The Neoliberalisation of Strategic Spatial Planning

Despite the fact that strategic spatial planning practices recently have taken ‘a neoliberal turn’ in many European countries, ‘neoliberalism’ and ‘neoliberalisation’ are rarely used as analytical concepts in planning theory. This paper seeks to fill in part of this gap by examining the relationship between neoliberalism and strategic spatial planning. This is done through an analysis how the key theoretical ideas underpinning strategic spatial planning might be appropriated by neoliberal political agendas in planning practice. In conclusion, the paper argues that neoliberalism and neoliberalisation are helpful analytical concepts to examine and understand contemporary transformations of spatial planning discourses and practices, and that planning theory by adopting such analytical concepts can play an important role in assisting critical empirical studies of how spatial planning practices are being transformed under neoliberalism.