ABSTRACT
Munich has a long tradition of municipal cooperation in regional planning. Two organizations play a major role in this. Already in the 1950s a voluntary partnership was set up to coordinate local plans in the Munich region: the Planungsverband Äuβerer Wirtschaftsraum München (in English: the Planning Association for the Wider Economic Region of Munich). And since the 1970s there has been a legal planning organization for the region, responsible for developing a regional plan. Both organizations aim to secure the sustainable economic development of the region, looking for a good (spatial) balance between accessibility, housing development, preservation of the environment, and economic development. In practice, however, the ability of both organizations to actually coordinate regional development is limited, mainly because of the planning and financial autonomy of municipalities.
