Strategic spatial planning has been increasing its
importance since the 1990s as challenges related to climate change and
urbanisation have directed attention to integrative and comprehensive planning
at the higher planning scales. Many of these new scales of spatial planning are
‘soft’, crossing institutional boundaries and scales (e.g. Allmendinger &
Haughton 2009). Strategic planning in soft spaces is motivated on the one hand
by creating competitive advantage with collaboration, and on the other hand by “engaging
the crowd” internally to be able to create transformative change. Thus, in
order to generate transformative change, strategic spatial planning has to be both
open and collaborative (Healey 2009; Albrechts 2015), and goal oriented and
effective (e.g. Ziafati Bafazarat 2015). The former draws Habermas’ (1984,
1987) communicatively rational and the latter to strategically rational action.

The paper aims at analysing the roles of
communicatively and strategically rational action in soft spaces by using the
UK Innovation Corridor as an example of a soft space that acts as a framework
for strategic spatial planning in the London-Stansted-Cambridge area. Empirical
material consists of interviews, workshop materials and diverse policy
documents related to the corridor. The paper aims to study the operating model
of strategic spatial planning in the corridor, and to generate understanding
about the different roles that collaboration and competition play in the
regional transition. By focusing on the interplay of strategic and
communicative rationalities, the paper analyses how strategy work can be
oriented on one hand to seeking competitive advantage through adversarial
relations and selective partnerships, and, on the other hand, to building
shared strategic momentum through collaboration and joint commitment. The paper
contributes to planning theoretical debate by conceptualising soft spaces as
arenas for both strategically and communicatively rational action, which has
been only implicitly discussed in the extant literature on soft spaces.