Polycentric development policies in European countries: An introduction

In summary, this special issue reveals some of the variety in current policies aimed at polycentric urban development at national and regional levels. There are certain commonalities though. The final paper by Waterhout, Zonneveld and Meijers reviews and compares national polycentric development policies, covering the entire ESPON study area and therefore also discussing countries not treated individually in this special issue. This final article presents general findings on the objectives, the instrumental equipment and working practices, and embeddedness of polycentric development policies in general. Moreover, it highlights some prominent issues, debates and dilemmas faced when developing polycentric development strategies at the national and also European level.