Tensions in city-regional spatial planning : the challenge of interpreting layered institutional rules

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.