Li and colleagues review spatial planning implementation through the changing criteria used to decide whether a plan has been effective. Their key proposition is that evaluation has moved from complete rationality and simple spatial conformity toward limited rationality, open systems and actor-centred accounts of implementation. The methodological operation is genealogy through evaluation frameworks: conformance, performance and hybrid approaches are compared to show how different concepts of effectiveness produce different evidence. A plan can diverge from its mapped intention yet still influence decisions; conversely, formal spatial consistency may conceal weak causal force. The review therefore relocates implementation from an end-state comparison to a process in which actors interpret, adapt, partially adopt or abandon planning intentions under changing conditions. It bridges spatial planning, policy implementation and evaluation theory. For the shared nexus, this is the critical move after approval: continuity cannot mean literal sameness. What must be traced is whether commitments continue to structure later decisions and how spatial outcomes, behavioural effects and institutional adaptations can be compared without reducing persistence to cartographic compliance.