Digital transformation is shaping our lives and altering planning. Digitalization is closely linked to smart governance, through which administrative units such as cities and regions increasingly offer digital services related to spatial planning. However, the increasing digitalization of spatial planning has received little attention in academic planning literature, and few studies have analysed how digitalization affects planning practice. The aim of this study was to help fill this gap by developing an analytical framework based on efficiency, transparency and innovation, to explore how digital plan data affect land-use planning. The framework was applied in a multi-case study analysis of Austria, Germany and Switzerland. In this study, which is one of the first to shed empirical light on the digital transformation of land-use planning, we found changes in planning practice mainly in terms of efficiency and transparency, less in terms of innovation. We have identified a great need for further research to attend critically to digital transformation of planning in order to optimize the benefits for planning practice and to avoid an unreflective shift towards technocratic planning practices.

This paper focuses on a three-year rural landscape strategy-making process, which was driven by a Danish municipality and involved a large number of stakeholders. The project was part of an action research program aimed at developing new approaches to collaborative landscape planning. Gaining experiences with such approaches was part of this aim. During the course of the project, the focus and scale of the strategy changed significantly. The process developed in interesting ways in respect to three dimensions of collaborative landscape planning: collaboration, scale, and public goods. After a brief review of the three dimensions and their links to landscape planning, the case story is unfolded in three sections: (1) The planning process, (2) the process outcome (the strategy), and (3) the aftermath in terms of critical reflections from participating planners and local stakeholders. The process and outcome of the landscape strategy-making process is discussed in the context of collaboration, scale, and public goods, including a brief outline of the lessons learned.