As a result of new legislation and regulations, changing governance structures and other trends such as globalisation spatial planning and development practices change. Although many countries face the same trends, these are often translated on a tailor-made basis into planning practice. Can we learn from each other? In this paper we compare cross-national lesson-drawing and international comparative research in literature. On the basis of research on the Dutch and the English planning and development practices in area development we explore the possibilities and barriers to cross-national lesson-drawing in planning policies and practices.