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Smart specialisation features prominently in the European regional policy context. This paper discusses how the configuration of the regional institutional framework affects smart specialisation dynamics and policy. It elaborates why and how institutional diversity and integration promote entrepreneurial discovery processes, spillovers and agglomeration effects, and thereby structural change in regions. Policy challenges arising from the regional institutional framework are identified, discussed and related to well-researched system failures of regional innovation systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A range of new spaces of English planning have emerged in recent years. One new space of clear import is the sub-region. In this paper we seek to gain a better understanding of why sub-regional spaces emerge, how they are used and how planning functions through them. Drawing upon an analysis of three English regions and interviews with actors the paper identifies four types of sub-regional planning that highlight the relationship between accountable, legally sanctioned territorial spaces on the one hand and more informal, open and strategic sub-regional spaces on the other. Sub-regional planning provides an important if not critical strategic parallel to regulatory planning though the relationship between the two is characterised by complexity, contestation, experimentation and impermanence. Among other issues raised by this contemporary reworking of planning is the emergence of an accountability gap through the uncoupling of formal democratic processes embedded within territories and the more diffuse practices of strategic plan making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the development and performance of an innovative approach to the management of transportation, land use, air quality, housing, and a variety of other regional development issues, called “blueprinting.” Blueprinting refers to a process that brings together planning experts, local political leaders, and ordinary citizens; arms them with current planning ideas about “smart growth” and data visualization tools, to develop long-range regional development plans. As such, blueprinting represents a recent manifestation of regionalist approaches to environmental policy and planning. Focusing on the Sacramento region, an early adopter of blueprint planning, we use archival data and media sources to reconstruct the development of blueprinting and then we turn to an analysis of the performance of the blueprinting approach in relation to three successive planning efforts. We find that despite the promise of blueprinting, very little progress has been made toward actually changing the regional transportation system and land use patterns. The net result of this long-term planning effort aimed at achieving sustainable transportation land use is that total CO2 emissions increase over time at historical rates. We close with a discussion of what this means for regional planning and achieving goals set by California's landmark climate change legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural development has, in recent years, become a major area of EU policy, to the extent that the term has even begun to be overused in signifying a new shift in EU rural policy. The result has been a great deal of misunderstanding and numerous divergent interpretations of both the concept and the practice. Although rural development existed as a policy domain before the arrival of the accentuated 'Second Pillar' of the reformed Common Agricultural Policy, the fact is that an increasingly Europeanized approach to rural development funding, programming, and administration has developed in the post-1999 period. In this paper we argue that the study of rural development policy will gain a great deal from using a policy network approach to interpret the dynamics of evolving rural development policy within member states. Our main aim is to analyze and interpret the newly emerging Rural Development Policy Network in Greece, which aspires to separate itself from a strong and resistant Agricultural Policy Network. The example of Greece suits the purpose of the paper not only because of Greece's continuing reliance on agriculture and the centrality of the latter in sustaining rural livelihoods, but most importantly due to the institutional arrangements developed around it, which are characterized by a prevalence of agricultural interests at the expense of wider rural concerns. The concern of this paper is with the mechanisms of transition, and to a lesser extent with its outcome. One major finding is that the policy network approach to the study of rural development policy in Greece brings to light a certain transformation in policy structures, mechanisms, and administration. This transformation is not so evident at the level of policy style and/or policy outcome. Due to it having been labeled a 'laggard' member state, Greece has been affected by the Europeanization of rural development policy and has to some extent transformed its policymaking procedures accordingly. At the same time, the process of Europeanization has acted to empower civil society mechanisms and actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared with the constitutional changes introduced elsewhere in the United Kingdom, in the English regions a more cautious approach has been adopted based on administrative decentralisation. A key feature of the government's reforms has been the strengthening of regional spatial planning and the transfer of the regional planning function to unelected regional assemblies. We examine how far these reforms have assisted regions to achieve greater discretion over planning policies and a more corporate approach to spatial planning. Our central argument is that, given the absence of elected regional government in England, there are outstanding institutional, cultural, and resource obstacles to extending regional freedoms and flexibilities. Nonetheless, the introduction of new statutory regional spatial strategies, together with a greater commitment in Whitehall to coordinate regional budgets, offers a potential way forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional planning bodies throughout England are now in the early stages of preparing Regional Spatial Strategies (RSSs), which will succeed Regional Planning Guidance (RPG) as the frameworks guiding local development planning. This transition from RPG to RSSs is one outcome of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. Another outcome is the abolition of the Structure Planning function of English county councils, potentially resulting in a strategic vacuum in sub-regional planning. The Regional Assemblies (together with Regional Development Agencies and Government Offices) will need to address the subregional agenda, providing strategic leadership in what are often diverse and complex regional settings. The authors report on research undertaken on behalf of the South East England Regional Assembly and its partners. They examine both the changing policy context in this region, and the means by which a hitherto regional—and top-down—policy agenda is being ‘spatialised’ to address subregional diversity. In doing so, they also look at the move away from historic subregional boundaries, the redefining of ‘subregional’, and the shifting institutional ownership of the planning process at this particular tier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]