ABSTRACT
Planning in the traditional sense of land use planning and zoning has lost its influence, while comprehensive planning, the planners eternal dream is no longer on the political agenda. This chapter presents a case example of the Ruhr that briefly describes the institutional context and the network of influential planning and policy making actors in the region. It briefly sketches the various efforts to bring actors together. The chapter presents another approach to regional development which has been experimented in the region during 1989 and 1999 with remarkable success on top of the established routine planning approach with remarkable success. The Ruhr, a region of around 4.500 km2, 53 communities and a population of 5.2 million is a special case. It differs in a number of ways from other traditional metropolitan regions in Germany and abroad. The regional future of the Ruhr is a complex combination of multiple local futures, with more or less imaginative, innovative and successful actors.
