Het politieke landschap van de ruimtelijke ordening en gebiedsontwikkeling

Spatial planning has become contested ground in Dutch politics. After decades of a broadly shared belief in strategic spatial planning by central government and comprehensive planning by local and regional authorities, the balance of political thought has changed in recent years. The ministry of housing and spatial planning was abolished and the traditional link between central government housing policy and spatial planning policies was cut. Central government involvement in strategic planning is to be decentralised altogether and planning legislation is to be simplified. In the fragmented political landscape of the Netherlands, spatial planning policies have become contested ground. The sudden changes to the Dutch spatial planning system have come as a surprise to many practitioners, as well as scholars. As the party-political dimension of spatial planning and policies was never studied, there is little knowledge of the variety of political thought on spatial planning policies. The shift in political thought remained undetected. This research has mapped this unknown political territory. On the basis of qualitative analysis of partypolitical documents analysis and working sessions with politicians and practitioners, the 23 most relevant political values that guide political decision-making on spatial development issues were defined. Mind-mapping software was used to analyse, structure, interpret and define the variety of political values found in the analysis. The 23 political key values are charted on the Political value map of spatial development issues1. This chart provides an overview of the variety of Dutch political thought in this field and is structured along the lines of five basic normative positions people tend to follow in their moral decisions. In this publication, the value-oriented research strategy is described and the outcome of 23 party-political key values on spatial development issues is presented. In the final chapter, guidelines are formulated for the practical use of the Political value map of spatial development issues. Values are words that can (and will) have a different meaning to different people in different contexts. In practice, many varieties can be found of similar normative meanings with different words. The Political value map of spatial development issues is a tool that helps practitioners to interpret these words. This allows them to make an analysis of the political landscape around their spatial plans or spatial development projects for the preparation of proper political decision-making