The strategic spatial planning experience led to the uncovering of the typical mechanisms involved in addressing conflicts that emerge as a result of spatial development. The main aim of the book is to identify interrelations between governance rescaling-the responsiveness of planning collaboration to the tensions and dilemmas that arise-and designing and visioning, i.e. the consideration of spatial imaginaries during planning procedures.The experiences provided in this book prove that these mechanisms enhance each other: Design-led approaches influence the formation of governance and enhance hard and soft governance integration; vice versa, governance rescaling is enhanced by visioning and the visualisation of (new) planning spaces through ‘travelling images’. Interrelations between them provide a set of interesting propositions for further research. Firstly, the assumption that regional design plays a role in governance models makes interaction between actors central. Modes of co-governance gain relevance in the attempt to understand how regional design performs in governance rescaling and scalar (re)structuration processes. A second proposition concerns the ability of design to bridge gaps between different forms of planning and planning frameworks. Due to its explorative and reflexive nature, it may have the particular ability to contribute to consolidating planning with different degrees of formality, at different levels of scale and/or focused on different planning sectors.

The book Shaping Regional Futures: Designing and Visioning in Governance Rescaling discusses the roles of regional designing and visioning in the formation of regional territorial governance. It aims to increase our understanding of (1) how the recognition of spatial dynamics and the imagination of spatial futures inform and are informed by planning frameworks and (2) how such design processes influence cooperation and collaboration on planning in metropolitan regions. The book gathers theoretical reflections on these topics and illustrates them through practical experiences in several European countries. The book appeals to a community of readers with an interest in experimental strategic spatial planning. It is innovative in the way it associates this interest with knowledge from the design field.