Why Spatial Planning?

The first working title for this exhibition was: Why Spatial Planning? Indeed, why? Because spatial planning can contribute a great deal towards making Switzerland a beautiful place, a successful place, and a place worth living in.

What can planning really do? Spatial planning can keep landscapes intact. It can protect towns and countryside from sprawl. It can keep transport systems functioning, as well as improve them, enabling shorter trips, preventing traffic jams, thus saving energy and time. It can also steer the development of settlements in locations that are already well connected and, as a result, keep down the cost of road construction, power supply lines, and water and sewage pipelines. Spatial planning can create the framework that allows private landowners and public authorities to build attractive and lively settlements. It can lead to cooperation between communities, cantons and across international boundaries, which benefits the public. Moreover, spatial planning can help protect us from natural hazards.

Is it then fitting to ask a little skeptically "why"? We will show that spatial planning can do all this and therefore we say: Yes to Spatial Planning!