PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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10.3.8 The Role of Spatial Storylines and Leitbilder in Shaping Policy
Given the need to develop unifying concepts for decision-making, the question of
the integrating power of spatial storylines and metaphors suggests itself. If language
frames policy, does this also mean spatial storylines and Leitbilder in turn re-shape
spatial realities? I am more skeptical here. I believe that my analysis of spatial storylines
for transport investments suggests that their usefulness as instruments for spatial planning
is ultimately more limited than planners like to believe. First of all, it seems that
Leitbilder and storylines need to have some empirical basis in reality in order to
successfully induce policy-change. A related insight is that the structural premises for the
successful spatial de-concentration or re-organization of socio-economic activity change
over time, resulting in different prospects for different spatial visions at different times.
Rather befitting for the structural premises of the post-Fordist city in the electronic
information age, spatial catchphrases such as “polycentricity” or “network society” have
gained currency in planning and policy-making circles in recent years. However, finding
appropriate spatial terms to express changes and shifts in the real-existing spatial
structures is but a first step. Proclaiming the rise of the “Zwischenstadt” (Sieverts 1998)
or the “Regional City” (Calthorpe and Fulton 2001) alone will not limit the advent of
sprawl and suburbanization. Simply finding a more benign-sounding term for an ongoing
spatial trend does not make it any less environmentally harmful. The same is true for the
even more ambitious re-issuance of the “Compact city” ideal, i.e. a mere proclamation of
the antidote. Likewise will the propagation of a simple-yet-clever drawing of a
polycentric “European grape” in and of itself not be able to counteract a further