Tenth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

In the last decades, the prefix “soft” has been used to explain the flexibilization of hard concepts and processes such as planning (soft planning) or law (soft law). Soft planning can be understood as a planning process that crosses and dissolves administrative territorial boundaries introducing new governance practices, aiming at promote place-based integrated territorial approaches. Based on soft planning literature and their application in the transformation of territories in Europe, specifically in Catalonia, the following questions were raised: How does the EU foster Local-based Integrated Territorial Approaches and how does Catalonia deal with it within the context of its statutory system? How has Neighborhoods’ Law been fostering processes of working across boundaries, based on strategic management cooperation and community-based thinking, being complementary to statutory planning? Did this legal instrument promote the transfer of powers and responsibilities between the different tiers of government, encapsulating processes of decentralization? How has it been contributing to the emergence of a new typology of constructed spaces based in the local community participation? Focused on the concept of soft planning, this article considers these and other interrelated questions through the analysis of a Place-based Integrated Instrument in Catalonia, Spain, the Neighborhoods’ Law, as a soft planning tool, and 93 urban regeneration projects designed and implemented under its scope as a study cases. Its characteristics (programming, strategic frameworks, stakeholders’ relationship, and financial methodology) and the challenges arising from its projects improving cities’ landscape, justify the analysis.