*Celebrating Spatial Planning at TU Delft: 2008-2019. Edited by Stead, Bracken, Rooij & Rocco

Urbanism . TU Delft 49
European Spatial Planning
MARCIN DABROWSKI
Over the years, “European spatial
planning” has become something
of an umbrella term for all sorts of
EU-related impacts on national planning
systems, as well as a way of comparing
these systems in order to assess commonalities
and differences, and to find
driving forces which could explain the
changes within them. Both aspects have
become increasingly important for the
research portfolio of the Spatial Planning
and Strategy Section, not only through
research projects carried out by the Section
but also through the track record of
academics arriving into it: their skills and
knowledge. The arrival of Vincent Nadin in
2008 was really critical in this respect, as
he was one of the authors of the comparative
study “The EU Compendium of Spatial
Planning Systems”. Although published in
1997, this report is still referred to in all
manner of studies right up to the present.
As part of an exchange between Urbanism
and the OTB Department in the Faculty of
Architecture and the Built Environment,
Dominic Stead joined the Section in 2010,
which also contributed to a strengthening
in its comparative research, as well as in
the masters’ and post-masters’ (EMU) education
portfolio. Other people involved in
European spatial-planning research and
education arrived in the Section later. The
Chair of Wil Zonneveld was moved from
OTB to Urbanism in 2014, and Andreas Faludi
acquired guest status within the Section
in 2017. In 2016, the Section led a consortium
which successfully tendered for a
prestigious project comparing 35 national
planning systems across Europe as part of
the 2020 ESPON programme (ESPON: European
Territorial Observatory Network):
Comparative Analysis of Territorial Governance
and Spatial Planning Systems in
Europe (COMPASS). Today, the section is
considered to be one of the leading centres
of research in European spatial planning.
Fig. 30: Street scene in Amsterdam. Photo by R. Rocco.