ABSTRACT
The various examples of regional development and spatial planning activity in the preceding chapters illustrate how some of the smaller and more recent regions and member states of the European Union are responding to changed economic, social and governmental contexts. In some cases, the activity of strategic spatial planning at the ‘regional’ scale has emerged with some clarity over the past half-decade. Spatial planning has been embraced in countries such as Ireland, Scotland and Wales where spatial plans or strategies have been published. Experience in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is varied. In some cases, spatial planning has also been defined with some clarity, while in others it remains an emerging activity. The processes of restructuring that have been in place since independence in the early 1990s are ongoing, and their many and varied effects provide a challenging context for spatial planning practice. It is perhaps too easy to regard transition as already having taken place, yet the reality is that certain parts of these territories are still undergoing significant structural change. There are some other examples – the case of the Flanders Spatial Structure Plan included in this volume is one – of mature spatial planning systems that can provide lessons for others where it has yet to fully develop. Yet many questions remain. These include some significant and far-reaching questions, including how to understand the relationship between regional development and spatial planning, what impact can spatial planning have on achieving more balanced forms of regional development, and questions on the capacity for implementation in spatial planning and its effectiveness as an instrument with which to effect spatial change over the longer term? These and other questions form the basis for some of our concluding comments, but also serve as a framework for further evaluation of spatial planning practice as it deals more fully with aspects of implementation, monitoring and review.
