Between Urgency and Inertia: Spatial Planning in Transformation

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14512/rur.3562

Keywords:

Spatial planning, Transformation, Sustainability, Exnovation, Unlearning, Reflexivity

Abstract

The urgency of fundamental socio-ecological transformation is scientifically uncontested, yet institutions – including spatial planning – predominantly act sluggishly, reinforcing existing paths of unsustainability. Despite normative orientations such as the sustainability principle within the German spatial planning law, planning practice has so far struggled to enable and accelerate socio-ecological transformations towards sustainability. This comment highlights the tensions between planning’s ambitions and its realities, emphasizes the importance of exnovation and unlearning as key dimensions of socio-ecological change, and argues for a reflexive reorientation of spatial planning. Only by critically examining its own role between stabilization and transformation can spatial planning become an active agent of change.

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References

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Published

2025-11-27

Issue

Section

Commentary

How to Cite

1.
Bruns A. Between Urgency and Inertia: Spatial Planning in Transformation. RuR [Internet]. 2025 Nov. 27 [cited 2025 Dec. 16];83(5). Available from: https://rur.oekom.de/index.php/rur/article/view/3562

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