A renewed theoretical interest in geographical concepts has emerged in recent decades in the wake of a more general trend towards the "spatialization" of the social sciences. While involving a reconsideration of the vocabulary of spatial disciplines-questioning the meaning of terms such as "territory", "region", "place/locality"-the theoretical upheaval provoked has also implied the need for redefining spatial concepts at a more abstract level. This is the case of the concept of "scale". Despite its speculative nature, the fortune of the concept has not left urban and regional studies unaffected, giving rise to a burgeoning of references to "scale" in scientific literature. This issue of European Planning Studies is meant as a contribution to debate on scale from the point of view of the governance of spatial development. The focus will be, accordingly, on the dimension of "rescaling" involved in new governance practices. The question commonly addressed by the case studies concerns the nexus between changes in the rationales of spatial development policy and planning and changes in the scalar dimension of governance.
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