Abstract
The paper studies city-regional spatial planning from an institutional perspective. It applies theories of discursive institutionalism and gradual institutional change to analyse the dialectics of spatial planning and governance between discursively constructed city-regions and the pre-existing regional and local institutional territories. A strained dialectical relationship emerges when city-regional strategic spatial planning is instituted as a supplementary programmatic layer onto the existing strongly regulatory statutory planning, yet leaving intact its deeply institutionalized core-level meaning. Through the case study of the Kotka-Hamina city-region of Finland, the paper explores a situated city-regional attempt to overcome these tensions and generate policy-level change by blending the layered rules and reinterpreting their meaning.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Regional Studies |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 22 Jan 2020 |
| MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Keywords
- city-region
- discursive institutionalism
- institutional change
- statutory planning
- strategic spatial planning