Swiss spatial planning and development
17 Apr | Prof Hans Heinimann will introduce the state and challenges of the Swiss spatial planning system and its embedding into the political system, and include possible solutions.
Spatial development aims at controlling land-use in a resourceful way, aiming (1) to enable the provision of essential societal services, (2) to coordinate land-use activities, (3) to protect the natural and cultural heritage, and (4) to secure public acceptance. The Swiss spatial planning system emerged only in the early 1980s as an outcome of a force field of federalism, private ownership rights and etatism, which was fed by welfare theory and the theory of communicative action. The result was a rather weak, decentralized arrangement with only little power of the regions and of the federal authorities. While the system definitively provided significant achievements, unintended side effects emerged, in particular, an over/undersupply of residential areas and the dispersion of property rights, resulting in the so-called "tragedy of the anti-commons" problem.
The presentation introduces the Swiss spatial planning system and its embedding into the political system. It then addresses some challenges that the system is facing, including options for possible solutions. Looking at spatial planning as a collective action problem there is a need to look at property rights arrangements and to revisit approaches of public participation critically.
About the speaker
Hans Rudolf Heinimann is professor of Forest Engineering at ETH Zurich since 1991. He started office as faculty member with the former Department of Forest and Wood Research at ETH Zurich, where he was promoted to full professor in 1997. He was visiting professor at the Forest Engineering Department at the Oregon State University in US from 1999 to 2000; Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Tokyo, Japan in summer 2009; and Centre for Higher Education, Learning and Teaching (CHELT) at the Australian National University in 2013. From 2004 to 2009, he was a fellow at the Collegium Helveticum, a centre of advanced studies jointly sponsored by ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich, focusing on cross-disciplinary research.