The innovative potential of contextualising legal norms in processes of urban governance: the case of sustainable area development

The proposal epitomises the tension between policy and law, and investigates this dynamic relationship with regards to issues of sustainable area development in the transformative setting of urban peripheries. Cities face the challenge to integrate area development (housing, economy, infrastructure) in urban regions with the conditions of sustainability (environment, water). With regards to the tension between policy and law the proposal first notices the clash of two steering philosophies in practices of area development: on the one hand the model of ?interactive governance?, which turns away from formal pathways and aims at adaptive practices of co-production by stakeholders, thus making a positive use of specific regional circumstances, and, on the other hand, the existence of hierarchical policy regimes and legal rules at national and European level. By combining the different pragmatist and institutional motives, the researchers attempt an innovative approach, which is labelled as the ?contextualisation of legal and social rules?. This model pays tribute to the value of general principal norms and legal rules in order to protect standards of environmental quality. However, the way in which the norms should be respected leaves room for different solutions and contextualisation under different regional circumstances. The research is planned in three international regions, respectively Randstad North, Metropolitan Paris and the Greater Manchester Region.