Planning for States and Nation/States A TransAtlantic Exploration

© iStockphoto/Steven Allan

Gerrit Knaap and Zorica Nedovic-Budic begun to experiment with new and innovative Leinster House is approaches to planning. the seat of Parliament or planning processes to resolve the the opportunity to explore and discuss these in Ireland, one of few European countries pressing issues of our day—such as issues brought scholars, practitioners, students, and engaged in planning climate change, traffic congestion, and others to Dublin, Ireland, in October 2012 for a that guides national Fsocial justice—plans must be made at two-day seminar sponsored by the Lincoln Institute investments and land the appropriate scale, must promulgate appropriate of Land Policy and organized by the School of use regulations. implementation tools, and must be enforced with Geography, Planning, and Environmental Policy at legitimate authority. That is, our ability to meet University College Dublin and the National Center critical challenges depends on the legal and for Smart Growth at the University of Maryland. institutional foundations of planning. Held in the historic Newman House on St. Stephen’s In the , responsibility for estab- Green, the meetings featured overview papers on lishing these foundations for planning rests with planning in the United States and Europe and case the states, which in turn have delegated most land studies of five U.S. states and five European nations. use authority to local governments. In Europe, the Each presentation was followed by commentary foundations of planning are established by each from a high-level official from the corresponding country, whose planning systems often feature state or nation (see box 1). national and regional plans as well as a mosaic of local plans. For better and for worse, these A Framework for Spatial Planning in Europe institutional foundations have framed the planning Planning in Europe is governed by a variety of process on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean for traditions and governance structures (Faludi 2012). most of the post-war period. But as the scope Some European nations have “unitary” governance of our planning challenges continues to broaden, structures, in which all land use authority ultimately and discontent with the status quo continues to rests with the national government. Italy and Spain spread, several states and European nations have have “regional” governance structures, in which

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Box 1 Papers Presented at the Dublin Seminar on Planning Spatial planning refers to the methods used for States and Nation/States, October 2012 largely by the public sector to influence the future distribution of activities in space. It is Bierbaum, Marty undertaken with the aims of creating a more The New Jersey State Development Plan rational territorial organization of land uses Faludi, Andreas and the linkages between them, to balance The Europeanisation of Planning and the Role of ESPON demands for development with the need to Fulton, Bill protect the environment, and to achieve Planning for Climate Change in California social and economic objectives. Galland, Daniel spatial planning embraces measures to The Danish National Spatial Planning Framework co-ordinate the spatial impact of other sectoral Geppert, Anna policies, to achieve a more even distribution Spatial Planning in France of between Grist, Berna than would otherwise be created by market The Irish National Spatial Strategy forces, and to regulate the conversion of land Knaap, Gerrit and property uses. PlanMaryland: A Work in Progress Lewis, Rebecca The European Union has no authority to engage The Delaware State Development Plan in spatial planning, but directly influences spatial Needham, Barrie planning outcomes through regional development The National Spatial Strategy for The Netherlands initiatives, environmental directives, and structural and cohesion funding. This goal is articulated in Salkin, Patricia Planning Frameworks in the United States and the the European Spatial Development Perspective Role of the Federal Government (ESDP) signed in 1998 by the ministers responsible Seltzer, Ethan for spatial planning in the member states and Land Use Planning in Oregon: The Quilt and the Struggle the members of the European Commission for Scale responsible for regional policy (Faludi 2002). Tewdwer-Jones, Mark modern spatial planning in the European National Planning for the United Kingdom context is broadly understood to include national, regional, and local planning, where national plans For more information about the seminar, see the program provide broad national development strategies and website: http://www.ucd.ie/gpep/events/seminarsworkshops conferences/natplansymp2012 guidelines for plans at lower levels of government; regional plans integrate physical development with social, economic, and environmental policies but land use authority is constitutionally shared be- without site-level specificity; and local plans are site- tween the national government and regional gov- specific and address the physical and ernments. Austria, Belgium, and Germany have elements of the built environment. While none of “federalist” governance structures, in which partic- the planning frameworks for the member nations ular land use functions are distributed among the matches this neat hierarchical ideal exactly, the ESDP national, regional, and local governments. Within has influenced planning activity in every nation. these frameworks a variety of planning cultures the ESDP itself is based on longstanding and traditions have evolved: “amenagement du European planning traditions dating to World War territoire” in France; “town and country planning” II, when national development or reconstruction in the UK; “Raumordnung” in Germany; and plans were indisputably necessary for post-war “ruimtelijke ordening” in The Netherlands. While reparations. Many European nations still have these terms generally connote what “urban plan- national development plans and complementary ning” means in the United States, there are impor- national spatial strategies. But the influence and tant, nuanced, and fiercely defended differences. importance of those plans has diminished steadily the expression for used by the since reconstruction. In the last decade in particu- European Union is “spatial planning” (European lar, nations once known for their ambitious and Commission 1997, 24). extensive commitment to planning—France,

16 Lincoln Institute of Land Policy • Land Lines • april 2013 Denmark, and the United Kingdom among Denmark them—have failed to adopt new national plans Planning in Denmark historically began with a and expressly placed greater emphasis on comprehensive national planning framework (Gal- regional and local plans. land 2012). Over the last two decades, however, as a result of interrelated political and economic factors, National European Spatial Strategies the land use roles of national, local, and regional and Frameworks governments within the national territory have sig- France nificantly transformed the scope, structure, and Although France is a unitary, centralized nation- understanding of Danish spatial planning (figure 1). state, the national government has never played a among the implications of this reform, several leading role in spatial planning. Rather, responsi- spatial planning responsibilities have been decen- bility for spatial planning was officially transferred tralized to the local level while regional planning to regional and local governments in devolutionary for Greater Copenhagen and other sectoral func- reforms adopted in 1982 and 2003 (Geppert 2012). tions have been transferred to the national level. Although coordination between governments at Moreover, the recent abolition of the county level different levels continues, this process results more of government has increased the risk of uncoor- often in joint investment strategies rather than dinated spatial planning and decreased coherence in shared spatial visions or common objectives. across diverse policy institutions and instruments. Before most other nations, the French national government began focusing less on spatial plan- The Netherlands ning and more on sectoral policies, leaving spatial The Netherlands has perhaps the longest and best- issues for lower levels of government. known tradition of national spatial planning, and

Figure 1 The New Map of Denmark: Spatial Planning under New Conditions, 2006

Greater Copenhagen and eastern Jylland Small-town regions Important transport corridors >100,000 population >20,000 population Boundary for the national planning directive for Greater Copenhagen

Source: Denmark Ministry of the Environment (2006).

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its plans include industrial as well as detailed spa- Largely following EU guidelines, Ireland adopted tial policies (Needham 2012). For several decades, a series of national development plans, the latest Dutch national plans influenced the distribution one being the National Development Plan 2007– of people and activities throughout the country. 2013. Based on recommendations in the previous In the first decades after World War II, all levels of national plan, the Department of Environment, government—national, provincial, and municipal Community and Local Government in 2002 devel- —tended to work together in their spatial planning. oped the Ireland National Spatial Strategy. This In the 1990s, however, they started to move apart. strategy identified critical gateways and hubs and In response, the national government strengthened articulated plans to decentralize economic activity its own powers over the local governments (a form from Dublin and throughout the island. of centralization), and at the same time reduced its Following a turbulent period that saw the rise own ambitions to pursue a national spatial strategy and fall of the Celtic Tiger, blamed in part on lax (a form of decentralization). The latest national local planning policies allied with extensive incen- spatial strategy expressly withdraws from some tivizing of property development and political cor- planning tasks previously carried out by the ruption, the country is now revisiting that strategy, national government. strengthening regional development guidelines, and imposing new consistency requirements on United Kingdom local governments. In the early 1900s, the UK Parliament divested under the new evidence-based planning its direct powers to plan; instead, the powers of regime, local plans must conform more closely intervention, new state housing development, and with regional planning guidelines, and local plans regulation of private housing development were will have quantitative limits on how much devel- handed over to local governments (Tewdwr-Jones opment can be allowed. The future role of the 2012). In the following decades, the central gov- National Spatial Strategy is currently in the review ernment did acquire new planning powers of its process as the new government, elected following own as a consequence of World War II and the the property crash in Ireland, examines the plan- need to rebuild cities, infrastructure, and the econ- ning and development issues that prevailed omy in the national interest. Since 1945, central during the property bubble. government has retained these powers, while also permitting the monitoring of local authorities The Federal Government and Land Use in their operation of the planning system. in the United States these powers have changed dramatically over The U.S. federal government, like the European the last 70 years. After 1999, devolution in Wales, Union, has no authority to plan and manage land Scotland, and Northern Ireland further fragmented use, but probably has a greater influence on the the meaning of “national” in policy and planning location and nature of development patterns (Salkin terms. During the 2000s, the push toward regional 2012). Besides the billions of dollars it allocates for spatial planning in England also rebalanced national transportation infrastructure, social services, devel- planning matters toward sub-national interests. As opment, and redevelopment, the federal government a result of this trend in devolution, decentralization, is a major landowner of more than 630 million regionalism, and localism over the last 20 years, it is acres across the country. Federal regulations are increasingly questionable whether the UK now pos- also highly influential. The Clean Air and Water sesses anything that could be regarded as a national Acts, for example, impose no restrictions on land planning system, since so much has changed spa- use per se, but in establishing targets for ambient tially and within policy-making institutions and air quality and nutrient loadings to rivers, lakes, processes across different parts of the country. and streams, both acts profoundly influence local land use plans, regulations, and development patterns. Ireland more recently, President Barack Obama’s Ireland is one of few European nations not follow- administration has established a new channel of ing the trend toward decentralization of planning federal influence on land use planning and regula- authority, partly due to the fact that its planning tion. While the federal government continues to system has been fully decentralized (Grist 2012). refrain from direct intervention in local land use

18 Lincoln Institute of Land Policy • Land Lines • april 2013 governance, the secretaries of the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Develop- ment and of the Environmental Protection Agency signed a memorandum of understanding estab- lishing the Sustainable Communities Partnership. To promote six principles of sustainable commu- nities, these agencies launched a number of new grants programs, including the Regional Sustain- able Communities Planning Grants. To be eligible for such a grant, local governments must form inter-organizational consortia that include the metropolitan planning organization (MPO), the central city, the majority of local governments, © Harutyun Shahumyan and a representation of civic and advocacy groups. California is among the states that delegated Attendees from While the stated purposes of these path-breaking substantial land use authority to local govern- the October 2012 grants include urban revitalization, environmental ments. Although major development projects have Lincoln Institute protection, social justice, and sustainable develop- to pass a complex mini-National Environment seminar, “Planning for States and ment, an equally important purpose is to establish Policy Act process, and the California Coastal Nation/States,” new inter-institutional relationships by promoting Commission was an innovative new statewide at Newman greater inclusion and participation. Regional Sus- institution in its day, local planning remains domi- House, University tainable Communities Planning is now underway nant. But in 2008, the state adopted a bold new College, Dublin. in 74 metropolitan areas across the country. It initiative to address climate change—Senate Bill remains to be seen, however, whether the incen- 375, which required MPOs to develop transporta- tives offered to local governments to engage in tion and land use plans that meet state greenhouse regional planning are sufficient to get them to gas targets. The difficulty is that local governments, participate in regional plan implementation not MPOs, retain land use authority in California. without additional state-level intervention. MPOs and the state governments are providing incentives for local governments to adopt plans State Plans and State Planning Frameworks that conform with metropolitan plans, but it Every state established a framework for local plan- remains uncertain whether the combination of ning and regulation in the 1920s and 1930s based financial and other incentives are sufficient to on the standard planning and zoning enabling acts nudge local governments to follow the MPO prepared by the U.S. Department of Commerce. plans (Fulton 2012). Despite expectations of extensive institutional at the other extreme, plans for entire states change, characterized in the “Quiet Revolution” are not common in the United States. In response more than 40 years ago, most states merely to federal requirements, most states do have trans- authorize local governments to plan (Salkin 2012). portation plans, and some have economic devel- others, like Oregon, mandate, review, and opment plans, workforce development plans, approve local plans (Seltzer 2012). If local govern- or climate action plans, but only five have state ments do not submit plans that meet the state’s development plans—Connecticut, Delaware, land use goals and guidelines, the state can withhold Maryland, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. funds or the authority to issue building permits. new Jersey and Delaware have perhaps the Several unique land use institutions also support best- and least-known state plans, respectively. the Oregon planning system, including a state New Jersey adopted its State Planning Act in 1985, planning commission, a land use court of appeals, requiring the state planning commission to develop, and a directly elected regional government. Though adopt, and implement the New Jersey State simple in structure, and frequently challenged in Development and Redevelopment Plan (Bierbaum the courts and at the ballot box, the Oregon system 2012). The planning process included a complex has a reputation as one of the most, if not the cross-acceptance procedure for identifying and most, effective land use systems in the United resolving differences between the state and local States (Ingram et al. 2009). governments. Since its adoption, the influence of

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Figure 2 Delaware: State Strategies for Policies and Spending, 2010 until 2008, and does not maintain spatial data on state expenditures, it is difficult to discern the im- pact of the approach on development and the con- Municipalities sistency of state spending with the state plan map. Strategy Level maryland is the only state that rivals California Level 1 and Oregon in its adoption of bold new approaches Level 2 to planning, based on its long tradition of leader- Level 3 ship in land use and environmental policy (Knaap Level 4 Out of Play 2012). Maryland established the first state plan Miles commission in 1933, and broke into the national 0 2 4 8 12 16 spotlight in 1997, when it adopted the path-break- 1:293,678 This map was created by the Office of ing Smart Growth and Neighborhood Conservation State Planning Coordination using data inputs from state and federal agencies and county and local governments. Act. Since 1997 the use of state expenditures to provide incentives for smart growth has been the signature feature of the Maryland approach. Long before anyone in Maryland spoke the words “smart growth,” however, the state had passed legislation in 1959 that required the Maryland Department of Planning to develop and adopt a state development plan. More than 50 years later, the administration of Governor Martin O’Malley finally met that requirement. on December 19, 2011, Governor O’Malley signed PlanMaryland, establishing the first new state development plan in the United States in many years (figure 3). But unlike state plans in New Jersey or Delaware, the Maryland plan is more procedural than substantive. Specifically, it established six plan designation categories and, following a longstanding Maryland tradition, enabled local governments to allocate land for any or all designated uses. State agencies would then target programmatic funds to each of these areas. Source: State of Delaware Office of State Planning Coordination Since the plan was signed, state agencies have and attention received by the plan has ebbed and been developing and refining implementation flowed over successive gubernatorial administrations. plans, and local governments have just recently Most recently, Governor Chris Christie’s admin- begun submitting plans for state certification. istration developed an entirely new state plan, focused primarily on economic development with- Concluding Comments out the cross-acceptance process. The state plan The frameworks for land use and spatial planning commission, however, has not yet adopted the plan. vary extensively across Europe and the United the Delaware plan is much less well-known States. On both sides of the Atlantic, local govern- and far less controversial than the New Jersey plan, ments carry much of the load, especially with and both the content and process are less complex respect to community, neighborhood, and site- (Lewis 2012). The Delaware plan includes five specific details. But the role of regions, states, and general land designations (figure 2). It depends on nations remains important. state-local coordination and relies on the threat of Contrary to its reputation in the United States, withholding infrastructure funding (of which the planning in many European nations has decentral- state pays a significant share) to incentivize compli- ized extensively. Few European nations are engaged ance by local governments. Because the state did in full-scale national plans that guide national not begin tracking data on development patterns investments and land use regulations. In fact,

20 Lincoln Institute of Land Policy • Land Lines • april 2013 Figure 3 PlanMaryland Targeted Areas

Preserve Rural Lands Targeted Rural Lands (AgPrint, Rural Legacy, PPA & Targeted Ecological Areas) Protected Lands

Grow Priority Funding Area – Areas Designated for Growth GrowthPrint Area – Areas Targeted within the PFA

0 10 20 Miles

Source: Maryland Department of Planning

planning in Europe, while still far more comprehen- and environmentally sustainable in light of anti- sive in sectoral details than in the United States, cipated challenges in the future. If these issues shares many policy features with its North Ameri- cannot be addressed adequately, other kinds of can counterpart. An interesting exception is Ireland, experiments in institutional planning reforms may which continues to expand the role of national become more common in many countries. and regional governments partly as a response to the recent period of extremely decentralized planning that failed to take into account and im- plement the national strategy. Ireland is also one ◗ about the authors ...... of the few countries adhering to the broad prin- ciples of spatial planning formally adopted by Gerrit Knaap is professor of urban studies and planning, director of the European Union. the National Center for Smart Growth, and associate dean of the School of , Planning, and Preservation at the University of Maryland. In the United States, neither state develop- Contact: [email protected] ment planning nor state approval of local plans is a rapidly growing practice. Indeed, despite the Zorica Nedovic-Budic is professor of spatial planning and geographic information systems (GIS) in the School of Geography, Planning and Environmental demonstrated success of the Oregon program and Policy at University College Dublin. Contact: [email protected] the growing recognition of the need for horizontal

and vertical policy integration, land use planning ◗ references in the United States remains a fiercely local affair...... Although both the state of California and the fed- Denmark Ministry of the Environment. 2006. The 2006 national plan- eral government are providing financial incentives ning report–In brief. Copenhagen. http://www.sns.dk/udgivelser/2006/ 87-7279-728-2/html/default_eng.htm for intergovernmental coordination and planning at the metropolitan scale, it remains far from cer- European Commission. 1997. The EU compendium of spatial planning systems and policies. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of tain that incentives alone will secure the changes the European Communities. in local plans and regulations required to institute Faludi, Andreas. 2002. European spatial planning. Cambridge, MA: meaningful adjustments in land consumption, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. travel behavior, and access to opportunities. Ingram, Gregory K., Armando Carbonell, Yu-Hung Hong, and Anthony new approaches are needed to make cites and Flint. 2009. Smart growth policies: An evaluation of programs and outcomes. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. metropolitan areas more productive, equitable,

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