Regional planning is more than the sum of single municipality planning
Predominant arguments for urban development are socio-economic, while ecologists warn from impacts on biodiversity. Is there an urban planning solution that can achieve both spatial planning objectives?
In a recent publication, Amin Khiali-Miab and colleagues in CHECNET project presented a network optimisation approach to identify trade-offs between socio-economic and ecological objectives. By coupling complex multi-layered settlement and habitat networks, the local urban growth trends linked to regional socio-economic and ecological trade-offs. It is also shown that there is no single urban development solution that increases the socio-economic status of an urban area while securing its ecological quality. Rather, this analysis presents a pool of urban growth solutions. These solutions however can only be achieved if municipalities coordinate their development among each other. This calls for a more integral regional planning.
You can read more about this new approach here:
external page https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cacint.2021.100078