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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Kropp, C. (2015): Exnovation – Nachhaltige Innovationen als Prozesse der Abschaffung. In: Arnold, A.; David, M.; Hanke, G.; Sonnberger, M. (Hrsg.): Innovation – Exnovation. Über Prozesse des Abschaffens und Erneuerns in der Nachhaltigkeitstransformation. Marburg, 13–34. = Ökologie und Wirtschaftsforschung 99.

O’Brien, K.; Carmona, R.; Gram-Hanssen, I.; Hochachka, G.; Sygna, L.; Rosenberg, M. (2023): Fractal approaches to scaling transformations to sustainability. In: Ambio 52, 9, 1448–1461. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-023-01873-w

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Published

Issue publication date 2025-12-30 (version 2)
Published online first 2025-11-27 (version 1)

Versions

Issue

Vol. 83 No. 6 (2025)

Section

Commentary

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Copyright (c) 2025 Antje Bruns

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Articles in Raumforschung und Raumordnung – Spatial Research and Planning are published under a Creative Commons license. From Vol. 79 No. 2 (2021), the license applied is CC BY 4.0. From Vol. 77 No. 1 to Vol. 79 No.1, articles were published under a CC BY-SA license. Earlier volumes have been re-published by oekom 2022 under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License CC BY 4.0. 

How to Cite

1.
Bruns A. Between Urgency and Inertia: Spatial Planning in Transformation. RuR [Internet]. 2025 Dec. 30 [cited 2026 May 17];83(6):506-8. Available from: https://rur.oekom.de/index.php/rur/article/view/3562

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