Towards a sustainable spatial planning and development in Greek islands and highlands

Abstract

Highlands and islands are the underdeveloped and marginalized areas of Greece in which a series of crucial planning and development problems occur. The paper attempts a description of those areas not only in terms of physical spatial structure but also in terms of socio-economic dependence from the developed 'integrated' - regions of the country (urban and industrial areas). It is essential to describe the structural features of these areas in order to understand their true needs, so that efforts can be made towards the creation of a planning model, which will integrate these areas, using the benefits provided by new technologies. To this purpose the paper investigates an implementation example (pilot project), in the central Mediterranean Sea, which has been developed in the framework of EU trans-national cooperation programs, in the field of spatial and environmental planning matters in order to show that ITC advanced technologies can reinforce participatory planning processes in the new 'network society'. © 2007 WIT Press.