Soft Planning, New Silk Road, and Mega-City-Region Futures

In a global context marked by constant change reconfiguring economies, urban networks, ways of living, and the relationships among them, it is important to examine theoretical models that help explain the complexity of these relationships. One such model is based on the concept of soft power, which explains the distinctive capacity of states to persuade others to follow a certain direction through attraction rather than coercion. This rationale is reflected in the strategic planning of regions and urban systems that are progressively abandoning the logic of ‘hard spaces’, embracing the principles of ‘soft spaces’. This shift increases the relevance of diffuse borders and urban planning macro-schemes, such as future city-region planning, while also motivating the incorporation of the logic of ‘soft power’ into regional and urban planning, giving rise to the ‘soft planning’ perspective. This soft planning approach is especially relevant in the Asian context, where the world's largest global cities are concentrated. This research applies the soft planning approach to the urban system defined within the scope of the Belt and Road Initiative. The article clarifies the principles of soft planning and how they apply to develop a potential vision of the Future Silk Road city-region.