Enabling strategic projects: assessment of key instruments for national spatial planning

This research focuses on the instruments and tools which national planning agencies have at their disposal to intervene and get involved in strategic projects. The research examines how strategic national visions are translated into interventions in local projects across the Dutch territory. This research is driven by question of how to put vision closer to projects. We also explore concrete devices available for national spatial planning agencies to play a direct role in local strategic developments. VROM, as the ministry responsible for environment, housing and spatial planning, occupies the focus of this research. VROM has a central role in coordination and strategic planning. For this reason, we explore how national planning agencies in general, and VROM in particular, can bring added value amid less centralized governance structures and more complex issues surrounding stakeholder interaction and decisionmaking. In particular, we analyze the instruments that VROM uses to involve itself in strategic local developments with an attempt to assess their performance and effects on concrete decision making processes.