Interview: David Evers

David Evers works for the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) and is the Dutch ESPON Contact Point for the ESPON 2013 Programme. He kindly answered the questions proposed by the ESPON UK Contact Point by email at the end of February 2010.

1. Can you tell us what attracted you into planning and how your career developed?

My American undergraduate degree is in political science (Reed College, Portland, Oregon). After graduating, I moved to California and started working and studying photography at the San Francisco Art Institute. In my photographic explorations of the city, I became fascinated with how the physical environment impacts and structures peoples lives, and realized that I should somehow combine this newfound passion with my academic background. Being of Dutch decent, I considered Amsterdam along with several American universities for graduate work. Ultimately, the prospect of adventure, along with the esteemed reputation of the Netherlands in planning, motivated me to continue my education abroad.

2. Coming to Europe, did you see significant similarities and / or significant differences to the kind of planning that you knew in the US?

My first introduction to American planning, ironically, was through the lens of Dutch planning. Growing up in the United States, I was keenly aware of the product of planning, but not the process behind it. As a Dutch planning student, I wrote my thesis with Andreas Faludi and a visiting American professor from Florida (Efriam Ben-Zadok) on comparing the two systems. One of the major differences I found was that the Dutch approach is much more spatial and visual: even the national level contained multicoloured cartographic images of desired developments. Floridas plan, on the other hand, read more like a legal contract and did not even contain a single map: it was all about steering development with regulations.

                             "the Dutch approach is much more spatial and visual: even the national level contained multicoloured cartographic images of desired developments"

3. Can you explain the kind of work your agency does, and how it relates to the work of VROM?

The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) is a public-sector research institute for the natural and built environment. We carry out studies on behalf of policymakers at the national level and perform evaluations of past policies, current policy options and scenarios. The Ministry of VROM is obviously one of our most important ports of call, although our work is relevant for other ministries as well. We have to do a constant balancing act between supplying information and feedback on issues that concern policymakers on the one hand and maintaining our independence and credibility on the other. The dilemmas we encounter in this are quite similar to those of ESPON at the European level, but are more than worth it when you get to see your findings translated into concrete policy decisions.

4. You are doing some work on the new Dutch planning system. Can you explain what changes the Dutch have made, and what they hope to achieve by them? How is the new system working?

In 2008 the new Dutch Spatial Planning Act (Wro) came into force, which was about ten years in the making. On paper, the planning system has been revamped entirely. Instead of a hierarchy of plans (national, provincial, local), every tier of government now has more or less the same instruments, including the legally binding local plan! This means that the national government can (and does) make local plans in cases of national interest. So far, these generally concern wind parks and infrastructure. Another major change is the strict separation between indicative and legally binding plans: in the old system it was not always clear how hard policy statements in plans were. In the new system, indicative visions have no binding status whatsoever, and ordinances have the rule of law, and read like legal contracts. With the latter, it seems as if the Dutch have imported a more Florida-style aspect into its planning system. It is still too early to tell if the law will change planning practice, or whether the application of the law will be adapted to existing planning practice.

5. For a long time it seemed that the Dutch had a leadership role in spatial planning in the EU. With the rise of territorial cohesion as part of the Lisbon Treaty, and with political changes in the Netherlands, where do you see the spatial planning project going at the present time?

For a medium-sized country, the Dutch did play a major role in drafting the European Spatial Development Perspective. The Dutch also deserve credit for jump-starting the process in 2004, which resulted in the territorial Agenda. The turnabout came in 2005 with the No vote on the European Constitution. Since that time, the taboo on Euroscepticism has been lifted, and has even become the norm. This coincided with some unfortunate clashes between our planning system and European directives, such as Natura2000 and air quality, and laments about the net-payer status of the country. In the current political climate, it is not advantageous to be overtly Europhilic in the Netherlands. For this reason, I think most of the Dutch work in this area is more behind the scenes.

                                                "the Dutch government has been very concerned about potential unexpected and unwanted impacts of European directives"

6. You did a piece of work on the territorial impact within the Netherlands of different interpretations of territorial cohesion. What was the impetus for that study?

Since 2005, the Dutch government has been very concerned about potential unexpected and unwanted impacts of European directives. The study took this as its point of departure to evaluate territorial cohesion. This was at the request of the Ministry of VROM.

7. What approach did you adopt to undertaking a TIA (Territorial Impact Assessment) of territorial cohesion?

Territorial cohesion is a contested concept. Whether a potential territorial cohesion policy would be advantageous or not for the Netherlands depends highly on which definition would prevail in the end. So, we extracted five different interpretations from the discourse on territorial cohesion at the European level, and speculated on the kinds of impacts various policy measures would have within each interpretation. Afterwards, we assessed the potential territorial impact for the Netherlands, given its unique geographic, administrative, socioeconomic and environmental characteristics.

8. What were your findings?

The study found two things. First, that the territorial impact of this policy area will be virtually negligible for the Netherlands, at least in the near future. Second, that in the long term, territorial cohesion could bring about benefits, such as European policies that are more in line with Dutch planning practice. This benefit depends on which interpretation is most prevalent, implying that Dutch should continue to actively participate in the territorial process.

9. ESPON has developed an approach to TIA called TEQUILA, which is a multi-criteria evaluation tool supported by an econometric model. What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of TEQUILA?

The approaches taken by TEQUILA and our territorial cohesion study could not be more different. We used political science theory and qualitative methods to make a relatively complex subject understandable for policymakers. The TEQUILA model reduces complexity by churning out a limited number of figures. One of the things I really like about TEQUILA as a researcher is its transparency and its flexibility: you can assign your own weights and even adapt cause/effect relationships. This strength is also its weakness: you could tweak it to give you virtually any result you want, and because it is quantitative, it still gives the impression of accuracy. So we have to be careful when communicating TEQUILA results to policymakers.

                                                                "One of the things I really like about TEQUILA as a researcher is its transparency and its flexibility"

10. There is some interest in the extent to which the EUs Impact Assessment Guidelines could provide a basis for approaches to TIA at national and regional level. Do you have any views on this?

Not really. At this point I think we are still in an exploratory process of finding the best methodologies for a TIA. I wouldn't want to exclude anything beforehand. The EU will probably need to take a more or less generic approach due to the politics involved, but countries and regions can use more tailor-made or experimental methodologies.

11. ESPON has a busy year now with a lot of final reports appearing in 2010, then the commissioning of the final round of Priority 1 projects early in 2011. What are you hoping for from the 2010 reports, and what projects would you like to see ESPON launch in 2011?

I am eagerly awaiting especially the final reports of the FOCI project on cities and the EDORA project on rural areas (which I would have loved to use for our TIA study if it had been available). Maybe this preoccupation with urban/rural issues is a result of my bias as a planner. For 2011 I hope that ESPON will pay more attention to environmental issues, which in my opinion have unjustly played second fiddle in the programme. I think that spatial planners have a contribution to make in the discourse on sustainable development. My favourite definition of territorial cohesion from Roberto Camagni is that it concerns the integration of people, planet and profit over space, like sustainability does over time.