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Planning the development of metropolitan areas makes use of various forms of cooperation between associated territorial units. Regardless of the cooperation form adopted, dialogue is a factor that significantly facilitates solving spatial problems and gaining social acceptance for the selection of project locations. Its characteristics, including content, course, and participants, additionally determine the specificity of governance in a particular metropolis. The article aims to suggest a study of the emergence and improvement of an institutional dialogue and soft planning by comparing the experiences of selected Polish and French metropolitan areas. They represent different approaches to the use of dialogue in emerging metropolitan spaces resulting from different legal conditions, the length of time it takes for units to integrate, and the scale and orientation of strategic or operational interconnections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Claims towards a paradigm shift in how societies are organised in space, formulated in the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, faded away. Nevertheless, the pandemic contributed to ongoing changes in how people settle, live and work, calling for a shift from traditional territorial governance models to softer approaches able to tackle non-standard geographies. This commentary reflects on trends boosted by the pandemic and discusses functional approaches introduced at the EU level. We argue that the post-pandemic recovery should be seen as a 'window of opportunity' to consolidate innovative territorial governance instruments into a more coherent framework for place-based action. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses how newly-conceived soft spaces – typically with fuzzy boundaries and less formally organized institutional structures – are 'commodified' through visualizations in promoting practices. By discussing those practices, the article argues that promotion and branding are fundamentally processes where these soft spaces become hardened. This hardening is embedded in branding-related 'speech acts' and visual framings in particular. The article states that although new soft spaces are considered highly useful in competitivity-enhancing spatial policies where flexible spaces and fuzzy boundaries are typically emphasized, paradoxically their 'softness' gradually decreases as a result of branding process consisting of elements of expressing, mirroring, impressing and reflecting. It thus needs to be asked whether soft spaces can be branded without using framings and speech acts that harden them. The soft regions of the Bothnian Arc, a Swedish-Finnish coastal region around the Gulf of Bothnia, and the Region Foodvalley, an agrarian region in the middle of the Netherlands, are used here as examples to discuss how soft spaces transform in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

City-regions in Central Eastern Europe are still underrepresented in academic debate on metropolitan planning and governance. However, they may provide a valuable insight into the early stages of creating planning partnerships that struggle to cope with problems arising from uncoordinated spatial development in the period of post-socialist transformation, which was not addressed adequately by formal planning systems and regular territorial-administrative units. The paper presents a comparative analysis of six city-regions in Central Eastern Europe based on a review of strategic and planning documents, and direct interviews with representatives of key stakeholders in each area. The main findings of the paper include the significant but underestimated role of the second-tier local governments in metropolitan institutional setups and the crucial position of emerging coalitions of academics, metropolitan-oriented officials and planners for establishing a sustainable planning agenda in the city-region. City-regions in CEE do not follow the categorization of soft spaces of planning that is derived from other territorial contexts. This is because the spatial planning efforts within city-regional soft spaces in CEE are more sustainability-driven than growth-oriented. Yet, more ambitious spatial visions may be overshadowed by a strong focus of local elected politicians on infrastructure projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the AESOP Thematic Group “Transboundary Planning and Governance” and its recent organisational and thematic changes. It also scans recent research from the viewpoint of two interlinked key dimensions of transboundary planning and governance: scale and scope. By doing so, the article aims to highlight promising research perspectives related to transboundary and integrated planning, crossing administrative borders and siloes respectively. This is especially relevant with a view to the multiple crises society is currently facing. To date, transboundary planning and governance is often portrayed through the challenges it is facing. However, as this article argues, there is a need to move forward and focus on how the transboundary setting – often more flexible and malleable than other governance contexts – can make a contribution to address current crises.

This paper is focused on the emergence of new institutional structures and geographies within the context of complex processes of state rescaling characterized by 'hollowing out' and 'filling in'. It explores the regionalization of transport policy within Wales post-devolution and examines the potential of Haughton et al.'s concepts of 'soft' and 'hard' spaces as useful tools in furthering our understanding of state rescaling. The paper suggests that the case of transport policy in Wales post-devolution provides a useful example of the evolution of 'soft spaces' through processes of hardening and softening, and that 'stickiness' of regional spatial imaginaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, soft planning has become an increasingly visible concept in planning literature. Since the term soft spaces was firstly coined, soft planning has been used to describe a growing number of practices that occur at the margins of statutory planning systems. However, as soft planning-related literature proliferates, so does the diversity of approaches and planning practices it encompasses. Such diversity fuels long-standing questions about what can or cannot be considered as soft planning as well as about its usefulness for today's planning theory and practice. To shed light on this still unclear conceptual outline, this article divides the soft planning debate into five contextual components (ethos; governance; politics; policies; spaces; and scale) while paying particular attention to the relationship between soft planning and strategic spatial planning. The aim is to foreground soft planning as a concept, and add clarity and awareness on the challenges, the risks and opportunities, planning currently faces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prosciutto di Parma, Bavarian beer and Roquefort—Geographical Indications (GIs) have been systematically protected at the EU level for 30 years and are now an important part of the farm2fork strategy. The article analyses how the integration of the EU GI system can be explained from an institution and discourse theoretical perspective and ties in with the soft spaces debate. In doing so, scalar shifts in competence from a German perspective and the role of discursive spatial relations are examined in more detail. The empirical results are based on a mix of methods that includes the evaluation of secondary statistical data, document analyses, participant observation and expert interviews. The study shows that the European Commission (EC) is increasingly acting as a spokesperson for GIs, but that regional actors are also playing a more important role in implementation and enforcement. This development is fed by the influence of the agricultural policy instrument in terms of competition, but also consumer protection and trade policy. Overall, there are three development layers: protect and systematise, legitimise and expand and open and defend. A more independent development of the EU GI system as an instrument of quality policy and for the development of rural areas could give greater weight to the sustainability-relevant, environmental policy aspects currently demanded by society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the idea of hybrid rationalities as a complement to and extension of existing scholarship on hybrid governance and hybrid infrastructure. The research presented here also contributes to work on soft spaces and spatial imaginaries, which has mainly focused on planning and regeneration, by extending consideration to geo-environmental imaginaries and environmental soft spaces. A case study of the Mersey Belt region, which stretches between Manchester and Liverpool in England, reveals the ways in which multiple forms of new rationalities have been absorbed into the work of those looking to promote strategic environmental thinking that works at landscape scale, that is above the level of the individual site. In the process, multiple new geo-environmental spatial imaginaries have been created as part of the process of attracting funders and stakeholders. These new spatial imaginaries have been accompanied by experiments in creating new environmental soft spaces, supported by increasingly hybridized forms of governance in which the roles and rationalities of different stakeholders have to some extent blurred. In the process, actors have shaped, and shared distinctive understandings of how projects to support nature can be used to support wider goals such as addressing climate change, economic regeneration and social well-being.

Die Wiener Stadtregion+ zählt zu den dynamischsten Wachstumsregionen Europas. Das Management des Bevölkerungswachstums stellt Stadt und Umland vor umfangreiche planungspolitische Herausforderungen, die eine gemeinsame und abgestimmte Vorgehensweise erforderlich machen. Die diesbezüglichen stadtregionalen Kooperationsstrukturen sind gegenwärtig inhaltlich und institutionell jedoch nur schwach ausgeprägt. Ziel des Beitrags ist es, vor diesem Hintergrund auf analytische und instrumenteller Ebene Vorschläge zur Weiterentwicklung von informell-kooperativen Raumentwicklungsprozessen in Stadtregionen auszuarbeiten. Die theoretische Einbettung erfolgt über das Konzept der strategischen Planung in Kombination mit dem Ansatz der soft spaces. Anhand des „Verflechtungs-Kooperations-Paradoxons“ werden dabei auf analytischer Ebene die sehr unterschiedlichen Strukturen funktionaler Verflechtungen und interkommunaler Kooperationen in der Stadtregion+ aufgezeigt. Auf instrumenteller Ebene wird das Planungsprinzip der „flexiblen Regionalisierungen“ vorgestellt, das die Idee räumlicher und zeitlicher Flexibilität in der strategischen Planung aufgreift und weiterdenkt. Ein wesentlicher Bestandteil davon ist die Identifizierung von „Fokusräumen“ als spezifische Teilbereiche innerhalb einer Stadtregion. Dabei handelt es sich um ‚weiche Planungsräume‘, in denen interkommunal, kooperativ und umsetzungsorientiert an gemeinsamen Planungs- und Entwicklungsherausforderungen gearbeitet wird. Die gewählte Methodik sowie die daraus resultierenden Ergebnisse werden kritisch reflektiert und diskutiert, bevor abschließend wienspezifische und allgemeine Handlungsempfehlungen abgeleitet werden.

The urban region of Vienna (Stadtregion+) is among the most dynamic growth regions in Europe. The management of the population growth poses extensive challenges for the city and its hinterland requiring a common and coordinated procedure. The urban regional cooperation structures are currently weakly institutionalised and barely defined. Against this background, this paper aims at presenting recommendations for the development of informal-cooperative spatial development processes in city regions on an analytical and instrumental level. The theoretical framework is based on a combination of the concept of strategic planning and the approach of soft spaces. The methods include the analysis of functional interconnections, a network analysis as well as the calculation of an interconnection index. By means of the “paradox of interconnection and cooperation” the totally different structures of the city-regional functional interconnections and the inter-municipal cooperation are shown on an analytical level. On an instrumental level, the planning principle of “flexible regionalisation” is presented, which draws upon and further develops the idea of spatial and temporal flexibility in strategic planning. A central element of this principle is the identification of “urban-regional focus areas” defined as specific areas within the urban region. These focus areas are characterised as soft planning spaces, in which to work on common planning and development challenges in an inter-municipal, cooperative and implementation-oriented manner. The applied methods and its findings are critically reflected and discussed, before deriving Vienna-specific and general policy recommendations.

El text proposa una visió dels espais transfronterers des de la perspectiva dels soft spaces —espais tous— en relació amb el planejament territorial. Amb aquesta s’aconsegueix una interpretació molt més ajustada del que són en realitat les àrees transfrontereres així com de les dinàmiques que s’hi produeixen. D’altra banda, l’article fa un repàs del que ha estat la cooperació transfronterera a Europa fins arribar al present. Partint de la coincidència amb altres autors en la definició de fases, s’acaba proposant que l’última, iniciada el 2008, es caracteritzaria per la tensió entre les forces que reclamen una recuperació de la frontera i la sobirania dels estats i les que, contràriament, propugnen recuperar la idea d’integració europea perduda en la darrera dècada. És a dir, precisament una tensió entre els soft spaces transfronterers i un rebordering incipient.

The article presents the essence, goals and instruments of soft (informal, non-statutory) spatial planning, developed in the countries of Western Europe and relatively new in Poland. It targets areas with fuzzy borders (soft spaces) and areas between administration tiers. The article presents conceptual issues and non-formal planning tools used in Western Europe. The planning approaches which are generally described as “soft” are characterised by non-formalised and non-binding procedures, and by their focus on achieving a consensus. In the first part of the article presents the conceptual issues and further informal planning instruments used in Western European countries at different spatial scales The following section presents deficits of spatial planning of metropolitan areas and - against this background - the legitimacy of creating informal plans in Poland, using Metropolia Poznań as an example

Floodplain areas across the world have always played an attractive role for residential and non-residential developments. The Alpine regions have a strong pressure to develop new residential and non-residential buildings in hazard areas due to lack of other areas suitable for development. Consequently, the number of elements at risk and vulnerability to flood hazards increased. In order to reduce the vulnerability, the focus of mitigation flood hazards was for decades on structural engineering measures with the problem of spatial misfits between the threat and management strategy. Since the late 1990s/early 2000s, Austrian policy makers have been trying to overcome this spatial misfit with the implementation of an inter-local co-operation approach with the use of so-called ‘new spatial planning’ (Heley, 2013) in the planning process. Therefore, the paper examines what the actors and stakeholders are doing in practice and how the concept of fuzziness helps. Although a partnership approach may be seen as a promising solution, in practice there are many limitations and barriers in establishing these collaborations and making them effective (especially in the long term). Rhetoric may not be matched by reality and a ‘partnership’ agenda may bring more problems (i.e. high transactions costs, high risk of failure, uncertainty in the long term) than it solves.

Macro-regional cooperation in the EU are networks that use the horizontal and vertical dimension of the multilevel governance system to influence both strategic decision-making as well as implementation activities. Drawing on an analysis of expert interviews in the Danube Region the paper scrutinizes stakeholders’ shared views towards expectations, challenges and added values, and thereby seeks to explain why a trend towards macro-regions arises and for what reasons stakeholders are getting involved. The analysis of the drivers for stakeholders’ commitment in the EU Danube Region Strategy shows that new governance arrangements need to be adjustable to different contexts, allow for negotiation and new network creation whilst simultaneously offering the political ability to act. The evidence presented suggests that multilevel governance in the EU is becoming increasingly complex, embracing more and different types of cooperation, with soft characteristics as crucial elements.

El texto propone una visión de los espacios transfronterizos desde la perspectiva de los soft spaces —los espacios blandos— con relación al planeamiento territorial. Con ella se consigue una interpretación mucho más ajustada de la realidad de las áreas transfronterizas, así como de sus dinámicas. Por otra parte, el artículo hace un repaso a lo que ha sido la cooperación transfronteriza en Europa desde sus orígenes hasta llegar al presente. Partiendo de una coincidencia con otros autores en la definición de fases, se acaba proponiendo que la última, iniciada en 2008, se caracterizaría por la tensión entre las fuerzas que reclaman una recuperación de la frontera y la soberanía de los estados y las que, contrariamente, propugnan recuperar la idea de integración europea perdida en la última década. Es decir, precisamente una tensión entre los soft spaces transfronterizos y un rebordering incipiente.

National borders constitute barriers to social, economic and political processes and, thus, tend to contribute to the peripheralisation of border regions. The paper compares the evolution of two euroregions in peripheral central European border regions, whose objective is to overcome such negative border effects by promoting cross-border cooperation at the regional level. On a theoretical level, the paper argues for an understanding of euroregions as soft spaces. Rather than viewing them primarily as instances of state rescaling, the paper emphasizes their role as adaptive service providers for local constituencies. It is suggested that their long-term stability depends on their relation to, and the internal dynamics of, politico-administrative hard spaces at the regional, national, and supranational level. While hard spaces are associated with the notion of the Weberian bureaucratic state, soft spaces combine many of the ideas of the New Public Management literature. Building on an organizational ecology perspective, the paper forwards the argument that stable, resourceful, and accessible hard spaces constitute a predictable and engaging environment within which softer arrangements may compete for the delivery of services. However, the interplay between soft and hard spaces tends to have an impact on the euroregions’ agendas. While EU cohesion policy provides incentives to strengthen horizontal cross-border coordination, the organizational integration of the two euroregions remained rather loose, testifying to the continued importance of domestic prerogatives.

This paper addresses the issue of territorial cooperation as a necessary principle and requisite for a better local and regional development. It is argued that as important as the design of policies with the objective of sustainable territorial development is the way in which these are decided, designed and implemented. As important as 'What' is 'How'. The text is divided into three large blocks. The first one deals with cooperation as a transversal category that applies from three approaches: government and State administration, theories of regional and local economic development, and from the point of view of spatial planning and territorial cohesion; at several scales, therefore with multilevel nature and diverse geographical coverage (international, European, Spanish and Valencian). In the following two sections, examples of cooperation experiences and results obtained (at different scales and between different subjects) are presented as a tool for territorial development in rural areas, first, and tourism, afterwards. The text closes with a brief final synthesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National borders constitute barriers to social, economic and political processes and thus, tend to contribute to the peripheralisation of border regions. The paper compares the evolution of two euroregions in peripheral central European border regions, whose objective is to overcome such negative border effects by promoting cross-border cooperation at the regional level. On a theoretical level, the paper argues for an understanding of euroregions as soft spaces. Rather than viewing them primarily as instances of state rescaling, the paper emphasizes their role as adaptive service providers for local constituencies. It is suggested that their long-term stability depends on their relation to and the internal dynamics of, politico-administrative hard spaces at the regional, national and supranational level. While hard spaces are associated with the notion of the Weberian bureaucratic state, soft spaces combine many of the ideas of the New Public Management literature. Building on an organizational ecology perspective, the paper forwards the argument that stable, resourceful and accessible hard spaces constitute a predictable and engaging environment within which softer arrangements may compete for the delivery of services. However, the interplay between soft and hard spaces tends to have an impact on the euroregion's agendas. While EU cohesion policy provides incentives to strengthen horizontal cross-border coordination, the organizational integration of the two euroregions remained rather loose, testifying to the continued importance of domestic prerogatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban-rural interface is structured by intense social, economic, and environmental interdependencies among urban and rural places. Accordingly, we argue that the rural-urban interface should be governed in a new, hybrid manner -- one that accounts for both place-based and relational exigencies. The United States lacks a coherent, coordinated approach to multi-jurisdictional planning and governance, but multijurisdictional governance can and often does succeed through cooperation at the state and local levels. To illustrate this point, and to ground the theoretical discussion, we present three examples of multijurisdictional planning that are effective at the local level, and one example that has failed to accomplish such goals. Governance of the zone of rural-urban interactions will be more effective and accountable if policies and programs involve not only the constituent municipalities located in this space, but also the social, economic, and environmental relationships in which these communities are embedded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a framework for analysing region-building processes as spatiotemporal constructs, involving competing spatial imaginaries and attempts at consolidating these through institution building. Central here is the performative role of what we refer to as 'soft space imaginaries' in the 'phased' building of regions for planning and economic development over time. We demonstrate how this understanding can be used to examine the phased enactment of successive waves of region-building by tracing the evolution of multiple soft spatial imaginaries in north-west England. The analysis exposes the variable logics, alliances of actors, and tactics used to build momentum and secure legitimacy around preferred imaginaries which advocates often promoted on the grounds that they somehow reflected 'real geographies' or 'real economies'. In this context, soft space imaginaries are seen to play an integral role in intellectual case making about the contemporaneous form and purpose of subnational governance. Yet our analysis also exposes the durability of past soft space imaginaries and their continued impact on efforts to build new soft spaces. What emerges is an understanding of soft space imaginaries as more than just superficial representations. They can help determine where government investment is channelled and into what kinds of policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationships between sport, space and state in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. While the extant literature has predominantly attributed the Russian government’s motives behind hosting the Olympics to showcasing Putin’s Russia, this article provides a more nuanced account of the Sochi project in light of its entanglements with regional development and its implications for Russia’s spatial governance. It argues that Sochi has been an important experimental space for the federal state in its reconstitution and re-territorialisation of the institutions of economic development. The Sochi project signposts a dual process: the return of regional policy to the state’s priorities and a (selective) return of the federal state to urban development. Whilst not without controversies and inconsistencies, this practice signifies a re-establishment of strategies seeking a more polycentric economic development, including through supporting places on Russia’s less developed peripheries. The article also presents insights into the practical operations of the Sochi project and its legacies, including most recent data on the disbursement of its budget. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Macro-regional cooperation in the EU are networks that use the horizontal and vertical dimension of the multilevel governance system to influence both strategic decision-making as well as implementation activities. Drawing on an analysis of expert interviews in the Danube Region the paper scrutinizes stakeholders’ shared views towards expectations, challenges and added values, and thereby seeks to explain why a trend towards macro-regions arises and for what reasons stakeholders are getting involved. The analysis of the drivers for stakeholders’ commitment in the EU Danube Region Strategy shows that new governance arrangements need to be adjustable to different contexts, allow for negotiation and new network creation whilst simultaneously offering the political ability to act. The evidence presented suggests that multilevel governance in the EU is becoming increasingly complex, embracing more and different types of cooperation, with soft characteristics as crucial elements. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Floodplain areas across the world have always played an attractive role for residential and non-residential developments. The Alpine regions have a strong pressure to develop new residential and non-residential buildings in hazard areas due to lack of other areas suitable for development. Consequently, the number of elements at risk and vulnerability to flood hazards increased. In order to reduce the vulnerability, the focus of mitigation flood hazards was for decades on structural engineering measures with the problem of spatial misfits between the threat and management strategy. Since the late 1990s/early 2000s, Austrian policy makers have been trying to overcome this spatial misfit with the implementation of an inter-local co-operation approach with the use of so-called ‘new spatial planning’ (Heley, 2013) in the planning process. Therefore, the paper examines what the actors and stakeholders are doing in practice and how the concept of fuzziness helps. Although a partnership approach may be seen as a promising solution, in practice there are many limitations and barriers in establishing these collaborations and making them effective (especially in the long term). Rhetoric may not be matched by reality and a ‘partnership’ agenda may bring more problems (i.e. high transactions costs, high risk of failure, uncertainty in the long term) than it solves. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the mid-nineties, debates about spatial policy in Germany have been marked by a dominance of metropolitan discourses. Apparently these discourses are associated with a gradual shift of spatial policy priorities that more and more give up the primary goal of spatial cohesion in favor of a more competitive approach. In the course of the dominant metropolitan discourse especially regions at the edge of and between metropolitan areas are faced with an increasing pressure of regional profiling. With regard to the case study Südwestfalen the paper focuses on region building in the shadow of the metropolitan discourse. With reference to the Foucauldian concept of governmentality processes of region building and the formation of soft spaces are understood as expressions and means of neoliberal governmentality, and their underlying governmental rationalities and technologies are investigated. The empirical analysis reveals how dominant regional-economic rationalities, logics of inter-municipal cooperation and constraints of subsidy policies frame the process of region building on the discursive level. By analysing discourses and practices of regional marketing and measures of infrastructural self-services it is shown exemplary how contingent technologies of regional self-governance help to govern the process of region building on the collective level and simultaneously unfold subjectifying effects by providing patterns of social meaning and action.

Despite continuous research efforts, the role of the European Union regard­ing spatial planning remains unclear. This article proposes to employ the concepts of soft spaces and soft planning to better comprehend how Euro­pean spatial planning finds its way into the national planning systems. The EU contributes to the creation of soft spaces, differing from administrative entities, while at the same time, it acts as a driver of soft planning, focusing – both for strategic and legal reasons – on coordination, cooperation and mutual learning, rather than ‘hard’, regulatory planning. The article claims further that instead of depicting the connections between the EU and its member states, research should pay increased attention to the encounter of European and domestic planning within a country. The scales, actors and instruments that deal with EU inputs within a country might prove to be crucial factors that ultimately determine the impact of EU policies on spatial planning. To illustrate the encounter of European and domestic planning in the light of soft and hard planning, the article introduces a conceptual framework and thereby provides an outline for further empirical research.

This article uses the concepts of ‘soft spaces’ and ‘soft outcomes’ previously developed in relation to the study of local economic development and planning and applies them to the related, but not identical, field of localised welfare-to-work initiatives. The specific example of the City Strategy initiative in Great Britain provides evidence of these concepts in action. This initiative foregrounded the importance of local partnership working whereby various stakeholders joined together to operate in soft space to achieve commonly agreed goals. The article considers how local partnerships operate in soft space and the appropriate measures of success to be used when assessing the efficacy of their interventions. It is argued that both ‘soft outcomes’ and ‘hard outcomes’ can be used to understand success; but that assessment of soft spaces only in terms of ‘hard outcomes’ is far from comprehensive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the conditions under which local and regional governments will establish and sustain cross-border co-operation in the fields of police, fire fighting and emergency health services. It argues that understanding this type of cross-border co-operation requires a focus on the way in which professionals define and apply their professional standards in cross-border contexts. Moreover, it requires a focus on individual organizations and professionals working in them, rather than ‘government’ or ‘the state’ as a whole, since cross-border co-operation in these areas typically develops as a result of disparate and unconnected initiatives taken by governmental actors in a given border region. Based on four studies of cross-border co-operation in Dutch border regions, we argue that differences in legal, organizational and cultural backgrounds between the participating countries can be and are overcome by street-level professionals and their organizations, who act as ‘regionauts’ in exploring opportunities for cross-border co-operation. In this type of ‘bottom-up’ cross-border co-operation, motivation among participants is the key to establishing co-operation, and solutions to differences between work routines will be developed along the way. As a result, the establishment of cross-border co-operation often is an experimental, pragmatic enterprise, which is greatly affected by local intra- and inter-organizational dynamics. This opens the potential for pragmatic, flexible and creative solutions. Yet, at the same time it also runs the risk of producing unaccountable cross-border arrangements that are insufficiently embedded in legal and professional safeguards against error and abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite continuous research efforts, the role of the European Union regarding spatial planning remains unclear. This article proposes to employ the concepts of soft spaces and soft planning to better comprehend how European spatial planning finds its way into the national planning systems. The EU contributes to the creation of soft spaces, differing from administrative entities, while at the same time, it acts as a driver of soft planning, focusing - both for strategic and legal reasons - on coordination, cooperation and mutual learning, rather than 'hard', regulatory planning. The article claims further that instead of depicting the connections between the EU and its member states, research should pay increased attention to the encounter of European and domestic planning within a country. The scales, actors and instruments that deal with EU inputs within a country might prove to be crucial factors that ultimately determine the impact of EU policies on spatial planning. To illustrate the encounter of European and domestic planning in the light of soft and hard planning, the article introduces a conceptual framework and thereby provides an outline for further empirical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Detractors of European integration and many of its protagonists invoke state territoriality where the social and the spatial come together in a 'Territorial-Administrative Complex'. Like the military-industrial complex claiming once to procure security, protagonists claim to guarantee democratic legitimacy. At the same time, the interests of the territorial constituencies prevail over others. The underlying notion of space is absolute and of territory that of a container. Costs and benefits are calculated in terms pertaining to it. The underlying 'meta-geography' is one of boxes-in-boxes, but rather than viewing space as a container, based on academic literature in the matter, planners now pursue soft planning for soft spaces. In the face of the apparently incontestable claim of the Territorial-Administrative Complex to a monopoly on the production of democratic legitimacy, the article points out, albeit rare examples of constitutional theorists challenge this monopoly. Voting in territorial constituencies, they claim, has never been properly argued for, making it an arbitrary institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A range of new spaces of English planning have emerged in recent years. One new space of clear import is the sub-region. In this paper we seek to gain a better understanding of why sub-regional spaces emerge, how they are used and how planning functions through them. Drawing upon an analysis of three English regions and interviews with actors the paper identifies four types of sub-regional planning that highlight the relationship between accountable, legally sanctioned territorial spaces on the one hand and more informal, open and strategic sub-regional spaces on the other. Sub-regional planning provides an important if not critical strategic parallel to regulatory planning though the relationship between the two is characterised by complexity, contestation, experimentation and impermanence. Among other issues raised by this contemporary reworking of planning is the emergence of an accountability gap through the uncoupling of formal democratic processes embedded within territories and the more diffuse practices of strategic plan making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Dutch Randstad is known for its polycentric configuration resulting in regional daily urban systems and planning realities that do not match formal government tiers. Over the years many informal governance structures have been proposed to address this issue. Often the rationale behind such informal arrangements is 'to get things done', to overcome the rigidity and inflexibility of formal administrative structures. As many other polycentric urban regions face similar issues, this analysis may help government tiers in the development of a response to the mismatch between urban structure and the architecture of formal government. The southern Randstad is one of the regions which has faced different informal governance arrangements at different scales. We discuss their emergence, aim and the participants involved as well as the reasons for the fact that different arrangements co-exist for approximately the same area to understand the dynamics in polycentric regions as the southern Randstad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2010-15 UK coalition government's commitment to 'localism' in planning was in marked contrast to the emphasis on cross-boundary strategic planning initiatives under the preceding Labour government. Against this background, the paper examines the implications of evolving economic governance arrangements in three subregional 'soft spaces' in England's South East region. A distinctive evaluative frame derives a set of criteria for 'good economic governance' as perceived by the stakeholders concerned, and a judgement regarding the 'quality' of economic governance in each case is presented. The conclusion triangulates these results against economic growth outcomes across the respective subregions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I qualitatively examine the rise and possible fall of statutory district plans as a major tool of regional planning in Israel. Rigid statutory regional plans are a top-down means, and the Israeli case demonstrates that their days are not necessarily over in an era of ‘soft spaces’ and complex governance networks. The swing of the pendulum in attitudes toward these plans is not associated with centralization–decentralization trends. Rather, it reflects power relations between two centralized coalitions of stakeholders. The one led by elected politicians favors proactive-developmental goals, aiming at state-led open-ended or non-statutory planning. The other coalition, led by central state bureaucrats, favors strict regulation. NGOs, assumed to form the core of soft horizontal governance networks, paradoxically support top-down ‘hard’ modes of regional planning, in the name of environmental sustainability that is not necessarily best served by bottom-up soft approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the coexistence of relational and territorial spaces--soft spaces--through the experiences of EU integration and territorialization. First, we seek a better understanding of EU integration through an engagement with the literature and research on soft spaces. We propose that EU integration is best understood as involving an interplay between territorial and relational understandings and approaches that vary through time, a variation that can be categorized as involving pooled territoriality, supraterritoriality, and nonterritoriality. Second, we seek to add to the current research and literature on soft spaces by focusing upon the changing character of soft spaces and their temporalities. We approach these two dimensions through an exploration of two ex post case studies, the development of which typically shows different stages of softening, hardening, and of differing degrees of Europeanization. With the focus on Europeanization, the paper concludes with three findings: the new spaces of European territoriality are characterized by, first, temporal dynamics, second, their parallel existence with 'hard' spaces, and, finally, they can be employed as a political tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soft skills for the Project Manager have been traditionally identified as a set of cross-cutting skills that should complement the core job of establishing and maintaining reasonable tradeoffs among the elements of the traditional project management iron triangle. Soft skills have been put under the spot in the paper "Beyond the iron triangle: year zero", which, rather, identified in project management the presence of "soft factors" and associated "constrained soft spaces", among them the motivational space, the social ruling space and the analytic/holistic space. In that paper it was highlighted that the project manager needs to extend its integrative role also to "soft factors", so that the traditional "iron triangle" is modified into a "hard-soft pyramid", where "soft factors" are integrated into a constrained environment between themselves and with the traditional "hard factors", like scope, time, cost and quality. Project management can rely upon handy tools for dealing with "hard factors": scope, time, cost and quality can be quantitatively defined and measured. But, what about "soft factors"? An integrative effort into "constrained soft spaces" needs similar tools to manipulate "soft factors". This paper is the result of a research effort aiming to identify viable taxonomies for "soft factors" in project management, along with proxies representing their qualitative/quantitative values, either when demanded by the single individual in the project team, or when provided by the project. The paper identifies "soft spaces" and the "soft factors" that expand into "constrained soft spaces". It provides a description of taxonomies for "soft factors", identifies proxies and metrics, and defines a simple process that might be put in place in any project context where the integrative project management effort is extended from "hard factors" to "soft factors". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]