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Ecological Rationality in Spatial Planning pp 73–109Cite as

Towards a Conceptual Framework for Ecological Rationality in Spatial Planning

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Part of the book series: Cities and Nature ((CITIES))

Abstract

In this chapter, the insights from the previous chapters are synthesized and systematized in a conceptual framework for ecological rationality in spatial planning. At the centre of the framework, there is the landscape, upon which different drivers act at different scales. At a higher level, there are some main driving forces that determine identifiable general trends (megatrends). Sectoral and territorial policies (including spatial planning) in turn act on the landscape by mediating and modulating the effects of such drivers (contrasting, pandering them or a mix of the two) and driving territorial transformation themselves. Other elements of this frameworks comprise a knowledge base constituted by the integration of planning theories and methods, Land-Use Science and Political Ecology, in turn based on contribution from sectoral disciplines such as Natural Ecology (including Landscape Ecology as a sub-discipline), System Theory and the sets of social sciences dealing with mechanisms of social choices, institutions and political sciences. This knowledge base serves to inform planning both through enabling a better identification and understanding of the driving forces and to derive a set of guiding principles and criteria for ecological rationality in spatial planning. Such criteria, in turn, needs to be operationalized in planning practice into specific analytical tools and methodologies. In this chapter the first part of the framework is examined, i.e. the main driving forces underlying the processes of territorial transformation that are manifested and measurable. Two main analytical concepts are deployed to analyse and interpret the latter, i.e. the metabolic rift and the spatial fix. These concepts are elaborated and discussed as powerful analytics to interpret the main phenomena of landscape transformation in urban and rural areas: urbanization and suburbanization, agricultural intensification and abandonment of marginal agricultural areas.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A set of 20 global targets under the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 of the Convention on Biological Diversity. They are grouped under five strategic goals, see: https://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/

  2. 2.

    Key works by Engels on these issues are the Dialectics of Nature (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/index.htm) Of course, a must-read for planners is also Engels’ The Housing Question (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/housing-question/).

  3. 3.

    See for example: https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2017/12/29/obsolescence-programmee-le-grand-gachis_5235676_3232.html.

  4. 4.

    After German mathematician Dietrich Braess, who studied the phenomenon that adding a road to a congested road traffic network could often increase the overall journey time. See Braess (1968, 2005).

  5. 5.

    Harvey introduced a third circuit of capital in more recent writings, namely flows of capital into the broad processes of social reproduction, e.g. scientific and technological research and development, education, health care, and so on.

  6. 6.

    Which also explains way in the construction sector working conditions are so poor, most of the labour force is constituted by immigrants, often paid under the counter, with extremely high injury (and death) rates.

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    Carlo Rega

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Rega, C. (2020). Towards a Conceptual Framework for Ecological Rationality in Spatial Planning. In: Ecological Rationality in Spatial Planning. Cities and Nature. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33027-9_4

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