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This paper contributes to the current spatial turn in planning research by analysing the Europeanization of strategic planning practices in a specific territory, and the consequent implications for spatial justice. The narratives of policy making presented suggest that the normative construct of polycentric urban development, underpinned by the fundamental spatial organizing principles of frictionless mobility and balanced regional development, led to new expressions and meanings of space in the South Yorkshire case. These challenged the prevailing view on the future of the former coal mining communities, and reasserted a model of economic growth based on the indigenous assets held in city centres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a discussion about an emerging area of evaluation discourse, the 'European spatial approach'. It examines the current policy framework at the European-wide level by exploring the alternative planning and public policy paradigms that underpin the case for rationality within this framework. By using such a theoretical review, the article seeks to argue that the current deployment of evaluation within strategic spatial policy and planning is poorly understood, and further work is needed to develop an understanding of the role of power and knowledge in rationality, and in particular the role they play within the pluralist models of evaluation that are emerging within the wider EU policy processes. This is illustrated by specific evaluation experiences within the EU Trans-European Transport Networks and Structural Funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]