Services of general interest and critical infrastructures: interdependencies and implications for resilience and territorial cohesion

Recent times have shown that external conditions and climatic developments require more intensive consideration of the resilience of our infrastructures. This article presents the methodology and empirical results of a German spatial planning pilot project that systematically analysed the strategic options for maintaining the functionality of Services of General Interest (SGI) and Critical Infrastructures (CI) covering all of Germany’s federal states. Added value is created through a better understanding of the various infrastructures and their specific criticality and by answering how the infrastructures can be made more resilient and thus contribute to equal living conditions and territorial cohesion. The article also emphasises the connection between spatial resilience approaches and European cohesion and climate policy and makes recommendations for adaptation in European structural and funding policy. The authors recommend a systematic territorial consideration of SGI and CI to prevent negative effects on balanced and stable spatial development. To achieve this goal, interdependencies between infrastructures and cascading effects should be considered in the future. Infrastructures are usually bundled in central places. Therefore, the article also provides conceptual and practice-orientated proposals for planning strategies on which central places can be made more resilient.