Green Planning

Green planning is the establishment of goals, policies, and procedures for the natural environment of a specific region. In the Netherlands, green planning has gained significance since the early 1990s and its basic premises – devolution, integration, and stakeholder involvement – are now widely accepted. Much research has been done on the strategic aspects of green planning, but institutional analyses are scarce. This book provides an institutional analysis of green planning. It explores the institutional constraints and opportunities for green planning and seeks new ways to deal with them. The book should be of special interest for academics, green planners and students of political and environmental studies.

Green Planning explores the history of green planning in the Netherlands. It conceives green planning as a response to the rational-synoptic planning tradition in the 1970s and 1980s. As green planning developed during the 1990s, the New Public Management increasingly influenced it. The New Public Management is a forceful ‘movement’ that aims at a more effective and responsive public administration. This book addresses questions about the influence of the New Public Management on green planning. What narrative do the advocates of the New Public Management tell? How are new managerial planning approaches juxtaposed with older bureaucratic ones? Can we speak of a deep institutional change? Are we moving toward better planning methods?

Frans Padt graduated in geographical hydrology. He has more than 15-years professional experience in green planning as a governmental official and as a consultant. This book is his Ph.D. thesis on which he worked when he was affiliated with the Department of Political Sciences of the Environment at Radboud University Nijmegen. He now works as a lecturer at the same department.