The performance of spatial planning

Abstract

This article is about strategic spatial planning in the Netherlands. Strategic spatial planning concerns major spatial development issues. Such issues may arise on any planning scale, but it is more common for them to be addressed at the regional and even more so on national level. More in particular, this article asks how can strategic spatial plans be evaluated. At face value, evaluation in planning seems simple enough. Lest it should be considered a failure, planning must 'deliver the goods'. This means that the outcome of planned action must conform to what the plan says. For planning to achieve this, it must make the various agents that are normally shaping development according to priorities of their own, fall into line. So in order for strategic spatial plans to be effective, conventional wisdom has it that they must 'have teeth'. The government agency responsible for making the plan must be able to rein other actors in. 'Other actors' may refer to other government agencies, whether on the same level of government (horizontal coordination) or on other levels (vertical coordination). The need for control also applies to private actors.