Einleitung: Große Transformation, Akteure und Theoriekontexte

This chapter investigates the contributions to the great transformation of planning actors and other state and non-state actors. Actors and the relationships between them are of great significance in the transformation towards sustainability, as they interact with structural parameters: what is the potential for changing the behaviour of actors within existing structures and to what extent can actors influence structures to encourage sustainable development? The chapter draws theoretically on transition management, multi-level perspectives and governance, and analyses the impact of actors and their contributions to the great transformation in selected fields: settlement development and land take, housing, digitalisation and the Smart City, food systems and spatial planning. The chapter thus considers a) which role is played in the great transformation by actors, especially those involved in spatial planning but also other state and non-state actors, b) how state actors in particular can contribute to transformation in line with the notion of a formative state, c) what contributions are made through the strategies and instruments of urban and spatial development and planning, and d) which factors promote and which hinder transformation processes or the impact of actors.
To sum up, it can be stated that politics and administration, including formal and informal planning, have a central role to play. They create the structures and parameters necessary for state actors to develop and for non-state actors in public and particularly in planning positions to find the support necessary for effective steps towards a great transformation to be taken. At the same time it is also clear that non-state actors also have a significant role to play in the great transformation when they emerge as “pioneers of change” providing transformative impulses. Such actors can interact with state actors, profiting from supportive frameworks in politics and administration and making use of enabling economic dynamics and (positive) path dependencies. In terms of the role of actors, it is clear that the great transformation can profit from the identification of synergies between actors in sustainable spatial development and the expansion of interfaces for joint action, thus allowing the requirements of transformative governance to be derived.