Transcript Infrastructure and spatial planning

Infrastructure and spatial
planning - Analysis
November 2009
Contents
• General understandings
• Specific features
• Institutional design (strategies and
projects)
• Imaginaries and state spatial projects
• European Union dimensions
The big picture
• Standard theory of two eras, Keynesian to
1980s, and neoliberal since then.
• Clearly has powerful explanatory force.
• But always have to look both at
geographical and historical specificities
and at the specialness of infrastructure.
Special aspects of infrastructure
• Special features brought out by range of
theorists, e.g. Harvey and Helm.
• Capitalism finds infrastructure difficult, but needs
it; neoliberal capitalism finds especially difficult.
• This is for old reasons – big and risky,
infrastructure is spatially and temporally difficult.
• Helm justifies his infrastructure programme from
productivity or factors of production perspective
– UK falls behind on this analysis.
Specific features 1
• Infrastructure moments – big forces come
through variably in each country, e.g on rail
systems, or aviation, or energy arrangements.
• So although some tendency for an
infrastructuralist moment to come up in every
European case in recent years, takes different
forms, and intensities, depending on sectors.
• In UK the moment was late 1990s to 2010 but
especially c 2005-2008.
Specific features 2
• Geographies have powerful influence –
obvious, but useful to bring out.
• Geographical concentration index an example –
states (and continents) have variably dispersed
urbanisation – Australia high, France low.
Affects infrastructure needs.
• Global (and continental) positioning matters –
relation to sea (port ranges) or to aviation hubs.
• Many more examples, and continuously
evolving.
OECD geographical concentration
index
Specific features 3
• Politics, including the form of
neoliberalism in each country, how far
contested, and the strength of green
movements over decades.
• The forms of states within which these
work, including constitutions (especially
federal, unitary etc), party systems and
pressure group or lobby politics.
Institutional design
• How are planning and governing systems
set up to deal with infrastructure
decisions?
• Divided simply into two parts, strategies
and projects.
Institutional design - strategies
• Strategies – analysis of national spatial
strategies, of national sectoral strategies,
and of no strategies systems.
• Analysis of territorial articulation of
systems, mainly interplay of national and
regional (did not do work on local level).
• Strong sectoral variation. Some are
typically very localised (waste) – but this is
always deliberately framed this way.
Reminder on invisible strategic
work
• Spatial framings are always constructed.
• UK history - the way this happened with
the motorway system – worked up over
decades, to implicit plan – versus rail,
where Beeching moment was the only
plan within long set of gradual reorderings.
• Or waste, decisions spatially delegated to
localities, but with central steers
encouraging spatial solutions.
Institutional design - projects
• Projects – common features from EU membership (EIA
etc), and from globalisation and Europeanisation
pressures of business – to make more predictable and
faster.
• Concern with project speed and decision certainty
correlates mainly with privatisation dynamic in each
country.
• So only UK-England has made root and branch reform.
Other countries/regions have made more modest
reforms, though of significance.
• Netherlands unusual in making biggest projects national
schemes.
• France unusual in public debates system of non binding
early form.
Institutional design overall
• End result – Dutch system appears best, though
the Dutch are heavily critical. Scotland may
move in that direction with experience.
• Mixed systems of France, Germany and Spain
all have strong points, though no easily
replicable features.
• UK-England system could have merit, if run
properly, but not much sign that sectoral strategy
side will be very advanced in early days.
• UK-England project side may evolve towards
good practices, time will show.
National imaginaries and state
spatial projects 1
• I still see effective analysis of these
features as central to output of research.
• But far from clear the methods used were
up to dealing with this effectively.
• May be scope for further more carefully
designed research later.
UK high level spatial planning
• The absence of such planning has been a
main feature since 1945.
• Two periods of regional planning have
been the exceptions, in the 1960s-70s,
and 1990s-2000s.
• But this regional planning has been only
partially linked to planning of major
infrastructure
National level thinking
• This means that the way national spatial
change and relationships are implicitly
conceptualised and constructed becomes
of central importance.
• Just as locally and regionally, it is clear
national decision makers of all kinds do
have structuring ideas of territories,
however disjointed
National imaginaries and state
spatial projects 2
• For the moment – each country has an idea of
its future, or at least elites do.
• These are partly spatialised, and inform “non
spatial” policy domains, if unconsciously.
• Famous UK examples, north south differences,
urban and rural, positioning in relation to
Europe.
• This intersects with the state spatial projects
(Brenner), which have been towards less equal
national treatment across the national territories
– most so in UK-England.
The real NPF 2011
• South of England has priority.
• HSR2 abandoned, all London airports to
expand.
• Energy upgrades only for southern areas.
• Plans for low carbon path abandoned, as
incompatible with market led, slimmed
state model.
• Housing growth areas retained in south
east, otherwise for local decisions.
Why there will be no (real) UKEngland NPF
• Politically it will always be too difficult.
• Admission of spatial public investment
patterns into the future would be
damaging, especially after first year of a
parliament.
• One value of localist rhetoric, this can
make the large national and regional
decisions less visible.
European and EU dimensions
• Of increasing importance.
• Before very recently, was mainly about
non spatial aspects (pro privatisation and
liberalisation, EIA etc).
• Now with revision of TEN-T and of TEN-E
and other energy arrangements, may well
become nearer to some sort of
multinational planning model.
TEN-T
• Ran 1994-2010 as bundle of EU validated
projects, presented by states as priorities, tied
together at borders.
• Now proposed that should be more strategic, as
necessary to hit other targets (security of supply,
low carbon).
• Too early still to say, but may well start filling
some of the strategic gap, especially in central
band of Europe (?less so on western fringes like
us and Iberia).
• Example would be better coordination of eastwest and north-south freight systems.
Promoting a central European axis
Alternative north south central
European routes
Completing north-south rail routes
TEN-E and energy as a whole 1
• Making of new energy infrastructure
instrument proposed for 2011, after 2
years work.
• Relates to third energy package (full
liberalisation).
• Realisation that separation of generation
and transmission problematic – stops
effective planning.
ENTSO-E long term planning 2010
ENTSO-G, existing gas pipelines
TEN-E and energy as a whole 2
• So – will EU take stronger lead? – already
apparent in some regional projects, in Baltic
zone, in North Sea (supergrid) and in
Mediterranean. Also beyond EU borders.
• Will be controversial – could threaten power of
the liberalised corporations, now the forces in
Europe on energy, more than governments.
• But some states (Nl, Germany) very aware of
strategic void created, virtual impossibility of
present system delivering on desired goals.
• Experts like Helm calling for strong EU system
for some time, to match the “new paradigm”.
Overview on analysis
• Hardly a general theory of infrastructure
creating, governing and planning.
• Russian doll system – planning within the
governing within the provisioning.
• But complexity as always on state theory –
interrelations of powers and scales in a
liberalised infrastructure landscape.
• Not surprising that planning stutters or
struggles for coherence.