Central European Planning Culture and its Competitive Advantages and Disadvantages in Enhancing Regional Competitiveness

territory's balanced and sustainable development and territorial
subjects. It is obvious that planning in general, and especially the role
of the planners, has been lately substantially modified – they shifted
their societal positions from regulators and designers of our future
toward the facilitators of versatile and multidimensional processes of
spatial development. In this process, variables and phenomena like
community, identity, place, social behaviour or human values play a
significant role more than ever. Planning has overreached its
normative essence and is by now a multidimensional participatory
process reflecting the cultural background of the society. The unique
character of any given planning culture is determined by the value
system, which is mediated by and mirrored in the acting,
communication, and leadership patterns. Understanding cultural
dynamics and developing a clear vision of the desired planning
culture based on democratic leadership and its active fostering should
be essential competencies of any planner. Recent societal
developments (fragmentation of the society, negative demographic
change, endangered social cohesion) highlighted the need for special
attention dedicated to these issues. It has been confirmed that highly
profiled planning cultures based on active leadership generating a
typical set of principles, values and approaches are arguably as
important for any territory's balanced and sustainable development as
a wide array of normative and formal instruments. A productive
planning culture based on democratic decision-making and effective
leadership is becoming a vital part of regional competitiveness – the
ability of the city, region, or whole state to be successful in different
competitions and interactions with other subjects or partners. Our
contribution is to analyze the main scope of planning culture and its
role in increasing regional or territorial competitiveness, and it
concentrates on special traits of Central European planning culture in
this regard.