Place-making and the limitations of spatial leadership: reflections on the Øresund

The concepts of place-making and place-shaping have grown in prominence over recent years, and have been taken up increasingly into public policy discourse. As used by many commentators, these concepts assume that places are amenable to purposive control under the leadership of local agencies of one sort or another including, for example, local authorities. The present article explores this assumption by sketching out a framework for the investigation of place-making and shaping, a framework that focuses particularly upon its governance and leadership. It is argued in this context that place-making is an ordering process that combines two modes of governance – spontaneous and purposive – only one of which (the second) is directly amenable to deliberate control and so to leadership of any sort. It is also argued that leadership is a relational phenomenon, and that the leadership relationship will on any occasion be located somewhere between two poles – between leader-dominance and follower-dominance – only one of which (the first) is consistent with leadership as this is conventionally understood. Drawing upon the findings from a case study of the Øresund cross-border region, it is concluded that a less conventional sense of leadership is required in the context of place-making and shaping, one that acknowledges the importance of spontaneous governance, and that embraces the possibility of follower-dominance.