Mapshots can serve several purposes when planners, policy-makers (including facilitators of cooperation initiatives) and local stakeholders collectively explore territorial cooperation options.
• For planners and policy makers, mapshots are an analytical tool that helps to understand and synthesise the spatial configurations of a given cooperation area.
• For stakeholders, mapshots suggest an interpretation of economic, demographic and political forces that drive the territorial cooperation process. It may help to trigger a dialogue between stakeholders, policy makers and planners.
For external observers, a mapshot provides an overview of the territory, as well as guidance throughout a case study.
Each set of mapshots is based on a specific language with its vocabulary (a thematic dictionary) and grammar (overlaying rules). The project team developed a language adapted to the issues of inter-territorial cooperation. The thematic dictionary (see Figure 25Figure 23) presents basic signifiers. Three core dimensions of territorial cooperation are represented: geographic features, cooperation issues and socio-economic structures (or dynamics). The identification and joint representation of these three dimensions in a given cooperation area is an analytical process, of which the resulting mapshot provides a synthesis. The mapping process involves a variety of identified sources: national or regional statistics, legal documents, grey literature and interviews. As such, the mapshot synthesises an expert interpretation of main patterns in thematic maps, but also incorporates other, more qualitative types of evidence. It makes it possible to gather inputs from disparate sources, focusing on the production of policy-relevant analytical outputs rather than on resource-intensive processes of data homogenisation. In many cases, the different components of the mapshot may be represented separately, and then joined together in a combined map. This improves readability and makes it possible to graphically represent a ‘cooperation storyline’.
Figure 25Figure 23 presents the main symbols used. The category ‘Basic geographic features’ includes poles and axes around which territorial development is organised. The shape of the cooperation area is simplified to remove all unnecessary noise. Only shape components that are necessary to understand its spatial configuration are kept. Similarly, shown metropolitan areas and cities are structuring elements of the urban hierarchy around which the rest of the territory is organised, ‘structuring infrastructure axis’ is a set of road and/or railway lines which orients flows of people, goods and information in space, and ‘structuring
Figure 2523: Dictionary of ideas/concepts and symbols for mapshots
Source: ESPON ACTAREA (2017)
Three types of cooperation issues are represented: first, the hardness/flexibility of the perimeter (which help the reader to distinguish between hard and soft cooperation, and/or between main and enlarged area); second, the cooperation rationale, e.g. a geographic feature such as a lake or a mountain range around which cooperation efforts are organised or a border to an external area against which actors of the cooperation area position themselves; third, the cooperation landscape. This ‘landscape’ includes three kinds of components: cooperation gaps or challenges (e.g. a natural feature such as a river), cooperation axes and overlapping cooperation instances that may require enhanced cooperation.
Finally, choropleth symbols (i.e. hue and value) are used to represent structuring social, demographic and economic patterns between sub-units of the cooperation area. Each concept is translated into a set of symbols which are then overlaid and result in the mapshot.
As such, the mapshot is an expert interpretation of main patterns in thematic maps. It makes it possible to synthesise inputs from disparate sources, focusing on the production of policy-relevant analytical outputs rather than on resource-intensive processes of data homogenisation. Underlying data and maps can be provided in parallel, as background information to the mapshot.
Figure 2624: Sources and elaboration of mapshots (based on the example of Pays de Retz)
Figure 26Figure 24 gives an overview of the process, based on the example of the Pays de Retz (further described in the ACTAREA project final report). The representation does not imply a deterministic relation between geographical features, spatial structures and cooperation issues. The integration of a physical axis or a cooperation challenge in the diagram should not be interpreted as an objective hierarchy (e.g. reflecting ‘most important’ roads or rivers) or as an automatic relation (e.g. ‘administrative borders imply cooperation challenge’). Elements are included based on tangible influences on cooperation itself, as they are perceived by stakeholders. In most cases, this implies that they have been explicitly mentioned in strategic documents or during interviews with stakeholders. By way of consequence, mapshots can only be elaborated upon a thorough analysis of local and regional development issues and a compilation of insights from policy makers and stakeholders.
Swiss ‘action areas’ are at an early stage of development. Only few concrete actions have yet been launched under this banner. Mapshots may therefore function as tools for dialogue with local stakeholders, in order to better identify measures that could be implemented at the scale of AAs. As highlighted in Table 4 below, mapshots can be useful here as a transcription of the open framework provided by the SSS. It is composed of core elements mentioned in the SSS, as well as other elements from desk research. This results in a series of mapshots (12 – one for each AA) which all have a similar look with almost standardised legends. The main inputs originate from the soft cooperation framework (the Swiss Spatial Strategy). The 12 mapshots are presented in chapter 4.
Table 4: Mapshot sources for ‘Swiss Action Areas’
Viewpoint provider Element Source
relative
contribution to the definition of what is 'relevant'
the soft cooperation authority (ARE)
-main infrastructure corridors, the shape of the cooperation instance
-cooperation potentials, -cooperation rationale, -cooperation landscape:
overlapping action areas
Swiss spatial strategy (2012) high
local stakeholders -cooperation gaps (obstacles) interviews low
the planner
-relevant spatial structures, -cooperation landscape: other overlapping cooperation initiatives
-statistical and land use data (classification at LAU2 level by the SSO), openstreetmap -desk research
medium
Source: ESPON ACTAREA (2017)