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A. Faludi (Reviewer):
"Place is a No-man's Land";
Group review about A. Dillinger; eBOOK OF ABSTRACTS, 2014-07-09, p. 1 - 19.

Based on case studies of the place-based approach, Zaucha and Światek (2013) present a road map for the implementation of the Territorial Agenda 2020. Their work reminds of earlier Polish comments on the Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion and publications in its wake invoking the concept of territorial keys to bridge the gap between the place-based approach and the concept of territorial capital. (Zaucha et al., 2012) Of course, the Barca Report (2009) argues that the former should be central to Cohesion Policy; according to Mendez (2012) nothing by a return to its original intention. However, as Barca also makes clear, rather than the jurisdiction of an authority, places as the frame for the integration of bundles of policies with a spatial impact crosscut legal boundaries. This is why place is a no-man´s land. Are fuzzy arrangements - soft planning - the way to deal with places as `soft´, rather than `hard´ spaces encased by jurisdictional boundaries? Where does this leave democratically elected governments? An early example of this issue being glossed over is the report of a Council of Europe Working Party, 'Regional Planning a European Problem'. Whilst admitting to planning issues spanning boundaries, when it comes to administrative arrangements, it report eschews drawing conclusions from this. (Faludi 2010) The same is true for Zaucha and Światek (2013) on the place-based approach. They give examples of successful balancing of functional and administrative arrangements, but success depends on context and is the exception rather than the rule. The alternative, so far not on the agenda, would be rethinking the territorial bases of democratic legitimacy. Is territorial representation the only way of producing it? Should one rethink legitimacy in a network society? Doing so one may be certain of meeting stout opposition from the existing `Territorial-Administrative Complex´ of vested political and bureaucratic interests.

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EU, Territorial Cohesion, Cohesion Policy, soft planning, regional planning, place based approach, place governance, democratic legitimacy, territorial representation

http://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/PubDat_234061.pdf