Conclusions: Planning for sustainable urban flows

This section has explored the contribution and response of local environmental planning to the new logic of infrastructure management emerging in response to regulatory, commercial and technological changes. Three case studies have documented in different ways how these shifts in infrastructure management are being reflected and considered in the arena of local planning, from formalized activities of spatial or sectoral planning to Local Agenda 21 initiatives. Focusing on the issue of interconnectedness between local environmental planning and infrastructure management, the section has identified how and why connection is currently limited, what new opportunities for linkage are emerging under the new conditions and what knowledge is necessary to improve linkage to the benefit of urban environmental performance in the future.