MaProLeit: Material vs. prozedural guiding principles of spatialplanning in transition

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Christian Diller
• Subject Area: City Planning, Spatial Planning, Transportation and Infrastructure Planning, Landscape Planning
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 522473128

The topic of this research project ist the coparison and particularly the interdependence between two basic types of guiding principles of spatial planning: Material and procedural general principles. In a pointed formulation material general principles are related to the (built) results of spatial planning, procedural principles to the planning process. In historical transformations the material guiding principles mark the main ideas of the eras about function and design of towns and regions. In procedural guiding principles ideas concerning the shaping of planning processes are formulated. So far these both strands of discourse of material and procedural guiding principles were separated. In this project they will be matched. The following goals and leading questions will be relevant: 1. Historical orientated retracing of the transformation of material and procedural guiding principles of spatial planning: Which material and procedural guiding principles were formulated in which eras, which interdependencies can be stated and which social discourses and frame conditions had and influence? 2. Content Analysis of current plannings: material and procedural guiding principles are formulated in several types of spatial planning and how are they interconnected? 3. Analysis of form and function of guiding principles in the view of planners. Which material and procedural guiding principles have which relevance in the daily work of planners, how are the related? By which values are they influenced and with which role-understandings are they related? The methodic elements of the 2-years-project are: long term analyses of professional journals, analyses of current planning documents, a quantitative orientated expert-survey and an expert-workshop. At the end of the project an assessment of the potential research-gain of a deepening (case studies) research project will be given.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants