation between urban and rural areas. It
emphasizes the many assets of rural areas, such as nature, recreation, and leisure spaces,
which contribute significantly to the quality of life and at the same time serve as major
business locations. Especially the close networking of urban and rural areas offers the
opportunity to utilize the existing potential. The declaration emphasises the equality of living
conditions within the entire Metropolitan Region as its goal and standard for all activities. In
concrete terms, it defines five main fields of action for developing projects and strategies
which mainly build on the strengths of rural areas and create benefits by linking them to urban
areas. This includes:
• strengthening of regional economic cycles
• strengthening of tourism within the region
• improving mobility by extending the traffic infra‐structure
• cluster policy including rural areas
• cross‐border co‐operation with Eastern Europe
In 2010, a new field of action was added: designing transitions in demographic change.
2.
The Policy
Nuremberg Metropolitan Region (Map16) must be seen in response to the challenges of
globalization: The regional level is joining forces with regard to the rising globalisation
pressure. Both urban and rural partners are aware that in terms of national or international
visibility and competitiveness such cooperative regions are more likely to “remain on the
map” or to gain visibility, which makes working across so far separating administrative or
even national borders indispensable. In fact, as most big European cities are relatively small
in global terms, even for them there is no alternative to organising and shaping alliances of
city regions and rural areas.
76
There are traditional and century old symbiosis in peri‐urban relations; these connections
facilitate the new type of coalition with their neighbouring peri‐urban and rural areas at eye
level.
The collaboration and interaction of all subspaces enable an economic and innovative
potential which is noticeable at the international level. The location becomes visible and
competitive at this level. Quality of life is profiling the brand of Nuremberg Metropolitan
Region.
Nuremberg Metropolitan Region doesn’t lead to augmenting territorial disparities. To the
contrary: natural interrelations are strengthened. The polycentric structure is seen as
advantage.
The focus in the urban-rural co-operation has been on developing various projects in the fields
of activity defined in the Bad Windsheim Declaration, also within the framework of the
aforesaid MORO “Supra‐Regional Partnerships”.
The project “Of Regional Origin – from the Metropolitan Region”, the project “Strong
Clusters in Rural Areas”, and the project “Green Metropolitan Area” are particularly
important in this context. The project “Of Regional Origin” has the goal of increasing
consumption of regionally produced foodstuffs. City dwellers constitute the major demand
potential for the region’s farmers and direct marketers. “Strong Clusters in Rural Areas”
consistently established a network of competences between rural and urban areas for the
cluster “Energy and Environment”. The project “Top Cluster Medical Valley Nuremberg
European Metropolitan Region as an Urban‐Rural Network” links scientific and technological
know‐how with the special needs and demands of rural areas in times of demographic change.
The project “Green Metropolitan Region” established a network between the Region’s 10
nature parks and increased citizens’ awareness of these parks.
3.
77
The Place
Since its foundation and adoption by the German Conference of Ministers for Spatial
Planning (MRKO) in 2005, the Nuremberg European Metropolitan Region has seen itself as a
large‐scale association with shared responsibilities. Its goals are
• the strengthening of metropolitan functions,
• joint location marketing,
• a contribution to shaping Europe, and
• the expansion of networks within the region.
Map 16: Case study Nuremberg Metropolitan Region
Source: elaboration by Piotr Siłka.
In the initiative of German European Metropolitan Regions, the Nuremberg Metropolitan
Region was instrumental in carrying through urban‐rural partnerships as an integral part of the
self‐image of metropolitan regions.
78
With approximately 3.5 million inhabitants 22 counties and 11 independent towns and cities
and 150.000 companies, the Nuremberg Metropolitan Region is a trendsetting centre of
national and international importance for Europe. It is impetus for different developments
concerning social, cultural, economic, and technological aspects. The Metropolitan Region
encompasses an area of about 20,000 square kilometres with a wide variety of different
landscapes and regions and an overall very heterogeneous structure. This includes the
conurbation Nuremberg‐Fürth‐Erlangen‐Schwabach with about 1.5 million inhabitants as well
as a number of cities between 50,000 and 100,000 inhabitants, and peripheral rural areas, such
as the county of Wunsiedel in the Fichtelgebirge Mountains. While the metropolitan functions
are largely concentrated in the conurbations, in the fields of economy and science, enterprises
and universities are distributed over the entire Metropolitan Region. Large towns and cities
such as Bamberg, Bayreuth, Coburg, Amberg, Hof and many others have established a
poly‐central network encompassing the entire Region.
The Nuremberg Metropolitan Region is noted for its polycentricity: far from being an urban
monolith in a wasteland of mediocrity, the region is a network made up of a multiplicity of
dynamic nodes. This makes for a well‐nigh unique quality of life for the inhabitants. In the
meantime, Nuremberg Metropolitan Region has become famous all over Germany and
throughout Europe as a model for urban‐rural partnership. The networks are based on a high
cooperation quality. The region is promoted as demonstration project of Federal Planning
since 2008.
Due to the specific competences of the universities and projects located in rural areas, the
entire regional network in the fields of energy and environment benefits from a much wider
spectrum of opportunities/programmes. The agglomeration is able to develop a distinguishing
profile with a wider mix of competences. Institutions are able to agree on a division of labour
and on specialisation, saving resources and giving the network a better competitive edge. The
same is true, for the cluster Medicine and Health.
4.
79
Actors
Nuremberg Metropolitan Region bases on numerous and various existing regional networks
and intra‐regional cooperation (e.g. the so called neighbourhood conferences in the
Nürnberg‐Fürth‐Erlangen‐Schwabach agglomeration and adjacent counties). Nuremberg
Metropolitan Region means a quantum leap forwards out from specialized and project‐related
collaboration in the region towards large‐scale metropolitan area governance.
About 600 stakeholders from industry, the scientific community, government administrations,
the political, cultural, marketing and
tourism sectors, form a unique
Milestones:
governance arrangement that is the
• 2004 June 24 Resolution of the Ministerial
Conference on Spatial Planning (MCSP) 2005 June
Nuremberg Metropolitan Region. They,
28 The MCSP recognized 11 European
too, do not only come from the
Metropolitan Regions in Germany in April 2005.
conurbations only, but from all parts of
• 2005 May 12 Charta of Nuremberg Metropolitan
the region. The membership is
Region is signed in Mai 2005 by 60 politicians and
stakeholders (entrepreneurs, scientists, cultural
voluntarily and flexible. The counties
manager and others)
decide for or against their participation
• 2005 July 27 Constitutive session of the governing
in Nuremberg Metropolitan Region
council, passing of the internal regulation by more
according to their conviction that their
than 40 rural district administrators, lord mayors,
and mayors
interests will be better accomplished
• 2006 May 17 Annual conference „Rural areas in
through
common
efforts
on
Nuremberg Metropolitan Region – Strengths –
metropolitan level or not.
Opportunities – Capabilities“ in Theuern
•
5.
Dialogue and interactions and
instruments
Most important incentive is the
conviction, that there will be a value
added working together on metropolitan
level
for
every
single
actor.
Advantageous term is the fact of
long‐term
practiced
regional
•
•
•
2007 July 20 Annual conference „Strengthen the
Strengths – Rural Areas in Nuremberg Metropolitan
Region“ in Bad Windsheim; passing of the Bad
Windsheimer Declaration
2009 October 6 Performance of Nuremberg
Metropolitan Region as „Urban rural alliance
METREXplus“ at Open Days in Brussesl
2010 February 5 Leitbild für nachhaltiges
Wachstum und Beschäftigung(WaBe) wird von
Politik, Wirtschaft, Wissen und Verwaltung
öffentlich unterzeichnet
2010 July 23 Annual conference „Demographic
Change ‐ Impacts, Strategies and Good Practices in
cooperation in different levels. Another incentive is the funding of different projects: at
80
federal level the funding of so called MORO‐Projects (Demonstration Projects of Spatial
Planning); at state level the funding of the “Kooperationsstelle Partnerschaft Ländlicher
Raum – Verdichtungsraum” Cooperation office Partnership Rural Area – Agglomeration
Area). The funded capabilities help to push common regional projects like the ‘Of regional
origin’ program which is aimed at increasing the consumption of regional produced products.
An organisation model has been developed, with the democratic core section as the governing
council. In this model, 54 rural district administrators, lord mayors, and mayors decide about
the strategies of the European Metropolitan Region of Nuremberg. In six specialised forums,
around 600 persons from the entire metropolitan region work closely together.
Decisive power has the Council of Nuremberg Metropolitan Region staffed by politicians.
Consensus is a leading paradigm: decisions are made unanimous. The Council, which is the
democratic heart of the metropolitan region, brings together 33 top mayors, mayors, and rural
councils, which represent the cities and counties of the metropolitan region (55 persons all
together). In addition, there are four co‐opted members elected by the Council from the
Bavarian state government, counties and government districts, and district councils. The
council constitutes the democratic core and legitimises the internal decision‐making process
and the representation to the outside world. It is built upon the principle of civic
representation within local government. In the Council, each member has the same voting
rights, thus providing the counties a clear majority against the district towns. This means that
the rural areas – represented by the district chief executives and mayors of the larger county
towns ‐ have great influence in the Council of the Metropolitan Region. The goals and rules of
this strategic alliance were agreed in the Metropolitan Region’s 2005 Charter. The rules
explicitly emphasise equality and a level playing field. This means that all municipal
representatives – Lord Mayors and Mayors – enjoy equal rights. “Independent of population
and economic power, each voice in this regional association with shared responsibilities will
carry equal weight,” the Charter states.
The steering committee discusses issues and projects concerning the metropolitan region and
brings them before the council as required. The steering committee meets around 6 weeks
prior to the council session to discuss interdisciplinary topics. Scientists, business leaders,
tourism experts, marketing professionals, cultural managers, sports officials as well as
administrative representatives contribute their skills and networks to the work of the
metropolitan region.
Each forum is headed by a team comprised of two spokespeople, representing the professional
and political sector respectively, and a managing director. Management of the forums is
81
divided between the cities of Nuremberg, Bamberg, Erlangen and Fürth as well as the
marketing association of the metropolitan region.
82
Place-based approach in metropolitan regions (functional areas) - Case of urban policy in
Brussels-Capital Region (Belgium)23
1.
Introduction
1.1.
How we view "place-based approach"
In 2010, in the context of the elaboration of the TA 2020, the Belgian Presidency prepared
and presented an issue paper on place-based development. This was an occasion to reflect on
the concept and discuss it. The representatives of the three Belgian Regions reached a kind of
consensus on a number of elements of definition and contents, on basis of a note prepared by
the Flemish Region. It is with this in mind that we prepared the present analysis.
We do not see the place-based approach as just tailoring an approach at a smaller scale (than
usual), for a number of reasons:
• places as "relevant areas" are not necessarily small(er) areas: it depends notably on the type
of policy, the structure of the territory (heterogeneity), its governance; also relevant areas
are often functional areas that may change over time;
• interactions (exchanges, networks) play a growing role: "places" are not autonomous
islands, they are linked to other territories, in some cases beyond the territorial scope of
decision;
• it is important to ensure consistency and coherence between various interventions on
various places (the Leipzig Charter, for example, underlines the need to think the
regeneration of urban neighbourhoods within the context of the whole city).
In consequence here we understand the place-based approach as:
• adapting the approach to the territorial context, i.e. not only the "place" but also its
relationships with other territories;
• securing coherence between the sector policies, minimizing contradictions / conflicts and
enhancing synergies;
• taking into account the time dimension and the trends;
• ensuring adequate governance (multi-level, adaptable, strategic vision, participation of all
the stakeholders).
1.2.
Choice of the case
Being multi-sectorial, urban policy is a good case for a place-based approach. In most cases,
urban policy at regional level focuses on urban areas within a region. In the case of the
Brussels-Capital Region, where the whole territory is urban and which is endowed with a
large range of policy competences, urban policy at the regional level is actually plain general
policy.
This is a rather exceptional situation in Europe, and at first sight a relevant case: one could
say that the Region realizes an institutionalized form of place-based approach at regional
level. We will see that this is not quite right yet. The case is thus not presented as a best
practice, but rather as a contribution to the reflexion about the place-based approach based on
significant experience.
23
Elaborated by Sven De Bruycker (Administration of Spatial Planning and Housing - Ministry of BrusselsCapital Region) and PhDB consultant.
83
It is also a quite broad case. In order to make the scope manageable, we have chosen to focus
on a few particular aspects of urban policy in the Brussels-Capital Region:
• the territorial dimension of (urban) development: policy options in this matter are
expressed in the Sustainable Regional Development Plan (PRDD);
• the link between urban policy at the national (federal), regional and local levels;
• the issue of the functional area of the city (metropolitan area), which partially overlaps the
territory of the two other Belgian Regions.
2.
The Place: Brussels-Capital Region (Map 17)
Brussels has a number of specificities that should be kept in mind when analysing the case:
• it is a multi-level capital: one of the European capitals, capital of the country, but also of
both the French-speaking and Dutch speaking Communities, and of the Flemish Region
(whose institutions are merged with those of the Dutch-speaking Community);
• it is a bi-lingual city (two official languages, French and Dutch);
• it is endowed with high-level institutions (government, parliament) and is politically
autonomous in a large number of domains, among which all domains with a territorial
dimension;
• it is composed of 19 municipalities, among which the city of Brussels (a sometimes
confusing peculiarity);
• while its development has been influenced by the geographical setting (in particular the
river valleys), its administrative limits are largely artificial; the morphologic
agglomeration extends beyond the administrative territory of the Region; the metropolitan
area (area that will be served by the Regional Express Network under construction) is
significantly larger: around 3 million inhabitants, while the Region itself has some 1,3
million;
• it is quite dense, but with a great heterogeneity among municipalities and neighbourhoods
in terms of density, quality of life, socio-economic status of the population;
• It hosts a large number of population of foreign origin and registers a rapid demographic
growth, mostly in the poorer municipalities and neighbourhoods;
• the Region is an employment pole for a large part of the country and produces around 19%
of its GDP, a quite larger part than its demographic weight, but meanwhile the
unemployment rate of its inhabitants exceeds 20%, mostly due to the discrepancy between
the qualification required for the jobs and that of the labour force;
• in contrast with large flows of incoming migrants (the balance of foreign migration has
more than doubled in 5 years and reaches 30,000 persons in 2010), through the balance of
migration with its Flemish and Walloon periphery the city loses each year around 12,000
inhabitants; the ensuing "replacement" of population tends to weaken the fiscal basis on
which the Region relies;
• due to the previous characteristics, social cohesion and integration of migrants is a very
serious concern.
84
Map 17: Case study Brussels-Capital Region
3.
The Policy: Urban policy
Urban policy at the level of the Region aims to meet the challenges mentioned under the
previous heading, in particular the social challenge. There are general measures in order to
promote economic development, to provide the facilities and services required by the
demographic growth (housing, education, social services), to ensure mobility, to enhance the
quality of life, and to protect natural and cultural heritage. There are also policy options and
tools which are more territorialised, in order to deal with the issue of social, economic and
environmental heterogeneity. This is notably expressed in the successive Regional
Development Plans24; this will also inspire the future instance, the Sustainable Regional
Development Plan which is expected to be adopted in 2013.
Territorialised development options are notably translated into the Structural Funds
programmes, for which geographical concentration has been central from the start (URBAN
initiative, Objective 2, and then "Regional competitiveness and employment" Objective in the
current programming period). The current eligible area is the central / western part of the
regional territory around the canal, where most deprived neighbourhoods are to be found. As
European programmes are co-financed by the regional authorities, they also generate a
geographic concentration of available regional resources. In addition, in this area, but not
exclusively, there is a number of neighbourhood development programmes co-financed by the
Region in the form of "neighbourhood contracts" (see following section).
24
According to the Brussels Code of Spatial Planning (COBAT), each newly installed regional government has
to express its intentions in matter of revision or validation of the current regional development plan.
85
This spatial concentration shows that for a number of issues, the regional territory is too large
(and too heterogeneous) a "place" to work efficiently with. This raises the question of the
project for the remaining areas, which do not benefit from this form of place-based
development. One of the answers given in the PRDD is to develop a polycentric model within
the Region, by strengthening a number of strategic areas (poles of regional interest, or PIR).
On the other hand, for some issues (in particular mobility, link between labour force and
provision of jobs, business parks or shopping malls location), the regional territory is too
limited a "place". Problems can only be tackled at the scale of the metropolitan area, on which
policy attention has been only recently directed among policy-makers. One of the difficulties
is the institutional structure of the country, without hierarchical authority (the federal level is
on par with the regional and community levels), which forces the different decision levels to
cooperate on a voluntary basis.
The national (federal) level often represents Belgium for urban policy in the EU context but
retains a very limited competence in this matter (Large Cities Policy), mostly through support
for small scale development programmes in the main cities of Belgium. Much more
significantly, the federal level remains competent for some important aspects of urban
realities such as justice, security (police), and railroad infrastructure. Besides, the linguistic
Communities are endowed with competences such as education, culture and sport
infrastructure. In other words, despite broad competences, the Brussels-Capital Region does
not master all parameters of urban policy. But the on going institutional reforms tend to give
additional power to the Regions, on the one hand through a transfer of competences from the
federal and Communities levels and, on the other hand, by giving the Regions more tools in
order to ensure coherence between municipal policies (e.g. in matter of mobility).
4.
Actors and tools
As a consequence of this complex institutional structure, one of the particularities of urban
policy in the Brussels-Capital Region is the multitude of stakeholders, notably due to the
number of policy levels operating in the city. Private actors, NGOs and citizens have also a
role to play, notably through tools as private-public partnerships (PPP), neighbourhood
contracts and consultation procedures.
Endowed with significant competences and in control of many tools needed for policy
implementation (delivery of most building authorisations for example), the 19 municipalities
are particularly important actors. Municipal limits often act as internal barriers that hinder true
place-based approaches, at the regional level (mobility is an obvious case) as well as at the
local level (neighbourhood contracts may not extend beyond municipal limits).
Institutional and territorial complexity may sometimes result in lengthy processes and
additional administrative burden and costs. Obstacles in the decision processes make it even
more difficult to face rapid changes in the urban environment and linked challenges (such as
the demographic boom).
The previously mentioned PRDD tool is considered as a major tool to give policy orientations
in a large range of policy domains having an impact on urban development. This indicative
strategic plan drawn by the regional Government as a whole establishes development
objectives in all the areas falling within the remit of the Region, both territorial and
socioeconomic, the ultimate aim being to create a coherent urban project. As a territorial plan,
the PRDD relies on the geography of the Region – an important aspect of a place – especially
its river valleys structure, in order to create a coherent and readable urban structure. But the
socio-economic concerns are also at the heart of the urban project. One could see it as an
attempt to translate the orientations of Europe 2020 into a place-based development at
regional scale.
86
The PRDD is currently elaborated on basis of dedicated studies and of a broad consultation of
stakeholders. While this should help to root the urban project in its territorial context, it also
makes it difficult to operate policy choices which are revealed by the length of the preparation
process.
Another interesting tool is the (sustainable) neighbourhood contract, which has a multisectorial and multi-level character. It aims to regenerate deprived, “poor” neighbourhoods,
concentrated in the central part of the Region mostly alongside the Canal (West part) and
characterized by depopulation, social exclusion and a physical degradation of the built
environment. Neighbourhood contracts ambition to develop a more positive identity for these
districts and to reinforce local solidarity. Public investments in buildings (housing, facilities),
infrastructure (public space) and initiatives improving education, employment, integration and
social cohesion of the population should improve overall living conditions and hence
encourage private reinvestments in real estate. Since 2010, special attention is paid to the
energetic quality of building projects.
The sustainable neighbourhood contract is initiated and co-financed by the regional
authorities, but implemented by the municipality, with participation of many local
stakeholders. In some cases, there are synergies with initiatives of the federal level and
linguistic Communities. Four neighbourhoods are selected each year according to identified
needs in matter of economic, environmental and social development, and the contracts are
signed for a term of 4 years.
While the first neighbourhood contracts were often designed on an ad hoc basis (as an answer
to local issues), the future PRDD is expected to help them to better fit in the frame of global
regional - and even metropolitan - development.
At the level of the metropolitan area, initiatives are recent and linked to the current
institutional reforms of the State. The agreement recently signed by the political majority at
federal level provides for the creation of a metropolitan community for the larger Brussels. An
information platform gathering the three Belgian Regions and the Federal State around
common spatial planning issues is currently being set up.
The financing mechanisms are an important facet of urban policy in the Brussels-Capital
Region. Besides regional and local financing, the European Structural Funds also bring a
contribution to urban development, as well as a specific mechanism through which the federal
level finances expenses which are linked to the role of capital played by Brussels: the Beliris
framework. Originally focused on elements representative of the capital function (publics
spaces, transport infrastructure, high level facilities and major cultural heritage items), Beliris
now takes part also in neighbourhood regeneration.
5.
Lessons learned / to be shared
The case of Brussels-Capital Region is certainly not to consider as a model of place-based
development that could be reproduced, notably because its specificities make it almost unique
in Europe. On the other hand, it sheds a light on particular issues such as:
• the identification of the place as relevant (functional) area, which depends on the scale,
the type of issue, the heterogeneity of the territorial context and its evolution over
time. Issues are rarely confined within administrative limits, all the less in an urban
context. Implementing a place-based approach may sometimes require to consider a
larger territory;
• the role of the institutional structure and its way of functioning: adequate governance,
and in particular multi-level governance, is crucial and cannot be simply implemented
in a top-down approach. Stimulating and supporting cooperation between different
87
stakeholders (for example through contracts or co-financing) is important but it should
be kept in mind that this may require additional human resources and generate
administrative costs;
• the time dimension, and in particular the territorial dynamics, must be taken into
account, as they might also have an effect on the relevance of the area in a rapidly
changing context. It is important for place-based development tools to be able to adapt
to changes in the context.
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Conclusions on place-based policy from cases
The cases have provided evidence for following:
The place-based approach is a relevant policy making paradigm at different
geographical scales and with regard to different policies and issues of a complex
character e.g. regional development, global competiveness, nature protection, social
welfare, socio-economic revitalization etc.
The place-based approach has been successfully applied in various countries through
Europe, in many cases without conscious naming of the chosen approach as a placebased one. It proved to be successful in enhancing efficiency of developmental efforts
by inter alia unlocking the under-utilised potential contained at local, city and regional
level.
Place-based approach is neither a top-down nor bottom-up relationship. The cases
have demonstrated that the starting impulse for the place-based dialogue could come
from national level (cf. Cyprus) or from local level (cf. Sweden). Both worked.
Although a dialogue between different actors and stakeholder is a key element of the
place-based approach they should not be treated as a synonyms of each other (even
though both phenomena reinforce each other). Place-based approach is territorially
oriented (focus on specific features of a given place) whereas multi-level governance
is more of institutional nature.
Even applied Europe-wide, place-based approach, at the current stage of its
implementation, remains more project than policy oriented. In many cases it has been
used to solve concrete one-time developmental problem, and only afterwards, in some
cases, it has been turned into a policy making paradigm.
Place-based approach offers synergy to the new instruments of EU policy in particular
to the concept of integrated territorial investments (ITI)25 and Community-led local
development (CLLD).
Existence of such instruments and funding opportunities might ease the progress in
implementation of the place-based approach in the future since the German
metropolitan cases proved importance of such type external assistance for covering
initially high initial costs of starting place-based dialogue (so cold high transaction
costs).
25
According to EU Commission TI are an instrument designed for a place based approach to development that
can assist in unlocking the under-utilised potential contained at local, city and regional level.
89
List of figures
Fig. 1. Key elements of the place-based approach.......................................................................................... 9
Fig. 2. Process of the preparation of the report on how Members States integrate place-based
approach into public policies on national, regional and local level. ........................................................... 11
Fig. 3. Intensity of dialogue between different types of development actors for various policies........ 13
Fig. 4. Instruments and procedures used for place-based dialogue ........................................................... 13
Fig. 5. Collection of knowledge on territorial differentiation of socio-economic development by
national authorities by different methods (N=26)........................................................................................ 14
Fig. 6. Collection of knowledge on territorial development by national authorities by different
methods (N=26) ................................................................................................................................................ 14
Fig. 7. Collection of knowledge on territorial differentiation of socio-economic development by
subnational authorities by different methods (N=26) ................................................................................. 15
Fig. 8. Collection of knowledge on territorial development by subnational authorities by different
methods (N=26) ................................................................................................................................................ 15
Fig. 9. Main reasons of the success in place-based dialogue (N=26)......................................................... 16
Fig. 10. Impact assessments of policies run by local/regional authorities on socio-economic and
territorial development of the country and impact assessments of policies run by national authorities
on socio-economic and territorial development of the regions/municipalities (N=26)......................... 16
Fig. 11. Typology of the examined countries with regard to key ingredients of the place-based
approach.............................................................................................................................................................. 17
Fig. 12. Relation between size of the country and number of different types of stakeholder engaged in
the place-based dialogue (N=26)..................................................................................................................... 18
Fig. 13. Frequency of application of the spatial categories in the place-based dialogue (N=26) .......... 22
Fig. 14. Methods used for territorialisation of policies (N=26).................................................................. 24
Fig. 15. Methods of collecting territorially relevant knowledge necessary under the place-based
approach by national authorities (N=26)....................................................................................................... 25
Fig. 16. Methods of collecting territorially relevant knowledge necessary under the place-based
approach by local and regional authorities (N=26) ...................................................................................... 26
Fig. 17. Assessment of the place-based dialogue (N=26)............................................................................ 28
Fig. 18. Main reasons of problems with the place-based dialogue (N=26) .............................................. 29
Fig. 19. Assessment of instruments most frequently applied in place-based dialogue (N=26)............. 30
Fig. 20. Plans to introduce new instruments for the place-based dialogue (N=26) ................................ 32
Fig. 21. Explicit expectations towards other level of governments in the official programming
documents (N=26) ............................................................................................................................................ 32
Fig. 22. Spatially blinded policies (N=25) ...................................................................................................... 33
Fig. 23. Preferences on policy territorialisation (N=25) .............................................................................. 35
Fig. 24. Discrepancy between the current and desired situation in different policies in terms of their
territorialisation (N=25).................................................................................................................................... 36
Fig. 25. Fields supported under the Priority .................................................................................................. 51
Fig. 26. Multilevel-governance ......................................................................................................................... 59
Fig. 27. Wall of Obstacles: diagrammatic representation of interrelations between obstacles to placebased development, with the “root causes” identified at levels VI-VII .................................................... 67
Fig. 28. Vision Tree: scheme of project descriptors, with the “fundamental actions” indicated at levels
VI-VII.................................................................................................................................................................. 68
Fig. 29. Enlarged Hamburg functional area................................................................................................... 72
Fig. 30. Hamburg commuting area.................................................................................................................. 73
90
List of maps
Map 1: Survey and case study areas................................................................................................................. 39
Map 2: Case study Pomorskie Region – Poland ........................................................................................... 41
Map 3: Case study Finland................................................................................................................................ 44
Map 4: Case study Mecklenburg-Vorpommern - Germany........................................................................ 47
Map 5: Case study Latvia .................................................................................................................................. 49
Map 6: Beneficiaries of “Policentric Development” in Latvia.................................................................... 50
Map 7: Case study Sør-Trøndelag County - Norway ................................................................................... 54
Map 8: The 11 municipalities participating in “The Coats is Clear” in the County of Sør-Trøndelag”57
Map 9: Case study Västerbotten County - Sweden....................................................................................... 58
Map 10: The county of Västerbotten.............................................................................................................. 60
Map 11: Case study municipality of Umeå - Sweden ................................................................................... 61
Map 12: Vasterbotten country, municipality of Umea................................................................................. 64
Map 13: Case study Limassol District Vine Villages – Cyprus ................................................................... 65
Map 14: Case study of Hamburg Metropolitan Region ............................................................................... 71
Map 15: Case study of Stuttgart Metropolitan Region................................................................................. 74
Map 16: Case study Nuremberg Metropolitan Region ................................................................................ 78
Map 17: Case study Brussels-Capital Region................................................................................................. 85
References:
Barca F.(2009) An agenda for a reformed Cohesion Policy. A place-based approach to
meeting European Union challenges and expectations Independent Report prepared at
the request of Danuta Hübner, Commissioner for Regional Policy.
Barca F.(2011) Conclusion. Alternative Approaches to Development Policy: Intersections and
Divergences. in: “Regional Outlook 201”, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development, Paris.
Böhme K., Doucet P., Komornicki T., Zaucha J., Świątek D. (2011) How to strengthen the
territorial dimension of ‘Europe 2020’ and EU Cohesion Policy. Ministry of Regional
Development. Warsaw
Szlachta J., Zaucha J. (2012) For an enhanced territorial dimension of the Cohesion Policy in
Poland in the 2014-2020 period . Institute For Development. Working paper
002/2012/(06)
Capello R. (ed) (2012) KIT Knowledge, Innovation, Territory. Final Report.Applied
Research 2013/1/13, Version 13/11/2012. ESPON & Politecnico di Milano,
91
ANNEX I – list of survey contributors
List of countries and institutions that contributed to questionnaire survey:
No
Country
Institution / Department
Austria
Austrian Federal Chancellery Division IV-4 / Spatial Planning and
Regional Policy
Belgium
(Capital
Region)
Ministry of Brussels-Capital Region / Administration of Spatial Planning
and Housing / Department of Studies and Planning
Belgium
(federal level)
Public Service for Social Integration / Unit Urban Policy
3.
Bulgaria
Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works / DG
“Programming of Regional Development” - Managing Authority of OP
“Regional Development” 2007-2013, “Programming, Evaluation,
Information and Publicity ”Department
4.
Cyprus
1.Ministry of Interior / Department of Town Planning and Housing
2. Planning Bureau
5.
Czech
Republic
Ministry of Regional Development / Department of Regional Policy and
Development
6.
Denmark
Ministry of Environment / Nature Agency, National Spatial Planning
7.
Estonia
Ministry of Interior / Regional Development Department
8.
Finland
Ministry of Environment / Department of the Built Environment
9.
France
DATAR / European Unit
10.
Germany
The Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and
Spatial Development on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Transport,
Building and Urban Development
11.
Greece
Ministry of Development, Competitiveness Infrastructure, Transport
and Networks
12.
Hungary
Ministry of National Development / Department for Development
Coordination
1.
2.
92
13.
Italy
Ministry of Economic Development / Department for Development and
Economic Cohesion
14.
Latvia
Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development /
Regional Policy Department
15.
Luxembourg
Ministry of Sustainable Development and Infrastructure / Department
for Spatial Planning and Development
16.
Malta
Malta Environment and Planning Authority
17.
Netherlands
Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment / Directorate for Spatial
Development
18.
Norway
Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development / Department
of Regional Development
19.
Poland
Ministry of Regional Development / Department of Structural Policy
Coordination
20.
Portugal
Directorate General for Spatial Planning and Urban Development
21.
Republic of
Croatia
Ministry of Construction and Physical Planning
22.
Romania
Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration
23.
Slovakia
Ministry of Transport, Construction and Regional Development of the
Slovak Republic / Department of Spatial Planning
24.
Slovenia
Ministry of Infrastructure and Spatial Planning / Spatial Planning
Directorate
25.
Sweden
Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications / Division for
Regional Growth
26.
Switzerland
Federal Office for Spatial Development ARE (Department of the
Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications) / State
Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO (Federal Department of
Economic Affairs DEA)
27.
United
Kingdom
Department for Communities and Local Government / Planning
Directorate
93
ANNEX II – questionnaire sample
Questionnaire for survey on how Members States integrate place-based
approach into public policies on national, regional and local level
Introduction.
This survey has been elaborated by the Steering Group of NTCCP to implement the Action 1
of the agreed Roadmap towards promoting and enhancing an integrated, territorial approach
based on the Territorial Agenda of the European Union 2020. This survey builds up on the
results of previous NTCCP investigations26 but has specific focus on place-based approach in
development policies on national, regional and local level.
The survey should be completed by the persons dealing with the issue of territorial
dimension/policies in each EU Member State.
If you need any assistance or further clarifications please contact directly *** in the Polish
Ministry of Regional Development, who will answer your questions related to the survey.
Questions.
SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
In this survey development is treated as broad and general concept as the top ultimate goal of all public policies. It
might mean e.g. GDP growth per person while preserving high quality of environment, increase of the level of
living or quality of life, more jobs, higher level of innovation, increase of the quality of human and social capital.
1. Please list below key policies27 for enhancing socio-economic development in your
country. Please list the most important from 3 up to 5 policies with this regard,
separately for national, regional and local policies.
POLICY
In this survey is understood as an action of different level of public democratically elected authorities (national,
local, regional, supranational) based on political, management, financial, and administrative mechanisms arranged
to reach politically agreed developmental goals. Such policy can be focused on concrete sector of economy
(transport, agriculture etc.) and referred as sectoral policy or can have horizontal character and influence entire
economy (e.g. environmental policy, macroeconomic policies etc.).
National policies
Regional policies
Local policies
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
26
Mainly the report of the Hungarian presidency A Synthesis Report on the Performance and the Position of EU
Member States related to the EU Territorial Agenda 2007 and 2011. The final report based of the current survey
will be completed by the results of the Hungarian-one.
27
This question considers policies enhancing socio-economic sustainable development and not only territorial
development since policies related to TA and other territorial cohesion aspects have been already identified in
the Hungarian survey.
94
2. Place-based paradigm argues that the one-size-fits-all model for enhancing socioeconomic development should be avoided. Please look on the list of policies. Please
consider only those run or partially run at national level and indicate which of them
you consider that should be run differently for different parts of territory of your
country i.e. have different measures and goals for different part of the country. You
can choose as much policies as suitable and you can add more in the empty rows of
the table.
SPATIAL POLICY
In this survey means enhancing territorial development at different levels of public administration. Usually such
a policy in EU member states implements also national/regional/local – specific goals referring to territorial
structures, to priorities of national spatial strategies, if existing and, to TA 2020 priorities.
Spatially differentiated
policies i.e. that should
Unable to answer
Can be spatially
due to lack of
be run differently for
blinded
different parts of territory
information
1
Agricultural policy
2
Rural development
3
Climate action policy
4
Environmental and nature policy
5
Energy policy
6
Natural resources policy
7
Fishery and Maritime policy
8
Regional socio-economic policy
9
Urban policy
10
Spatial policy
11
Land use (physical) planning
12
Transport policy and transport
connectivity
13
Communication (including IT)
14
General grants to regions and
municipalities
15
Health policy
16
17
Research and development, Science
and technology policy, pro innovation
policy
Macroeconomic policies: monetary,
fiscal
18
Employment and labour market
19
Business policy (Enhancement of
Entrepreneurship)
95
Spatially differentiated
Unable to answer
policies i.e. that should
Can be spatially
be run differently for
due to lack of
blinded
information
different parts of territory
20
Education
Others (please specify)
3. Now please analyse the realities of policy making in your country. Please consider all
the policies selected in question 2 as relevant for territorial differentiation plus policies
selected in the Hungarian survey as the most relent for enhancing TA priorities and
territorial development (marked in bold in the table below).
Please indicate whether those policies are actually territorial sensitive i.e. territorially
differentiated or addressing important territorial goals in your country28. For each
policy please indicate instruments (a-e) used to this end in your country (you can
indicate all options):
(c)
(d)
(e)
(a)
(b)
Policy Different Territorial
Applying Monitoring Others, Unable to
please answer due
is
goals concentration
spatial
of
spatially and of the policy categories in territorial describe to lack of
blind in outputs interventions
the
impacts of
information
my
programming policies
for
country different
documents of
part of
national
national
policies
territory
1
Agricultural policy
2
Rural development
3
Climate action policy
4
Environmental and nature
policy
5
Energy policy
6
Natural resources policy
7
Fishery and Maritime policy
8
Regional socio-economic
policy
9
Urban policy
28
If in your country there is no explicit national spatial policy with relevant goals please consider your answer in
terms of priorities of TA2020 or spatial praxis (e.g. spatial goals shared by the population or/and decision
makers) applied in your country in the course of preparation, execution and monitoring of policies.
96
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
Policy Different Territorial
Applying Monitoring Others, Unable to
please answer due
is
goals concentration
spatial
of
spatially and of the policy categories in territorial describe to lack of
blind in outputs interventions
the
impacts of
information
my
for
programming policies
country different
documents of
part of
national
national
policies
territory
10
Spatial policy
11
Land use (physical) planning
12
Transport policy and
transport connectivity
13
Communication (including IT)
14
General grants to regions
and municipalities
15
Health policy
16
Research and development,
Science and technology
policy, pro innovation
policy
17
18
19
Macroeconomic policies
Employment and labour
market
Business policy (Enhancement
of Entrepreneurship)
20
Education
21
Others (please specify)
22
23
24
25
97
Please name all the national policies in your country in which concept of the territorial
cohesion (TC) has been explicitly mentioned and your Ministry is aware of it. In the table
below please make use of the policy numbers from the table above.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
TC
has
been
mentioned
TC
has
not been
mentioned
or we are
not aware
of it
4. If you have chosen answer “a” or “b” in any of the above listed policies from question
3, please indicate what type of geographical delimitation has been used to that end
under different policies. In the table below please choose appropriate
Agricultural policy
98
Territorial
Different goals
concentration of and outputs for
the policy
different part of
interventions national territory
Please choose: Please choose:
Rural development
Please choose:
Please choose:
Climate action policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Environmental and nature policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Energy policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Natural resources policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Fishery and Maritime policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Regional socio-economic policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Urban policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Spatial policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Land use (physical) planning
Please choose:
Please choose:
Transport policy and transport connectivity
Please choose:
Please choose:
Communication (including IT)
Please choose:
Please choose:
General grants to regions and municipalities
Please choose:
Please choose:
Health policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Research and development, Science and technology
policy, pro innovation policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Macroeconomic policies:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Employment and labour market
Please choose:
Please choose:
Business policy (Enhancement of Entrepreneurship)
Please choose:
Please choose:
Education
Please choose:
Please choose:
24
25
Territorial
Different goals
concentration of and outputs for
the policy
different part of
interventions national territory
Please choose: Please choose:
Others (please specify)
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
5. Place-based paradigm requires dialogue cross governance levels. It often implies
that more actors/authorities need to be taken on board and that - following
the respect of the multilevel governance principle - policy solutions must thus be
designed, implemented and monitored in partnership. Legal responsibility for
designing and running of a given policy is important issue but usually policies are run
in a dialogue between different level of government and other important stakeholders
e.g. NGOs, financial institutions, representatives of employers or labour unions).
Answering this question please consider only policies chosen under question 3. For
each policy indicate what actors or authorities have important “say” in designing,
implementation and monitoring of a given policy in addition to the authorities legally
responsible for running the given policy. Please consider both groups – those legally
responsible and those which are involved and decisive for a given policy. Please
indicate with:
• double cross (++) – the most important authority for a given policy if such can
be easily identified in terms of legal power or finances allocated,
• single cross (+) – stakeholders who have formal (legal) share in (responsibility
for) running the given policy,
• an asterisk (*) – those who influence policy and enter the policy dialogue via
funding the policy,
• an exclamation mark (!) – those informally or voluntarily involved.
national/federal
authorities
regional/lander local authorities
authorities
Others, please
Unable to
describe
answer due to
lack of
information
1
Agricultural policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
2
Rural development
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
3
Climate action policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
4
Environmental and
nature policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
5
Energy policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
6
Natural resources policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
7
Fishery and Maritime
policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
8
Regional policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
9
Urban policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
10
Spatial policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
11
Land use (physical)
planning
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
12
Transport policy and
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
99
national/federal
authorities
regional/lander local authorities
authorities
Others, please
Unable to
answer due to
describe
lack of
information
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
transport connectivity
13
14
Communication (including
IT)
General grants to regions
and municipalities
15
Health policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
16
Research and
development, Science and
technology policy,
proinnovation policy
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
17
Macroeconomic
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
Please choose:
18
19
20
Employment and labour
market
Business policy
(Enhancement of
Entrepreneurship)
Education
Others (please specify)
6. Please indicate what actors you (your department) have the genuine contacts with for
discussing, in your daily work, territorially relevant issues, territorial impact of
policies, their differentiation in space etc. You can select as many answers as
necessary.
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
f)
g)
h)
i)
prime minister office
other ministries (please name them)
regional governments
autonomous regional governments
local governments
labour unions
representatives of employers
NGOs
other stakeholders (please explain)
7. Debate/ dialogue between different stakeholders concerning territorially sensitive
policies (chosen under question 3) can have different character. Please indicate how it
is in your country (you can select up to two answers):
a) such dialogue is of informal character and is sufficient for
enhancement of territorial dimension of the policies
b) such dialogue is of informal character and is insufficient for
enhancement of territorial dimension of the policies
c) such dialogue is based on legal provisions and it works
d) despite legal provisions such dialogue is insufficient for
enhancement of territorial dimension of the policies
100
8. If you have chosen answers (b) or (d) under question 7 please indicate how the
dialogue should be strengthened in order to make policies more territorially sensitive
(you can chose up to three reasons)
a) improving culture of dialogue and public debate
b) activating local and regional stakeholders
c) improving knowledge among local stakeholders and authorities on local
development
d) improving knowledge among regional stakeholders and authorities on regional
socio-economic and territorial development
e) improving knowledge among national authorities on territorial development
f) changing attitudes of local and regional stakeholders that nowadays care mainly
about their local issues (‘only my backyard matters’), without paying attention to
impacts of their actions on national socio-economic and territorial development
g) improving instruments for monitoring territorial impacts of national policies
h) strengthening knowledge on impact of regional/local policies on national socioeconomic and territorial development
i) diminishing domination of national authorities in policy making(e.g. in financial
terms, administrative capacity etc.), improving “responsiveness" of the
coordinating lead-administration.
j) diminishing coordination costs and costs of multilevel governance pattern that
are perceived as too high
k) others, please indicate
9. If you have chosen answers (a) or (c) under question 7 please indicate main reasons of
satisfactory level of dialogue (you can chose up to three reasons)
a) strong culture of public debate and multilevel governance dialogue,
b) active and capable local and regional stakeholders
c) sufficient knowledge on local development among local stakeholders and authorities
e.g. due to monitoring local socio-economic development by local stakeholders and
authorities,
d) sufficient knowledge on regional development among regional stakeholders and
authorities e.g. due to monitoring regional socio-economic and territorial development
by regional stakeholders and authorities,
e) sufficient knowledge on territorial development among national authorities e.g. due to
monitoring territorial development of the country by national authorities,
f) feeling of responsibility among local and regional stakeholders for national
development, their openness to national development goals and their strong role in
achieving such goals,
g) local and regional authorities and stakeholders monitoring territorial impacts of national
policies,
h) local and regional authorities examining impact of their own policies on national socioeconomic and territorial development,
i) open minded national authorities (having know-how and experience in stimulating and
fostering multilevel governance dialogue),
j) low or moderate coordination costs and costs of multilevel governance pattern that are
perceived as reasonable (below benefits),
k) others, please indicate
10. If you have chosen answers (c) or (d) under question 7 please indicate main legal
instruments used in such a dialogue29. You can tick as many answers as necessary.
Please consider existing instruments and those you will have in your disposal in
a foreseeable future.
29
You can also answer this question if you have selected answers (a) or (b) under question 7 but you know that
your legal system will be changed in the future and new instruments will be installed.
101
Instruments
Currently working
and fulfilling
expectations with
regard to making
policies territorially
sensitive
Currently
working but
requiring
important
modification
To be
introduced
soon
Territorial impact assessment (TIA)
Environmental Impact Assessments
Strategic Environmental Assessments
Hierarchy and legally established relations
between planning documents at different
geographical scales
Planning beyond administrative jurisdiction
borders (e.g. functional regions covering many
municipalities or counties)
EU funding (regional operation programmes
accepted by national governments)
Contractual relations between different levels
of government i.e. territorial pacts or binding
contracts between national authorities and
local/regional ones or between regional and
local authorities specifying goals, outputs and
transfer of funds
Others, please specify
11. Please indicate to what extend the following topics are subject to such a cross
governance (vertical and horizontal) dialogue under policies chosen by you under
question 330. You can select as many answers as necessary.
a) strength of the cities (economies of agglomeration),
b) networking between cities and urban regions, and ability to
network, flows between cities
c) static settlement structure (location of settlement units)
d) polycentricity,
e) urban regions (functional region of city and its vicinity),
f) emergence of functional labour markets,
g) urban rural linkages,
h) rural development,
i) clusters,
j) infrastructure corridors,
k) accessibility in general,
l) access to public services of general interest local developmental
assets that cannot be easily moved e.g. social capital, landscape,
m) territorial cohesion,
n) specific type of territories e.g. coastal zones, border areas etc.
o) lagging behind, and/or problem regions,
p) climate
q) environment
r) nature and landscape
s) other categories, please name them
30
Categories have been taken from the Hungarian Presidency report but feel free to add more from your country
praxis.
102
TERRITORIAL KNOWLEDGE
In this survey is understood as knowledge on development of territorial structures, developmental processes and
mechanisms, main problems and challenges and relevance of public actions for solving and addressing them. Such
knowledge can have formal quantitative character and be expressed in form of indicators, cam also take form of
expert assessments, but it can be also a tacit knowledge accumulated by local, regional and national decision makers,
politicians, NGOs having deep practical insight into territorial development of their jurisdictions.
12. Please indicate how national authorities collect knowledge on the socio-economic and
territorial development31 of different parts of the country. You can pick up all answers
which are relevant for you but try to limit to the three most important ones.
TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT
In this survey means development related to territorial structures such as settlement structure, green networks, and
transport and communication networks, urban functional regions and other functional regions.
TERRITORIAL DIFFERENTIATION OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
In this survey is understood as different development patterns (goals and mechanisms) of different parts of the EU
countries (e.g. NUTS 2 or NUTS 3 regions).
Territorial
differentiation of
socio-economic
development
on ad hoc
basis
on regular
basis
Territorial
development
on
ad hoc
basis
on
regular
basis
Such knowledge has not been collected so far by national
authorities
The external easily available expert knowledge is collected
(existing studies and reports are examined and compiled)
The tacit knowledge of local/regional and national decision
makers and other stakeholders is revealed in the course of public
hearing, debates and work of local and regional assemblies
The reports examining such development are contracted by
national authorities or indicators are collected from the experts
possessing them (example is Cohesion report at EU level)
Policy documents with strong diagnostic part are produced by
national authorities revealing TACIT knowledge of those
authorities (example at EU level is Territorial State and
Perspective as a background to TA2020)
EU documents are mainly used to that extend (e.g. Cohesion
Reports),
There is a cross-governance system of monitoring socioeconomic and/or territorial development of the country installed
by the government, indicators are regularly updated
Statistical sources and land register
Other methods are used, please describe
13. What territorial indicators are used most frequently in this context. Can you name any
indicators directly related to the territorial structures e.g. describing polycentricity,
31
Here we mean development in general i.e. as defined in question 1.
103
territorial cohesion, accessibility, access to public services of general interest, integrity
of ecological areas etc.
14. Please indicate how regional and /or local authorities conduct monitoring of socioeconomic and territorial development of their territorial jurisdictions.
You can choose all answers which are relevant for you, but try to limit to the three most
important ones.
Territorial
differentiation of
socio-economic
development
on ad hoc
basis
Such monitoring does not exist,
The tacit knowledge of local/regional decision makers
and other stakeholders is revealed in the course of public
hearing and meeting of local/regional assemblies
The easily available know-how and knowledge of
external experts is used (existing reports and studies are
examined and compiled)
The reports examining such development are contracted
by national authorities or indicators are collected from
the experts possessing them (example is Cohesion report
at EU level)
Policy documents with strong diagnostic part assessing
and guiding development in space or and territorial
development are produced by regional/local authorities
revealing tacit knowledge of those authorities
There is a regularly updated system of monitoring under
guidance of local/regional authorities or stakeholders
Statistical sources and land register
Other, please describe
104
on
regular
basis
Territorial
development
on ad hoc
basis
on
regular
basis
15. Please indicate how national authorities assess impact of developmental policies run at
the lower level of governance (e.g. impact of urban policies?, education policy?). You
can choose all answers which are relevant for you but, try to limit to three most
important ones.
Assessment of the impact of local and regional policies on national
socio-economic and territorial development
On
ad hoc
basis
On
regular
basis
Such assessment has not been done so far,
The tacit knowledge of national or regional/local decision makers and
is revealed in the course of public hearings.
The easily available know-how and knowledge of external experts is
used (existing reports and studies are examined and compiled)
The reports examining such policies are contracted by national
authorities from experts
Policy documents with strong diagnostic part assessing impact of
local/regional policies are produced by regional/local authorities
revealing tacit knowledge of those authorities
EU documents are mainly used to that end (e.g. ESPON database,
Cohesion Reports)
Documents developed by ‘functional’or ‘network’ authorities
such as EGTC (The European Grouping of Territorial
Cooperation ), euroregional councils, councils of urban
metropolitan regions or 'intercommunales' in RURBACT
authorities are mainly used to this end .
Other methods are used, please describe
16. Please indicate how local/regional authorities and stakeholders assess impact of
developmental policies run at the national level of governance on socio-economic and
territorial development of their jurisdictions. You can pick up all answers which are
relevant for you but try to limit to the three most important ones.
Assessment of the impact of national policies by regional and local
authorities
Such assessment has not been done so far,
The tacit knowledge of local/regional decision makers and other
stakeholders is revealed in the course of public hearings, meetings of
local and regional assemblies, local councils etc.
The easily available knowhow and knowledge of external experts is
used (existing reports and studies are examined and compiled)
The reports examining such policies are contracted by regional/local
authorities from experts
Policy documents with strong diagnostic part assessing impact of
national policies are produced by regional/local authorities revealing
tacit knowledge of those authorities
There are legal/planning instruments like (TIA) assessing impact of
national policies on regional/local development and/or territorial
development
National documents are mainly used to that end
Other methods are used, please describe
105
On
ad hoc
basis
On
regular
basis
17. How do you assess the following situations in decision making process in your
country. The third column is optional. You can use it if you have encountered the
situation that the given policy or strategic document has tried but in practice failed to
contribute to making socio-economic development of your country more territorially
sensitive.
Situation
Yes
No
Such
formulation
s exist but
have no
practical
impact and
are only of
declarative
nature
Not relevant
since such
documents or
level of
government
does not exist
in my country
Unable to
answer due
to lack of
information
Economic policies and measures such as
grants for regional /local governments,
EU grants (national operational
programmes) and other grants have been
formulated in dialogue between different
levels of goverment
National strategic documents on socioeconomic development formulate
concrete suggestions, expectations and
requirements towards the lower level of
government
National strategic documents on
territorial development formulate
concrete suggestions, expectations and
requirements towards the lower level of
government
National sectoral and horizontal policies
formulate concrete suggestions,
expectations and requirements towards
the lower level of government
Local and/or regional strategic documents
on socio-economic development
formulate concrete suggestions,
expectations and requirements towards
the upper level of government
Local and or regional strategic documents
on territorial development formulate
concrete suggestions, expectations and
requirements towards the upper level of
government
18. Please describe the most frequently used in your country administrative procedures
that guarantee the timely involvement of various actors/authorities along the entire
policy making circle (please indicate all relevant answers):
a) formal consultations taking form of e-mail or written comments
send to the authorities responsible for a given policy,
b) formal consultations stipulated by law taking form of one time
public hearing,
c) formal consultations stipulated by law taking form of a
sequence of different types of events,
d) informal consultations,
e) widely spread information in numerous sources,
f) information available in selected sources,
g) systematic measures on capacity building,
h) other (please describe)
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The next two questions are optional. You can answer them if you feel comfortable to do that
or instead you can add any comments you think are relevant for making policies more
territorially sensitive ion your country.
19. Please describe main obstacles in implementing the territorially sensitive and
integrated approach to sectoral (e.g. transport) and horizontal (e.g. urban policy)
policies in your country.
20. Please describe main successes, achievements and good practices in implementing
the territorially sensitive and integrated approach to sectoral (e.g. transport) and
horizontal (e.g. urban policy) policies in your country.
The last three questions will allow the authors of the report to better understand the
institutional context of your country and the nature of the questions received.
21. Please provide information about your background:
Country
Institution/department
/
22. Please describe in brief the type of governance pattern of your country. Please indicate
what type of authorities make part in policy making, policy implementation and policy
monitoring in your countries e.g. national government, autonomous regions, selfgovernment regions, provinces subordinated directly to national governments, local
self-governments or local governments appointed by the higher rank authorities etc.
23. Did you filled in this questionnaire:
a) alone
b) with minor help of colleagues from other
departments/institutions
c) with significant help of colleagues from
other departments/institutions
d) in cooperation with colleagues from other
departments
e) other way (how?)
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