AESOP Annual Congresses

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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14235/150
Every year, usually in July, AESOP holds its Annual Congress, hosted by one of member universities. Congresses are a wide platform of exchange in the fields of research, education and practice in planning. They usually run around 20 thematic tracks and host outstanding invited speakers.

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Browsing AESOP Annual Congresses by Author "Busscher, Tim"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Achieving spatial quality in integrated planning: an evaluation of the Dutch ‘room for the river’ program using qualitative comparative analysis
    (AESOP, 2017) Verweij, Stefan; van den Broek, Jelte; Busscher, Tim; van den Brink, Margo
    In line with recent trends towards area-oriented planning, flood risk management has seen a shift from a water control strategy towards a water accommodation strategy. In the Netherlands, this resulted in the policy program Room for the River. The projects in this policy program are expected to achieve two key objectives: first, the accommodation of higher flood levels, i.e., water safety, and second, improving the spatial quality of the riverine areas. Whilst research has shown that the program is successful with respect to increasing water safety, less is known about its second objective. This paper thus has two aims: (1) assessing the extent to which the program has been able to achieve spatial quality and (2) identifying the conditions that explain this. To these aims, archival and survey data were collected, and analyzed using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). The analysis shows that there are various combinations of conditions for achieving spatial quality. We conclude that these different combinations entail different strategies, and that by means of those, the program management has been successful in achieving spatial quality in the Room for the River program.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Redevelopment of Transport Infrastructure as Driver for Accelerating Societal Transitions A Regenerative Perspective on Infrastructure Planning
    (AESOP, 2022) Leendertse, Wim; Arts, Jos; Busscher, Tim
    The planning and development of transport infrastructure networks increasingly involves environmental degradation, climatic impacts and societal trends. However, infrastructure planning has mainly focused on the gradual improvement and expansion of transport infrastructure networks themselves. In practice, infrastructure planners have rarely reflected on the role of infrastructure networks in enabling or constraining broader sustainability transitions. This may be about to change. In many Western countries transport infrastructure networks have been developed in the early to mid-twentieth century and much infrastructure approaches its ‘best before’ date and enters the phase of transition and renewal. That much transport infrastructure is physically deteriorating and changing as a result of ageing is clear: in the USA a considerable part of the 1 trillion dollar Infrastructure Plan of the Biden administration will be invested into infrastructure renewal, in Germany plans are afoot to increase investments into the renewal of the railway network of over 50% up to 86 billion euro, and in the Netherlands the Replacement and Renovation Program of Rijkswaterstaat of 1 billion euro a year is expected to grow vastly (Hijdra et al., 2015). The significant need of infrastructure refurbishment presents a ‘window of opportunity’ to broaden the infrastructure redevelopment options in order to enable wider sustainability transitions. That is, transport infrastructure renewal could create conditions favouring, for example, on-going transitions such as the energy transition or the transition towards a circular economy. A growing amount of literature emphasizes that investments in the transport infrastructure network can be utilized as a driver for accelerating wider transitions (e.g., Hijdra et al., 2015; Leendertse et al., 2016; Arts et al. 2021). Given the fact that transport infrastructure investments are often location-specific and project-based, it is important to not only focus on the institutional conditions of the infrastructure system in isolation, but more focus on how transport infrastructure renewal projects relate to spatial developments instigated on the basis of transitions in other systems.