Strategic spatial planning and the longer range

This article is focused around a discussion of the nature of strategic spatial planning, as exemplified in the planning literature and in examples from Vancouver, Hong Kong and China more generally. The primary author, John Friedmann, argues that too much attention in planning practices has been given to the production of strategic plans and too little to locally‐based studies of the dynamics of urban socio‐spatial development. In commentaries from the perspectives of planning academics and practitioners from different parts of the world, the discussion is enlarged to link the spatial planning discussions to the management literature on strategic planning, to stress the well‐established process emphasis in much contemporary strategic spatial planning work, to raise some positive roles for formal plans in planning processes and to highlight recent European experiences in strategic spatial planning.