Agglomeration Luxembourg and Zurich North: A research exercise in relational urban comparison

The SUSTAIN_GOV research team aims at investigating sustainable spatial development policies in the context of governance, both with respect to both Luxembourg and, by way of comparison, Switzerland, a country: often considered at the cutting edge of innovative approaches in spatial planning policies in Europe; similar to Lux in terms of economic success, a high degree of internationalisation, and patterns of urbanization; with a model of spatial planning grounded in the legal and political context of direct democracy, which may provide insights into modes of participation and horizontal consensus building in Luxembourg. Particular focus is placed on the so called Glattal-Stadt in the area of Zurich Nord. The primary objective is to examine ways obstacles in governance can be overcome to realize programmes of integrated sustainable development. The project builds directly on the foundations established by the “SUSTAINLUX Project” that has thus far shown that the Grand Duchy’s policy, planning practices, and institutions of governance remain underdeveloped. In light of intense urbanization pressures, the strong strains on land resources and infrastructure, and the political dilemmas these issues raise, policy, planning and governance practices in the Grand Duchy fail to implement strategies of development, and are particularly deficient in the domain citizen involvement in public decision-making. Through relational comparative study, SUSTAIN_GOV aims to bring into focus a more nuanced scientific understanding of par-ticipation, governance, and integrated sustainable spatial development, and an in-depth evaluation of existing spatial planning, policy, and governance patterns in the Grand Duchy. The research is informed by set of conceptual approaches that shape current urban and re-gional literatures: 1) the organizing processes of social, institutional, and political arrangements as seen in the works of Krueger and Gibbs 2012); 2) Brenner's (2004) work on state restructuring, scale and re-scaling; and, 3) the ‘comparative turn’ in urban studies as seen in the works of Ward (2010) and Robinson (2011).