ABSTRACT
This book has presented the activity of making spatial strategies and plans as an interrelated process of strategy formation and institution-building. In some of the cases reported, the emphasis was on the first (as in Friesland and Zurich); in others it was on the second (as in the Lancashire case). In many of our cases, effort was being undertaken on both fronts (as in Lyon and Madrid). The practices we have described were dynamic and varied. Some cases were in the middle of continuing changes. It has not always been possible to tell whether strategies, practices and institutional relations will actually be substantially changed as a result of the effort spent on strategic planning. New practices may not in the end displace the old (as in Grosseto). The content of strategies and the relations of institutions were also very diverse, with innovation in different dimensions of the strategy-making process. Innovations within a case may inhibit rather than reinforce each other, as in the Bergen case, where new participatory forms at submunicipal level ran counter to new forces that were emphasizing proactive economic development at the county level; or the Lancashire case, where economic consensus-building arenas had little connection with broadly based environmental forums. In spite of the variation in the practices described, some general patterns can be identified.
