lokoregionale

Lokoregionale is a term used in urban and regional planning to describe an approach that integrates local and regional scale considerations in policy design and governance. It emphasizes how municipalities and regional authorities interact to shape development trajectories, infrastructure, and public services.

Etymology and usage: The form combines locale or local with regionale (regional). In Italian planning discourse, lokoregionale or locoregionale appears as a descriptor for planning that consciously spans multiple scales. The term is used to highlight cross-scale coordination rather than strict territorial autonomy.

Theoretical background: Lokoregionale draws on concepts from multi-level governance, subsidiarity, and polycentric regionalism. It seeks to align local knowledge and regional resources, enabling coordinated strategies for housing, transportation, economic development, and environmental management across municipalities.

Applications and practices: Practical implementations include joint development plans that cover several municipalities, shared data and forecasting platforms, regional transport corridors integrated with local transit networks, and disaster risk management requiring cross-municipal cooperation. It often involves formal or informal coordination bodies, inter-municipal agreements, and planning rules that operate at multiple levels of government.

Challenges: Lokoregionale approaches face political fragmentation, uneven funding, accountability dilemmas, and data interoperability issues. Decision-making can be slower due to the need for consensus across jurisdictions, and evaluating success requires indicators that capture outcomes at both local and regional scales.

See also: Local governance, Regional planning, Multi-level governance, Subsidiarity, Urban regionalism.