TRACK 18: Complexity, Planning and Fuzzy Responsibilities

 

Co-chairs: Peter Ache, Maroš Finka

Cities and regions are facing increased complexity and fuzziness of their spatial and functional structures. Their institutional and managerial systems, including planning, are expected to manage it, but their capacities are limited. Moreover, additional new structures have appeared, which may rather contribute to the complexity on the management side, many of them making responsibilities becoming even fuzzier than before. Perhaps, we perceive such a situation more intensive with the recent economic and political disturbances being confronted with the question: “Can planning respond to both, the challenges of complex issues and of fuzzy responsibilities?“
The track invites academic and practice referring papers reflecting current concepts and practices in urban  regions, like metropolitan or city regions, both inside and outside Europe. Specifically, the papers are expected to address the following questions:

• Which new forms of governance are evolving in functionally closely related urban regions? How can they be described and understood in their operation? What are our theoretical or conceptual tools to support our understanding – and maybe also our attempts to improve their management capacities?
• The attempts to manage complex urban regions on the basis of distributed responsibilities and resources are mostly understood as expert realm. How can a citizen’s perspective or the proto-professional world help create the necessary innovations in our management approaches?
• Planning and its organisational structures are just one player in the management of complex urban regions. How can we understand the interconnected system of policy making and implementation that shapes the framework conditions for the operation and the planning challenge of complex urban regions?

While focusing on above topics, the papers should also make sure that the audience/readers have a good understanding of the region under consideration, relevant historical and actual development trends, and relevant politico-administrative aspects of national and urban planning systems.