Andreas Faludi, editor
Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2002
To order the report, go to
http://www.lincolninst.edu/pubs/pub-detail.asp?id=711.
The European Union (EU) has transformed how its fifteen member countries relate and deal with each other. In 1999, the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) was adopted by the European Unions planning ministers. The ESDP set forth a common strategy for European planners to establish an integrated European economy and society. In 2001, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy convened a conference around how planners are creating new forms of regional spatial planning. Andreas Faludi subsequently adapted the presentations made at the conference into this book.
As regional stewards, we work across boundaries of jurisdiction, sector, and discipline to create opportunities for our regions. In this new publication, Andreas Faludi describes how European planners are doing just that. They are learning how to develop new forms of regional planning. In the epilogue to Andreas Faludis compilation, Robert Yaro, Alliance board member and executive director of the New York Regional Plan Association, discusses the implications of European spatial planning. Essentially, writes Yaro, our largest competitor in the global economy is now utilizing planning to advance its economic and transportation advantages, improve its quality of life and reduce inequalities between its regions. These new approaches can provide new possibilities for American planners. Yaro states, Imagine what the impact would be if the federal government were to provide powerful financial incentives for U.S. states and metropolitan regions to collaborate across borders and issues to integrate transportation, economic development and environmental strategies.
In the epilogue, Yaro considers several issues, including how likely and willing American planners are to learn from their foreign counterparts, and whether the political, legal and cultural differences that exist between Europe and America are too great to allow implementation of these regional planning innovations.
In addressing these issues Yaro first cites examples where American planners have been influenced by European planning processes, including the American City Beautiful movement as adapted from the European Beaux Arts city plans. He also notes that the work of many planners like Frederick Law Olmsted were inspired by their visits abroad. In taking up the issue on European and American institutional differences, Yaro notes that the impediments are not due to planning approaches but to the regulatory environment.
Despite the differences, Yaro describes how American planners are proceeding with regional approaches. He cites examples of trans-national, national, state, regional and civic-led regional planning efforts that have succeeded in laying the groundwork by which future regional planning can be fashioned. Yaro suggests, We could begin this process by initiating planning processes outside official channels. We should look to the regions and the growing number of civic-led planning groups, who are promoting regional solutions. Eventually, Yaro hopes that the federal government will be inspired enough by the success of these initiatives to play the indispensable role that the EU is playing in utilizing improved planning to address pressing needs.
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