URBAN PLANNING UNDER POLITICAL POWER FROM A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE: Concluding thoughts

Abstract

The concluding thoughts propose initial conclusions from the 13 studies in the volume. They deal with fundamental questions about the relationship of planning and political power and shed light on outstanding functions of planning under different forms of rule; they note the general enhanced value of addressing inherited legacies for planning and discuss the peculiar development of globalization with regard to its consequences for spatial planning. Due to such challenges as climate change and the tendency toward authoritarian to dictatorial regimes even in parliamentary democracies, these propositions formulate the expectation of a growing need to take a critical international view of spatial planning.