DisP 165 Introducing Evidence-Based Planning

8/11/2019 DisP 165 Introducing Evidence-Based Planning

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4 disP 165 2/2006 Introducing Evidence-Based PlanningAndreas Faludi and Bas Waterhout

Dr. Andreas Faludiis Professorof Spatial Planning Systemsin Europe at Delft Universityof Technology, OTB ResearchInstitute for Housing, Urban andMobility Studies.

Bas Waterhoutis a researcherat Delft University of Technol-ogy, OTB Research Institute forHousing, Urban and MobilityStudies.

Abstract: This article introduces the concept ofevidence-based planning in the context of its ap-pearance in the UK at the end of the 1990s andtraces its historical relationship to the practiceof collecting information for state and publicpurposes from Roman taxation and the famousDomesday Bookto the movements and counter-movements of the last century to its present rolein politics and policy-making in the field of spa-tial planning. Delving into the connections be-tween evidence and decision-making, evidenceand action, the use and role of research, cre-ativity, and social context as elements of spatial

planning, the article also provides backgroundon the perennial planning-theoretical debate.It leads into the current situation where the EUcharter requires the use of the best scientificinformation available for decision-making andwhere the demand for research has increasedsince the year 2000 with corresponding agen-cies (ESDP, ESPON) and institutions being cre-ated or reorganized to fill the information gap.Pointing out what is new about evidence-basedplanning and how it has changed from previouspractices, this article builds a framework for the

articles presented in this issue, which study andevaluate the theory and practice of evidence-based planning as one of the important trendsof this century.

In the 1990s, there was much talk about a com-municative or argumentative turn in planning(Fischer, Forester 1993; Healey 1993, 1996;Sager 1994). The starting point was that plan-ning ought to be less technocratic and more ofan interactive process. What this introductionand the papers in this issue are about is an ap-parent countermove an evidence-based turnin planning in the 2000s.

Indeed, since the start of the new millen-nium, the demand for research on spatial de-velopment issues seems to be growing and data,or evidence, seems once again to come to beconsidered of crucial importance for planning.However, as the quote from Kooiman shows (seeleft), evidence-based planning remains an inter-active, communicative process. The meaning ofevidence is never self-evident, but needs to beestablished in an argumentative fashion.

The current interest in evidence-based pol-icy or, in this case, planning comes from the UK

and the election in 1997 of the Labour Party.In order to find a way to deal with the rise topower of New Labour, in opposition not only toits Conservative opponents, but also to Labourideologues wedded to the old ways of concep-tualizing policy in terms suited to an earlierindustrial age, a new approach to policy-mak-ing had to be found and evidence-based policyprovided this (see Davoudi in this issue). So, howcan this approach be understood and what is itsrelevance to planning? This is the question onwhich this special issue focuses.

It would be facile to dismiss evidence-ba-

sed planning merely as a revival of an old tra-dition of survey-before-plan(more about thatlater) and to dwell on the problems involvedin identifying objective evidence on which tobase policy and to criticize this as technocra-tic (a concept with admittedly different conno-tations, depending on the administrative cul-ture), expert-driven and remote. Rather thanpursing this line of argument, this issue is basedon the conviction that there is something genu-inely new about evidence-based planning. Forexample, the Dutch National Spatial Planning

Agency, which once combined the research andpolicymaking roles, has been split in two: an in-dependent National Spatial Research Institute(see the paper by Van der Wouden, Dammersand Van Raveseyn) and the Directorate-Generalfor Spatial Policy. Likewise, the French Datar(Dlegation lamnagement du territoire et laction rgionale, now recast as the Diact D-legation interministrielle lamnagement duterritoire et la comptitivit des territoires), re-cently spawned an Observatoire des territoires.Datar always operated, and Diact continues tooperate, as a central think tank working on com-mon visions with the help of scientific evidence.The Observatoireadds to this by generating dataand producing maps. Two papers in this issuewill discuss these new developments.

In Germany, the Bundesamt fr Bauwesenund Raumplanung (BBR; Federal Office forBuilding and Spatial Planning), also featured inthis issue in the article by Aring and Sinz, hasalways been at some distance from the federaladministration; it is a kind of an archetype of anational planning research institute. To this day,the BBR occupies a strategic position. It is the

result of a fusion between two former researchestablishments, one devoted to planning and

Modern democratic constitutionstypically prescribe a separation ofrationality and power, much likethe untenable separation of factsand values in conventional socialand political thinking. The ideal,which often remains unrealized,

prescribes that first we must knowabout a problem, then we candecide about it.(Flyvbjerg 2002:354f.)

The production and utilization ofgoverning knowledge can be seenas a social process To make such

processes transparent, distinc-tions between data, ideas andarguments are useful. Each has its

own arenas or communities. Thesocietal actors for data are usuallyspecialists in academic or profes-sional circles. Governing ideasare mainly created and exchangedby people of mixed status at cross-roads; knowledge formationand utilization as argument in gov-erning is more political because itinvolves reasoning and convincingothers. This type of knowledge isusually created in public domains:either explicitly defined roles,as between politicians and massmedia commentators, or in less

formalized arenas, as betweenmembers of advocacy coalitions.(Kooiman 2003: 32)


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disP 165 2/2006 5one to building. So there have been no changesin Germany comparable to those in The Nether-lands and France. Major planning exercises, likeregional planning for the Ruhr Area, have tradi-tionally been accompanied by efforts to compile

available data in the form of a planning atlas(Planungsatlas) . The relevant term in German isBestandsaufnahme (taking stock). Similarly, theFederal Spatial Planning Act of 1965 (revisedsince) requires spatial planning reports (Raum-ordnungsberichte) to be produced once everyfour years. As the German case study shows,these reports feed into the formulation of policy,the latest document being formulated, as befitsthe German federal system, by the responsiblefederal minister along with the ministers of theGerman states (Lnder). The task of compilingthe Spatial Planning Report has been delegated

to the Federal Office for Building and SpatialPlanning.

Much other technical work to support fed-eral planning, including the German contribu-tions to European planning, is done by the sameinstitute, giving it a leading role in the researchprogram pursued by the European Spatial Plan-ning Observatory Network (ESPON). In fact, itwas the BBR that took important initiatives thatinspired the formation of ESPON. However, forthe purpose of producing the latest joint po-licy document, an outside consultant has been

called in, Jrgen Aring, one of the authors of theGerman case study in this issue.

ESPON was the immediate reason for thecurrent attention to evidence-based planning(see Bhme and Schn in this issue). Plainly, thesheer availability of research data gained un-der the ESPON program made a difference. Itamounts to tens of thousands of pages of reportswhich make profuse use of maps and other gra-phics, and these are now available for anybodyto use on the Web site www.espon.eu.This seemsto offer new opportunities for European spatialdevelopment policy, albeit under the flag of ter-ritorial cohesion policy (Faludi, forthcoming), tobe put on a firmer basis.

It also imposes a duty on the Commission toavail itself of these insights. Under Article 95(3)of the Treaty establishing the European Com-munity, it must use the best scientific evidenceavailable, and this is now seen as applying notonly in the policy areas to which this article re-lates, but as a general requirement. (Jachten-fuchs, Kohler-Koch 2003: 26) In fact, the Com-mission already refers to the results of ESPON,although selectively, for example, in the Third

Cohesion Report. In the 1990s, such analyticalinput was sorely lacking during the writing of

the European Spatial Development Perspective(ESDP).

The French, German, Dutch and ESPONcases discussed here may thus indicate a grow-ing need for research and data on spatial de-

velopment to serve as a basis of planning pro-posals and for action to be taken. Why has thedemand for evidence increased? What is therole envisaged for evidence in communicativeplanning processes? Who intends to use it? And,anyway, considering the Flyvbjerg quote at thebeginning (see page 4), is evidence really theneutral input that it is sometimes portrayed tobe? This introduction discusses some early ins-tances of the use of evidence in policy and plan-ning. It then deals briefly with the origins ofevidence-based planning as currently discus-sed, followed by an elaboration on the ESPON

program that started the ball rolling and a con-sideration of the institutional issues and the dif-ferent dynamics of research and policy-making.The conclusions formulate issues addressed bythe case studies, each in its own way.

Early Examples

The role of the Roman census in the ChristianNativity narrative is an early example of the col-lection of evidence. The Gospel of Saint Luke

speaks about a decree from Caesar Augustusthat everyone should be taxed, and for the pur-pose of counting, heads of households had to goto their home communities, which took Josephand Mary through Bethlehem on their way toNazareth. Filling the public coffers has been afrequent reason for collecting data. Such sur-veys contribute to what Scott calls the legibil-ity of the states domain: To tax or to conscript,to educate or to punish its population, the statemust first be able to see them. (quoted in Wal-ter, Haahr 2005: 31)

Another well-known historic example is theDomesday Book produced under William theConqueror. Having gained possession of Eng-land at the Battle of Hastings, the Norman kingwanted to learn about his new realm and he gavedetailed prescriptions for how to go about com-piling the evidence. The prescriptions remindus of modern-day surveys:

After this had the king a large meeting, and verydeep consultation with his council, about thisland; how it was occupied, and by what sort ofmen. Then sent he his men over all England into

each shire; commissioning them to find out Howmany hundreds of hides were in the shire, what


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6 disP 165 2/2006 land the king himself had, and what stock uponthe land; or, what dues he ought to have by theyear from the shire. Also he commissioned them torecord in writing, How much land his archbishopshad, and his diocesan bishops, and his abbots, and

his earls; and though I may be prolix and tedious,What, or how much, each man had, who was anoccupier of land in England, either in land or instock, and how much money it were worth. Sovery narrowly, indeed, did he commission them totrace it out, that there was not one single hide, nora yard of land, nay, moreover (it is shameful to tell,though he thought it no shame to do it), not evenan ox, nor a cow, nor a swine was there left, thatwas not set down in his writ. And all the recordedparticulars were afterwards brought to him.1

A similar example comes from a collection of

classic planning texts published for the forti-eth anniversary of Datar. The first article datesfrom more than 300 years ago, and the editorsdescribe it as fundamental for French planning(Alvergne, Musso 2003: 25). The text is an ex-cerpt from instructions issued by Louis XIVsMinister of Finance, Jean Baptiste Colbert to hisroving inspectors. The inspectors were to sur-vey national resources and to assess the perfor-mance of provincial dignitaries in administeringthem, perhaps the first reference to somethingakin to social capital or territorial capital (Water-

hout 2005) governance capacity, if you like.A pronounced view on the role of evidence

is that held by Auguste Comte. The inventorof the term sociology and father of positiv-ism believed in savoir pour prvoir et pouvoir.Elsewhere he said: Induire pour dduire, afin deconstruire. (Quoted from Boardman 1978: 34)This suggests a linear process. It also suggeststhat those in the know should be responsible.Henri Saint-Simon, to whom Comte had beensecretary, was an aristocrat who had renouncedhis noble title, fought in the American Revolu-tion and then returned to France, and he wasunequivocal about this. In a fashion reminis-cent of Platos philosopher king, he argued thatgovernment must be turned over to an elite ofphilosophers, engineers and scientists. Saint-Simon was the first in an imaginary pantheon ofhigh-modernist figures invoked by Scott (1998).High-modernism is a pronounced version ofthe belief in scientific and technical progressand instrumental rationality. It is thus a par-ticularly sweeping vision of how the benefits oftechnical and scientific progress might be ap-plied usually through the state in every field

of human activity. (Scott 1998: 90; quoted inWaters, Haahr 2005: 24)

The role of expertise and of experts isthe reverse side of the coin. The danger isone of technocracy. In his Counter-Revolutionof Science, Friedrich Hayek delivered a strin-gent critique of the polytechnicians (after

the cole polytechnic established at that time[Hayek 1979]). Inevitably though, there havebeen counter-arguments. In any case, the Saint-Simon tradition is still strong in present-dayFrench planning (Peyrony 2005; see Bovar andPeyrony in this issue). It comes through in theleading role of French technical and adminis-trative elites (Siedentop 2000), so much so thattechnocrat has different, more positive con-notations in French than in other languages. Itis this tradition that has had a determining in-fluence on the ethos and style of the EuropeanCommission through the agency of, amongst

others, Jean Monnet, first Commissaire Gnraldu Plan de Modernisation et dEquipement inFrance in the immediate post-war period, andsubsequently responsible for running the HighAuthority of the European Coal and Steel Com-munity. In addition, the charge of technocracyis open to the counter-charge of presentism:measuring the past in terms of current con-cerns. Walters and Haahr (2005: 36) warn of thisdanger in relation to the alleged elitism of Mon-net, a charge which is made from the perspec-tive of a present where the problem has become

one of involving the European public. In itshistoric context, Monnets approach was muchmore acceptable. Likewise, Saint-Simons insis-tence in the early 19th century on expertise wasprogressive.

Through Frederic Le Play, the French schoolhad a strong influence on the thinking of Pat-rick Geddes (Fletcher 1971 (vol. 2): 832839).Geddes is famous for his dictum survey be-fore plan, which he started developing in theearly twentieth century. Geddes distrusted poli-tics and politicians. As with similar movementsopposed to the allegedly rampant corruptionof local government in the US in the 1920s and1930s, with reverberations until well after theSecond World War, Geddes wanted to take plan-ning out of politics. He insisted that democracyfails to yield all that its inventors hoped of it,simply because it is so tolerantly representativeof its majorities; and there is great truth in thecommon consolation that municipal govern-ments, like the larger ones, are seldom muchworse than we deserve. (Geddes 1904, quotedin Faludi 1987: 8)

The sociographers in the tradition of Le Play

and Geddes are often accused of having beenatheoretical. This may be true for the practice of


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disP 165 2/2006 7surveys as it subsequently developed. However,according to Fletcher (1971), this is not true forthe founding fathers. The sociographers werenot mindlessly collecting facts, they also in-voked theoretical concepts. Nevertheless, their

main contribution, according to Fletcher, was toadvance the art of empirical research. Fletcheralso argues that, far from seeing this as researchfor its own sake, they were imbued with thedesire to contribute to practical improvement,which is what Geddes concept of civics de-notes. Fletcher also demonstrates that the soci-ographers were well aware of the need to be se-lective and that they allowed their research to beinformed by prior theorising.

However, as Faludi (1987: 811) claims, Ged-des and his followers had no clear concept ofhow to bridge the gap between analysis and

practical decision-making, between evidenceand policy. Faludi quotes Geddes collaborator,Victor Branford (1914:33), who described theprocess in the following terms:

Having made his civic survey, the student retires,let us say, into his meditative cell. He takes withhim a carefully built up store of mental imagery of the given city and its inhabitants as evolvingtowards definite ideals or degenerating towardstheir negation [Then] the student of sociol-ogy re-emerges into the world as civic statesman

The man of action is getting ready with a pro-gramme and policy. (Faludi 1987: 9)

This raises a perennial issue with evidence-based planning. Nobody would deny that evi-dence is a vital element in making plans, or inany kind of policy-making for that matter, buthow exactly does evidence relate to decision-making? Surely, we must do better than Geddes,who regarded the step from knowledge to actionas a strictly personal affair, a matter of intuition.Apparently, his Outlook Tower, the famous mu-seum where he collected vast amounts of infor-mation about the Edinburgh region, had a smallroom in it, dubbed the Inlook Tower, where visi-tors were invited to ponder the implications ofwhat they had seen in splendid isolation (Board-man 1978: 141), much the way designers saythey get their inspiration. So with Geddes andhis followers, the step from evidence to action isshrouded in the mist of the creative leap.

In this respect, the development of Dutchplanning since its beginnings in the nineteenthcentury is instructive. This development wasexpert-driven, focusing on technical problems

that without much ado seemed to require pub-lic intervention, thus anticipating the survey-

before-plan maxim (Faludi, Van der Valk 1994:42). The protagonists were engineers inspiredby British, and, in particular, German examplesand textbooks. At Delft University of Technol-ogy, engineers have been taught to establish and

invoke technical standards as regards the widthof roads, the number of rooms per family, andthe nature and location of facilities, includingopen space. However, architects claimed thatthe final synthesis, the creative leap which Bran-ford had located in the Inlook Tower, was theirprerogative, and the engineers conceded thispoint (op. cit.: 46f.).

An emblematic case was that of the GeneralExtension Plan of Amsterdam in the mid-1930s.It was based on what Van der Valk (1990) has de-scribed as a fully-fledged program formulatedby a key-figure, the civil engineer Th. K. van

Lohuizen. This program concerned the role ofknowledge and the methods of applied social-science research, identifying the key-topics asthose of employment, population growth andtransport. The program started from the prem-ise that urban planning was never purely a mat-ter of intuition, and that planning must ratherbe based on evidence.

The apotheosis of this program was a reportby a group of planning experts entitled Devel-opment and the Preservation of Naturecompiledbefore the Second World War, but not published

until 1942, which is probably why it did not re-ceive much attention. The report justified pub-lic intervention in land use as laid down underDutch law. For a long time, urban growth hadbeen random, governed by the wishes of devel-opers with the connivance of politicians bent onallowing their communities to grow. However,the Housing Act has for a long time carriedwithin it the principle that the growth of settle-ments ought not to be the outcome of inciden-tal circumstances, but that public authoritiesmust play a leading role in development. Thereport also addressed the fear that planningmight mean favors to some landowners at thedetriment of others whose land was subject toplanning restrictions. In Geddesian fashion, thereport portrayed the role of experts as that ofguarantors of objectivity. Arbitrariness had oc-curred in the past in instances:

Where plans for the future use of land were theproducts of fancy. In the past, fancy has certainlycome into this. However, where plan preparationis in the hands of expert designers, their plansare based on scientific analysis of the situation at

hand. As regards the allocation of land for devel-opment, this means that designation for this pur-


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8 disP 165 2/2006 pose takes place on the basis of suitability froma planning point of view. Looked at in this way,the preparation and implementation of extensionplans allocating certain areas for urban uses andothers for agriculture implies no arbitrariness, nor

the granting of favours. Rather it makes sure thatthe speculative urge of others does not preventthose whose land is the most suitable for develop-ment from realising its potential. (quoted in Fa-ludi, Van der Valk 1994: 60)

Unfortunately, neither Van Lohuizens programnor the 1942 report had much to say aboutthe vital step from evidence to action. This al-lowed urban designers to fill the void, the moreso since there were few civil engineers inter-ested in planning. Instead, geography gradu-ates, called sociografen in The Netherlands,were filling available junior positions as surveyresearchers, but they held little sway over theway survey data were used (Faludi, Van der Valk1994: 84). Anyhow, surveys were notorious fornever providing a complete and unambiguousguide to action. To make things worse, surveyswere not available in time, and so architects feltlittle compunction about disregarding them,at most cherry-picking data that suited theirintuition.

This situation did not change before the early1960s when some geographers came to occupy

positions of authority as professors of what theDutch call planologie. Steigenga, in particular,formulated a program called Van sociale ana-lyse naar social-ruimtelijke constructie (From so-cial analysis to socio-spatial construction) (Stei-genga 1962). He keenly followed the emergentplanning-theoretical debate that was to focusmore and more on the, in his terms, construc-tive step from evidence to action.

Planning-Theoretical Debates

The relationship between knowledge based onevidence and action was the object of planning-theoretical debates in the 1970s and 1980s. Thebattle lines were drawn between proponents ofsubstantive versus procedural theory (Fal-udi 1973). As the name suggests, proponents ofsubstantive theory emphasized understandingthe object of planning by means of theory-for-mation and research. Like the sociographersbefore them, they assumed without much adothat such evidence would provide a basis forpolicy and action. Far from denying the role of

substantive research and theory, proponents ofprocedural theory argued that the step from

knowledge to action required explicit attention.Over time, they grounded their arguments inphilosophy and the methodology of science.

For a while, the critical rationalism of KarlPopper was a favorite source of inspiration

(Camhis 1979; McConnell 1981; Faludi 1986).Best known for his insistence that science pro-gresses by seeking to falsify hypotheses, Popperalso attended to the role of evidence in ways thatcan enlighten this discussion. In his early work,The Logic of Scientific Discovery(1959), he re-jects the claim of logical positivists that scien-tific theory can be induced, as the term goes,from observations. According to Popper, therecan be no observations and no understandingof reality as it is. On the contrary, observation,in particular the interpretation of data, is alwayssubject to scientific argument and is ultimately

a matter of decision by the community of scien-tists. Popper compares this with juridical proce-dures where the verdict on which a judgement isbased is also a matter of decision:

By its decision, the jury accepts, by agreement,a statement about a factual occurrence Thesignificance of this decision lies in the fact that

from it certain consequences can be deduced.In other words, the decision forms the basis forthe application of the system: the verdict playsthe part of a true statement of fact. But it is

clear that the statement need not be true merelybecause the jury has accepted it. This fact is ac-knowledged in the rule allowing a verdict to besquashed or revised. (Popper 1959: 109f.; seeFaludi 1986: 51)

Translated into terms relevant to planning, thisis one of the cornerstones of the so-called deci-sion-centered view of planning (Faludi 1987). Itsays that the definition of the decision-makingsituation is itself the outcome of a series of de-cisions, among others about what to regard asrelevant evidence, and, as such, it is necessar-ily value-laden and political. This reconciles thedecision-centered view with the concerns ex-pressed by Flyvbjerg and Kooiman in the quotesat the beginning of this introduction. As theysay, there can be no stringent separation be-tween facts and values. Rather, the definition ofthe decision-making situation is a matter to besettled in an interactive process of argument in-volving give-and-take.

With others, Faludi has expanded the notionof the definitions of decision-making situationsbeing political into a claim that in cases where,

as in The Netherlands, planning has been consis-tent and cumulative for a long time, such defini-


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disP 165 2/2006 9tions are framed by some overarching planningdoctrine (Faludi, Van der Valk 1994; KorthalsAltes 1995). A similar position is taken by Hajer(1995) in introducing the notion of discoursecoalitions. They both are part of a sociological

turn in planning theory (Faludi 1998).The message from this review of the litera-ture is to emphasize once again that there can beno question of evidence forming a self-evident,objective basis for action. Rather, on methodo-logical grounds, it is clear that what is acceptedas decisive evidence is a matter of choice, and assuch is value-laden and political. The search forevidence, i.e., the formulation of research pro-grams and proposals, is also a political choice,which explains the sometimes contentious dis-cussions around, e.g., the ESPON program andthe subtle arrangements for establishing a bal-

ance between the influence of the Commissionand that of the member states of the EuropeanUnion in guiding it.

As has become evident, past discussionsof such matters have been couched in variousterms. The term evidence-based planning is ofrecent vintage. As Solesbury (2002) explains,and as Davoudi confirms in this issue, it is wed-ded to the program of New Labour for Mod-ernising Britain. As with other aspects of thisphilosophy, the influence of ideas from the USis evident (Healy 2002). Thus, evidence-based

planning operates through evaluation studies,works with indicators, and tries to spread goodpractices; approaches that meanwhile have be-come common in the European Union.

So far, evidence-based planning has re-mained a British concept. Davoudi explores itsroots in the United Kingdom of the late 1990sand early 2000s. Indeed, only a few years ago,Bhme (2002) could report that none of hisScandinavian colleagues seemed to have heardabout this concept. Which does not, of course,mean to say that there was no evidence-basedplanning taking place. The concept as such didnot enter the European discourse until very re-cently, at the informal ministerial meeting onterritorial cohesion at Rotterdam in Novem-ber 2004 (Faludi, Waterhout 2005; Schmeitz2005). There it was decided to produce an evi-dence-based document drawing on the work ofESPON. Subsequently, at Luxembourg in May2005, a scoping document, The Territorial Stateand Perspectives of the European Union (Ter-ritorial State), was presented. It is now in theprocess of being elaborated by successive EUpresidencies and due to be completed under

the German presidency in the first half of 2007,with the date and venue of the presentation

fixed for May in Leipzig surely no accident.After all, it was at Leipzig where the basics ofthe European Spatial Development Perspective(see Faludi, Waterhout 2002) were fixed in 1994.A brief look at this process may provide us with

an idea of what evidence-based planning couldactually mean, but note that elsewhere in thisissue, Bhme and Schn expand upon this.

ESPON in Context

ESPON is a research network financed by theEuropean Commission under Article 53 of theINTERREG Community Initiative with 29 coun-tries participating: the 25 member states of theEuropean Union (EU) plus the two accessionstates Bulgaria and Romania, as well as Norway

and Switzerland. The program consists of morethan 30 projects carried out by an internationalconsortia of research institutes from all overEurope. ESPON was set-up in 2002, but the firstidea dates back to 1990 when, in Turin underthe Italian presidency, the EU ministers respon-sible for spatial planning discussed Europeanspatial planning (Faludi, Waterhout 2002). In1999, these discussions led to the adoption ofthe European Spatial Development Perspective(ESDP; CEC 1999), being the first, althoughinformal, EU spatial planning document and a

major feat in planning history. However, accord-ing to its makers, the ESDP lacked a firm know-ledge base about Europes spatial organizationand development. Rather than being based onevidence, the ESDP was a consensus documentreflecting compromises between various inter-ests based on the appreciation of stakeholdersof where national spatial trends were headingand what the issues were. It was for this reasonthat soon after the ESDP was approved, it wasdecided to set up ESPON as one of the twelveitems of the Tampere ESDP Action Plan.

However, there were institutional issues thattook time to settle (Van Gestel, Faludi 2005).Now, after four years of operation, and withthe many interim and some final results avail-able, ESPON has gained recognition as a usefulsource on spatial or territorial development inEurope. Already, ESPON is starting to influencenational, regional and local planning practices.Also, its results are being used by the EuropeanCommission, for instance, in its Third CohesionReport (CEC 2004). Of course, as indicated pre-viously, ESPON also fed into the making of thedocument on The Territorial State and Perspec-

tives of the European Union.The latter document represents a kind of fol-


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10 disP 165 2/2006 low-up to the ESDP. It is being formulated byrepresentatives of the same member states andsometimes by the very same people that wereinstrumental in bringing the ESDP about, butthe context has changed through the addition

of new EU members. The Territorial Statehasmore or less the same objectives as the ESDP,but it uses language that reflects the discoursesof the 2000s about jobs, growth and competi-tiveness. Probably the greatest challenge is toinfluence the European Commission and thedevelopment of EU sector policies. Although theESDP was a success in terms of its application inand by the member states, it failed to influenceCommission services, other than DG Regio. Theinformal status of the ESDP is basically to blamefor this (Nordregio 2006). Because of the spatialimpact of EU policies on the territories of mem-

ber states and their regions, planners from themember states, in contrast, consider the ESDPimportant (Ravesteyn, Evers 2004; Robert et al.2001).

Another major objective of the TerritorialStateexercise is to prepare for EU territorial co-hesion policy. Territorial cohesion is to be foundin the Constitution as a new competence sharedbetween the Union and the member states. Asthe reader knows though, after the French andDutch referenda, the Constitution is on a backburner, so any explicit EU territorial cohesion

policy is an uncertain long-term prospect atbest.

As indicated, because of its informal sta-tus and also because of the abstract languageit uses, the ESDP was unable to influence thedevelopment of an EU sector policy. The as-sumption is that, by being more concrete andby invoking the evidence drawn from ESPON,the Territorial Statedocument might be moresuccessful. Member states and DG Regio of-ficials have firm views as regards the kind ofevidence needed: hard evidence such as mapsand quantifiable data that lend themselves tounambiguous interpretation. This should helpadd substance to the communicative approachthat was used in the ESDP process and whichhad apparently not been strong enough to con-vince Commission officials responsible for sec-tor policies.

To this end, the ESPON program takes threedirections: the first elaborates on the principlesand themes of the ESDP; the second assessesthe spatial impacts of various EU policies, atopic also discussed in the ESDP, while the thirddeals with cross-thematic projects that aim to

bring consistency to ESPON outcomes and tocombine them into workable packages. In this

way, ESPON should lead to a better understand-ing of the organization of the European territoryand of spatial trends and relationships. In so do-ing, ESPON is intended to further strengthenthe discourse that was created by the ESDP.

Whether this will help to achieve more co-herence between EU policies in the end remainsto be seen. One thing is certain though: whetheror not this will be the case will not depend solelyon the evidence provided. Once again, contraryto what the term might suggest, evidence-basedplanning is a political process.

Institutional Perspective

The case of ESPON and the Territorial Statedocument is interesting because it is still rela-

tively new and seeks ways to achieve a moreprominent position for spatial or territorial pol-icy as an institutionalized field. This processcan be viewed in terms of discourse, a conceptstanding for an ensemble of ideas, conceptsand categorizations that are produced, repro-duced and transformed in a particular set ofpractices and through which meaning is given tophysical and social realities and which perme-ates regional, national and supranational policy-making circuits. (Hajer 1995: 44)

Discourse thus acts as a filter and in so doing

frames messages and situations. Hajer (1995)calls the struggle for discursive dominance ahegemonic battle. The main aim is to make ac-tors look at the world through particular lensesshaped by the dominant discourse. Usually, suchbattles are won by convincing third parties (poli-ticians, media, etc.) of the logic and importanceof the arguments put forward. Thus, a prerequi-site is that the discourse itself is strongly devel-oped. In the case of territorial cohesion, this isexactly what ESPON attempts to achieve.

On the face of it, the ESPON case seems tobe different from the Dutch, French and Ger-man cases where evidence is being created inthe context of a well-established tradition ofspatial policy-making. In fact though, the DutchNational Institute for Spatial Research and theFrench Observatoireare just as old, or new, asESPON. Much as ESPON, they have to provetheir added-value for policy-making. However,the question is: For which policy? With the newset-up, clearly something has changed as re-gards the spatial planning policies of both coun-tries. Are there also hegemonic battles going onor is something else at stake? And is the German

situation as solid as it seems? The case studieswill cast light on these issues.


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disP 165 2/2006 11Dif ferent dynamics

Because of its political character, it is not alwayseasy to invoke evidence. In many cases, policyrequires evidence that is not available, at least

not in time to be relevant for the resolution ofthe issues of the day. There can be various rea-sons for this. For instance, researchers may havestarted from different assumptions than pol-icy-makers. There may be a mismatch betweenthe initial hypotheses and how thinking about acertain topic has evolved. Due to an acute andunforeseen policy problem, the focus of policy-makers may have shifted, requiring a particularkind of evidence, but one that is not immedi-ately at hand. In general, the problem of scarcityof relevant information is related to the differ-ent dynamics of the policy-making process and

the research process.While research normally follows a set pro-

cess of formulating hypotheses, research de-sign, collecting empirical evidence and draw-ing conclusions, a process that has a relativelylong gestation period, policy development andimplementation tend to be less predictable andmore dynamic. Policy is often heavily influencedby events of the day. It is therefore easy to seethat in such cases there can hardly ever be a di-rect relationship between a research programand the delivery of a specific policy. Of course,

there will always be exceptions where policy-makers have the opportunity to have a directimpact on research (see Zonneveld, Waterhout2005), but generally this will not be the case. Sothere is every reason for reflecting on how policyand research can dovetail.

Closely related to the above situation are theconditions under which researchers are allowedto work and the extent to which they can with-stand pressure. While contract research some-times means a high dependency, the relationbetween policy-makers and semi-independentresearch establishments, such as in the fourcases under consideration in this issue, may beless tight. This means that researchers can goabout their work with less pressure and inter-ference from policy-makers. The positive side isthat outcomes may be more reliable. The down-side is that they may be less relevant for pol-icy-making. More direct involvement of policy-makers in research could obviate this problem.However, this in turn can mean that the resultsare less reliable. From a methodological andorganizational perspective, the balance betweenindependent research and policy relevance is

difficult to establish.

Conclusions

The concept of evidence-based planning as suchmay be new, but, as the above has shown, thisis true neither for the idea nor for its practice.

There are the historical examples that have ledover time to surveys becoming part of the clas-sic planning tradition, as in UK and Dutch plan-ning law. However, the context within which andthe purposes for which evidence is being col-lected has changed from the purpose of Romanof tax collection to the self-assessment of per-formance against indicators as defined underthe Lisbon Strategy. In the former case, the ad-vantage is exclusive to central authorities. In thelatter case, the learning is mutual: The bench-mark and the best practice emerge as privilegedinstruments to catalyze the space of European

government, to implicate its partners in gamesof mutual learning and solidaristic rivalry, andto ensure they remain committed to the taskof maximizing performance. (Walters, Haahr2005: 142)

The purpose of this special issue is to studyand evaluate the theory and practice of evi-dence-based planning using four recent exam-ples as case studies. Apart from giving an ac-count of the specifics of the situation, each casestudy addresses questions such as:

The assumptions underlying the role of evi-

dence in decision-making on planning issues.The organizational form: How is the collectionand interpretation of evidence being organized?How can the gap between evidence and politicaldecision-making [in terms in the title of the Ter-ritorial Statedocument between the state andthe perspectives] be bridged?

What is the use of approaches designed tobridge this gap, for instance, scenarios, spatialvisions, models and, more generally, creativity?

What is the role of indicators in collecting,analyzing and presenting evidence?

How do stakeholders participate?

Does evidence improve political decision-making about planning issues? Does it createtrust in expertise? Does it help with transpar-ency of outcomes? Does it help with the deliveryof policy?

Between them, the case studies, along withthe theoretical argument in the paper by Da-voudi, should cast light on one of the trends ofthe 2000s: evidence-based planning.

Note

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesday_book#

The_Survey


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disP 165 2/2006 13Scott, J. (1998): Seeing like a State: How CertainSchemes to Improve the Human Condition haveFailed.New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.

Steigenga, W. (1962): Van sociale analyse naar so-ciaal-ruimtelijke constructie, Inaugurele rede.Amsterdam: Universiteit van Amsterdam.

Valk. A. J.van der (1990):Het levenswerk van Th. K.van Lohuizen 18901956: De eenheid van hetstedebouwkundige werk. Delft: Delftste Univer-sitaire Pers.

Walters, W.; Haahr, J. H. (2005): Governing Europe:Discourse, Governmentality and European Inte-gration.London, New York: Routledge.

Waterhout, B. (2005): Territorial cohesion: Dis-courses underlying, Paper given at the seminarsponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Pol-icy on Territorial Cohesion and the EuropeanModel of Society, Austrian Institute of Regional

Research and Spatial Planning. Vienna, 1213

July 2005.Zonneveld, W.; Waterhout, B. (2005): Visions on

Territorial Cohesion. Town Planning Review76(1): 1527.

Dipl.-Ing. Dr. techn.Andreas FaludiProfessor of Spatial PlanningSystems in Europe

Delft University of TechnologyOTB Research Institute for Hous-ing, Urban and Mobility StudiesP.O. Box 50302600 GA DelftThe [email protected]

Bas Waterhout (MA)ResearcherDelft University of TechnologyOTB Research Institute forHousing, Urban and MobilityStudiesP.O. Box 50302600 GA DelftThe [email protected]

Documents

DisP 165 Introducing Evidence-Based Planning