Strategic Spatial Planning and Metropolitan Governance in Athens, Greece

Strategic spatial planning, across various scales, is a process of shaping “visions” through stakeholder engagement in uncertain and dynamic environments to create a spatial decision-making framework. This approach is essential for addressing complex and rapidly evolving societal challenges such as climate change, globalization, and social inequality. It enables collective action, long-term visioning, and coordination of fragmented governance structures. By fostering an inclusive framework for dialogue and co-creation, strategic planning also encourages innovation and democratic legitimacy. This article adopts a qualitative and historically informed policy analysis, examining legislative strategic planning documents and policy priorities in relation to urban development to assess the evolution and current challenges of metropolitan planning in Athens. By situating the Athens case within broader European planning trends, the study provides a contextual and comparative framework for understanding governance transformations in times of crisis. The article contributes to existing knowledge by offering a critical analysis of Greece’s planning system, highlighting recurrent implementation gaps and governance fragmentation. In doing so, it advances academic debates on the limitations of strategic planning in southern European contexts and proposes lessons relevant for metropolitan governance reform.