Regional Studies Association Research Network, “How to govern fundamental

This paper problematises the concept and practice of integrative planning – one of the central tenants of sustainability. We contend that, in practice, planning for the broader goal of spatial integration has the effect of producing a fundamentally paradoxical and contradictory social space, a form of urbanisation (or suburbanisation) that reinforces some of the problems which sustainability seeks to address. Drawing on an empirical base of observations of transport integration initiatives in the region of the Glatt Valley, and interview work in the field, this paper examines how integrative spatial planning strategies sanction further fragmentation. Observed in the Glatt Valley were attempts to consolidate infrastructure towards optimising capital accumulation along particular axes of flows. Housing, transport, and economic development were three key areas that required integration. The apparent integration of the region, however, is contrasted against a fragmented field of governance and an ambiguous set of winners and losers. The research confirms that integrative strategies can entrench and exacerbate existing tendencies of fragmented governance, and in fact, generate new rounds of fragmentation with respect to land use and social worlds