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This paper reports on a study of Neighbourhood Planning in more deprived urban areas of the North West region of England, revealing that the stance of elected representatives is important in shaping the processes and outcomes of this new more citizen-led form of planning. The paper considers how far barriers to Neighbourhood Planning, and the variable support offered by local planning authorities to deprived urban communities, might be accounted for by practices of clientelism. It concludes that clientelism provides a useful lens through which to interpret attitudes towards Neighbourhood Planning as a disruptor of established patterns of influence and powerholding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ponzini asserts that we should consider this process critically to create grounds for a discussion about reconsidering the position of named architects in the contemporary world. Transnational Architecture and Urbanism: Rethinking How Cities Plan, Transform and Learn: by D. Ponzini, England, UK, Routledge, 2020, 320 pp., £120.00, £96.00 (hardback); £29.59 (eBook), ISBN 9780415787925 This book addresses trends in contemporary urban transformation by engaging the theoretical framework of transnational architecture and urbanism to examine selected projects. [Extracted from the article]

The New Deal for Communities (NDC) programme was one of the most intensive area-based initiatives (ABIs) ever launched in England. Between 1998 and 2010, 39 NDC partnerships were charged with implementing 10-year, locally informed strategies designed to improve conditions within deprived neighbourhoods each accommodating around 9,800 people. More than any other previous English ABI, the NDC programme placed a strong emphasis on informing and engaging the 39 local communities in all aspects of the regeneration process. The programme can be seen as a laboratory within which to assess relationships between community involvement in regeneration and any associated outcomes. Change data indicates that at the area-level there is nothing to suggest NDC areas saw more change than other deprived localities, or that NDCs doing more in relation to the community dimension saw greater change than those doing less. Data showing change for individuals, however, reveals that those involved in NDC activities saw more gains than those who were not involved. This positive individual-level change is not reflected in area-level data because absolute levels of involvement remained essentially low. This was for a number of reasons, some of which relate to the evolving NDC narrative: greater control from central government, diminishing community interest in the initiative, and over-optimistic assumptions on the part of local residents as to what the programme could ever achieve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban intensification is a key planning strategy in the UK, but one that is frequently resisted by local residents objecting to transformations of urban character. This paper is concerned with the factors that underlie such resistance, and with the opportunities for addressing them through the planning process. The paper relates a case-study of the East London district of Dalston where a mixed-use redevelopment project, strongly supported by local authorities, was fiercely resisted by residents who claimed that the existing character of the locality was being violated. Reflecting on the case through theories of place, gentrification, and planning process, we argue that resident resistance was not simply a case of self-interested NIMBYism, but a product of important differences in the ways that character was variously constructed and valued by local authorities and community members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review paper introduces a research agenda designed to invigorate interest in information economics as a conceptual framework within which to analyse the purported transition from regulatory land-use planning, such as that operating in England prior to 2004, to “spatial planning”. In considering one specific area of reform—the management of infrastructure provision—a research agenda is introduced to investigate a specific policy instrument, the Community Infrastructure Levy. It is approached as a transaction cost, the determination of which is a function of how information is traded between counterparties. In conceptualizing important information asymmetries between local planning authorities and the development industry a case is made for further empirical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like many other cities around the world, at the end of the twentieth century, Manchester was reimagined as post-industrial space. This research draws on Lefebvre's spatial triad focusing primarily on the struggles that this generated both within official public sector representations of space and between public sector representations and the representations of key amenity societies. The paper presents the findings of a case study analysis that reveals how the 1970s saw differing interests lay claim to the right to determine the spatial meaning and future of city-centre industrial space. The research deconstructs the (re)production of the Grade I listed Liverpool Road Station, the first train station in the world, and its conversion into the successful Museum of Science and Industry. The conclusions show that the 1970s (re)presentation of the station site facilitated its (re)production as a site of revalorised industrial heritage. The consequences were the “rediscovery” of the Castlefield area of the city, and the later reimagining of post-industrial Manchester in the 1990s, which continues in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the strategic-local tensions, sometimes manifest as development conflicts, which remain a feature of the planning system in England. More particularly, it is concerned with the way local government and planning reforms brought forward over the last decade have affected these tensions and conflicts. It looks at three issues: why conflicts arise, focusing on the example of housing development, and how the reformed processes of local governance and planning respond to them; how a divergence in local government and planning reform may accentuate conflicts by creating two distinct, and sometimes contradictory, planning systems; and what actions might be taken to bridge these systems and ease local-strategic tensions, returning to the example of housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to unpack the term "regeneration", using a discourse analysis approach to examine the ways in which local actors involved in a New Deal for Communities partnership in Newcastle upon Tyne formulate their understandings of regeneration. The paper finds that "regeneration" is a term that has been taken up and used by local actors who have not considered its meaning in any substantive depth, and argues that this is the result of both the powerful policy discourse surrounding regeneration, and the lack of dialogue locally about the nature of the problems to be addressed. The paper concludes by arguing for regeneration partnerships to be given the time and support to discuss local issues in order to facilitate partnership working and develop an appropriate agenda for regeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article relates the reflections, activities and experiences of a woman planning officer in a local planning authority in southern England. She spends her days in urban regeneration partnership meetings, networking activities, workshops, talks with colleagues, doing emails at her office and reading the journal "Planning Theory and Practice."

Canary Wharf is now the central business district of the London Docklands and the third office node of Greater London. The project was politically controversial and widely regarded as a planning disaster as a result of its 1992 bankruptcy. This article shows that most of its problems were related to real estate development issues, rather than planning. Canary Wharf failed as a result of six factors: a recession in the London property market, competition from the City of London, poor transport links, few British tenants, complicated finances and developer overconfidence. Improved performance on most of these factors allowed the project to recover and become an important element in London's office market. The article concludes with an assessment of the winners and losers from the Canary Wharf experience and a summary of the general lessons to be learned from this story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]