Planning Local Responses to the Economic Downturn: Rhetoric and Practice in a Small Portuguese Municipality

Abstract

This paper analyses the planning of the local responses to the global crisis, giving particular emphasis to the relationship between rhetoric and practice. As such, it pays particular attention to the ways the planning process and outcomes are being affected by a planning-inspiring discourse that imports and, enthusiastically in the case of Águeda, uses the whole set of buzzwords wrapping up European development policy. The analytical focus is placed on the discursive line based on the Triple Helix Model. The paper argues that, despite the mismatch between the local conditions and the requirements of a true THM-based development path, the associated discourse and rhetoric is contributing to positively transform the territory.