Bridging Policy Streams of Minerals and Land Use Planning: a Conceptualisation and Comparative Analysis of Instruments for Policy Integration in 11 European Member States

Minerals play an important role for the European economy, hence the secure and sustainable supply of minerals is of political importance for the EU and its Member States (MS). Despite the fact that Europe has a potential for minerals development, access to minerals is, however, influenced by different stakeholder interests, often reflected in competing forms of land-use and institutional complexity of two policy streams of minerals and land use planning. Recent public sector responses in EU MS introduce new instruments such as safeguarding or protection of minerals deposits or valorisation schemes for minerals development, both aiming to bridge the two policy streams. However, there are significant challenges for governments andpublic administrations on all levels to achieve the effective integration of the two policy streams: Institutional and administrative fragmentation, unclear roles and duties, coordination deficiencies between levels of governance (departmentalism) or lack of willingness or ability to collaborate (Endl, 2017; Gugerell, 2019). Thus, our research identifies different approaches to policy integration of minerals and land use planning policy based on a qualitative analysis of 12 case studies from 11 different EU MS. Against this background, the article conceptualises and analyses policy integration with regards to: 1) instruments for horizontal and vertical integration; 2) degree of integration - full versus partial integration (e.g. for horizontal integration: considering integration ex-ante/in the design versus ex-post/during implementation); 3) which aspects of horizontal or vertical policy integration are outlined (e.g. protection of deposits or design of land use plans); and 4) the capacity and willingness for policy integration by different actors. The results indicate two central characteristics for policy integration: (i) the mix of different types of instruments for horizontal and vertical integration and (ii) capacity of the involved actors. Across the 12 case studies we identified a mix of regulatory, economic or informative instruments, national strategies/ policy guidelines across horizontal as well as vertical policy integration. However, we recognised a trend across all 11 countries: instruments that signify full integration of minerals and land use planning on both horizontal and vertical levels; the application of soft rather than coercive instruments; and a prevalence for instruments in the form of planning tools and/or maps with the objective of enhancing knowledge of potential land use, mitigate land use conflicts and/or integrating minerals into land use planning processes. Our research shows that across 11 countries policy instruments are assembled to policy mixes for integrating minerals and land use planning policy combining regulatory, economic (fiscal) tools, (national) strategies and guidelines and information-based instruments. In the specific context of instruments for minerals planning (e.g. multi-criteria assessment, safeguarding) the results indicate that in order to support the integration of land-use and mineral policy, instruments should be adapted to the land-use planning system and a good fit with the actual processes on the lower level of implementation (local and regional). Moreover, the results illustrated that willingness and capacity of actors play a crucial role for policy integration and implementation. Against this backdrop, more centralised public administration can more readily supportlower levels to manage policy challenges: they can support lower levels by providing expertise, capacity building activities and create platforms where the different policy sectors can meet. Conversely, in decentralised systems and systems where policy design and implementation are dispersed among differentlevels of government the willingness to collaborate between higher and lower levels of government is important to support later policy implementation

New interaction paths in the energy landscape: the role of local energy initiatives

Energy transition is an encompassing process which not only involves the energy system but also the landscape in which the energy system is embedded. Renewable energy is triggering new interactions with local landscapes in physical, socio-economic and institutional senses. We capture these interactions using the energy landscape concept, which expresses the interdependence of the energy system with the landscape. We aim to understand whether and how local energy initiatives facilitate this interdependency so as to see if local energy initiatives can be considered focal points in energy transition. We analyse how emerging local energy initiatives link different interests, land uses and activities within their energy practices and show how these facilitate interactions between various physical and social systems across multiple spatial scales. The paper concludes with several suggestions on how spatial planners and policy-makers can use the insights from the findings to support energy transition

Playful Participation with Urban Complexity – Evaluation of the Co-Located Seriuos Game Mobility Safari in Vienna

The issue of engaging citizens in urban development and planning has experienced a significant increase in recent years. Traditional planning, control and communication approaches are reaching their limits in a more complex stakeholder landscape and an increasing desire of citizens for engagement. Novel approaches to inform and involve citizens in a playful co-creation process are necessary. Serious games and gaming are increasingly considered as the magic bullet for elevated stakeholder involvement and citizen engagement in urban planning and governance. But they are also discussed as means to instigate learning and capacity building processes and to raise awareness for urban core topics. These learning processes can unfold in different formats, such as social or game-based learning. This paper investigates, if playing the serious game prototype ‘Mobility Safari’ instigates social and specific learning processes and motivates players for a playful public participation. The Mobility Safari is a serious game prototype that was developed for the City of Vienna, integrating Vienna’s SMART city ambition to transition towards a more sustainable mobility system. The analysis illustrates that the serious game indeed instigates and evokes learning processes during the game play and in the debrief covering a broad range of different learning activities and social interaction. Incomplete rule-sets and un-governed situations triggered discussions where the players linked the gamewith their real-world experience and were urged to confront those experiences and actual practises. On the other hand, the willingness for active participation, which indeed takes a lot of effort, could be observed less often. Our analysis suggests that Mobility Safari is indeed a suitable mean for learning processes and support in a moderate way the interest in participation processes. We learned that a careful design, facilitation and sufficient time for a debrief to reflect on the game experience is crucial for a deeper learning experience that is meaningful for real-world contexts

Planning in the Face of Power:Experiencing Power Dimensions in a Visioning Process in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip

This article reflects on dimensions of power that occurred in visioning workshops with different stakeholder in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. The overall argument developed in the article is that the visioning process—especially signs of spatial and institutional dimensions of power—occurred in both cases in a rather similar way, even though the conditions for planning and visioning are significantly different in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. The visioning process illustrated that planning indeed shows signs of mediating space and power. Those power struggles are deeply rooted in the Palestinian planning history, the long-standing separation between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and the protracted conflict between Israel and Palestine. Experiencing oneself the ‘dark side of planning’ makes clear that planning is not benign and that planning can be a powerful tool for either progressive, pluralistic practices or oppressive ones, as means of regulation and control

The Inclusive City of Johannesburg and the Challenge of Affordable Housing

Johannesburg, as South Africa’s largest city and the most important economic center, still suffers under the patterns of inequality of the past. Although the spatial change has been rapid since 1994 after the post-apartheid era, the spatial divisions along class lines still remain. Strategic spatial planning strategies of the last two and a half decades were targeting the reduction of spatial patterns of inequality and exclusion by fostering compact and integrated spatial development on national, regional and urban level and currently the local provision of inclusionary housing. This study, based on literature review and census data evaluation, investigates the current challenges of Johannesburg, such as growing population, existing inequalities and the affordable housing backlog. Moreover, the current affordable housing programmes and new policy requirements in Johannesburg are described and analysed. Despite the release of numerous city-wide policies, such as the Spatial Development Framework 2040 (2016) or the Inclusionary Housing Policy (2019) the research shows that the situation has not significantly improved yet, which is indicated by a lack of restrictions in the requirements, implementation deficiencies and limited policy uptake in planning practice