Planners use symbolic markers in order to frame processes of urban change and to mobilise actors. How can we explain the fact that in some cases the symbolisation of new urban spaces manages to enhance and enlarge the meaning of social change while in other cases the symbolic markers remain powerless and might even have a reverse effect? The authors doubt whether the sophistication of symbolic markers as such has much impact. The explanation for the success or failure of symbolic communication is sought within the framework of institutional embedding. This conceptual paper attempts to elaborate institutions' transformative potential through their use of symbols. To this end, it undertakes a reappraisal of institutional thought in order to conceptualise institutional transformation, the establishment of a conceptual linkage between the transformative potential of institutions and symbolic markers, and the design of an operational model of research for the institutional investigation of symbols in the planning of changing cities.

(2015). Planning for the new European metropolis: functions, politics, and symbols/Metropolitan regions: functional relations between the core and the periphery/Business investment decisions and spatial planning policy/Metropolitan challenges, political responsibilities/Spatial imaginaries, urban dynamics and political community/Capacity-building in the city region: creating common spaces/Which challenges for today's European metropolitan spaces? Planning Theory & Practice: Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 251-275.

The emergence of new urban configurations – marked by enlarged scale, polycentrism and strong cities – often conflicts with the settled institutions of the ‘old’ city, with its hierarchical, centripetal development model. This model is challenged through the autonomous locational decisions of commercial and private actors, and sometimes through planning initiatives that aim to establish new planning spaces adapting to this new spatial reality, but despite this ongoing challenge, traditional conceptions of cities seem to prevail. This article offers a sociological-institutional approach to analysing how the institutions of the ‘old’ city are challenged, looking at the role of symbolic markers in planning strategies as an explanation for the institutional activation of new perceptions of the changing city. The urbanised zone of the Manchester and Liverpool city regions in the UK – where a massive investment strategy by a private-sector company has presented a new vision that challenges the entrenched positions of the two core cities – provides an excellent case study for investigating how symbolic markers spark a conflict over the meaning of two city regions that are closely linked but have thus far worked in isolation. The degree to which the meaning of existing institutions is reflected in the strategy is crucial for the success potential of establishing new governance spaces.