ABSTRACT
There is little previous work that explicitly investigates the role of cartographic representations in spatial planning, let alone at European level. In this chapter, literature concerned with developing theoretical frameworks for analysing the relationship between language, information, knowledge and power in the planning process is discussed. Although the role of cartographic representations is not considered explicitly in most of this work, the different insights that it provides about how spatial policy is made and communicated, about the exercise of power in the planning process and about the distortive factors that influence communication in planning, have important implications for the functions that cartographic representations might be expected to serve in planning processes. The second body of relevant literature relates to theories on cartographic communication and cartographic aspects in map production in particular. In most cases, there is no explicit consideration of the use of cartographic representations in real-world planning processes, yet the selection, schematisation and synthesis of information are important for an understanding of the ‘power of maps’. In the last section of this chapter, analytical approaches explicitly considering the function and role of cartographic representations in planning processes are discussed.
