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Carbon-neutral targets are a 'new normative' for cities and regions around the world. Such targets call for rapid system transformations, beyond the normal remit of urban-regional planning. In response, we propose a framework of theory and practice, in three parts: 'trading zone' concepts for collaborative planning; 'scenario back-casting' for longer horizons; and 'synergistic thinking' for systems transformation. We demonstrate this with the carbon-neutral journey of Greater Manchester. The results suggest the 'new normative' for cities and regions can be greatly facilitated by 'synergistic scenario planning', in theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new conceptualization of scale as performative imaginary and deploys that to explore the what, the why and the how questions of scalar fixing. Drawing on city-regionalization in England, it argues that a distinct imaginary of city-regions as economic- and city-centric spaces has been normalized through two forms of knowledge: one rationalizing the scalar positioning of this imaginary, the other demarcating its spatial boundaries. It shows that despite the alignment between enacted scale (what), scalar imaginary (how) and neoliberal political project (why), institutionalization of this imaginary has failed, leading to variable geometries of subnational governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a series of vivid vignettes of encounters with Peter Hall since 1978, Amy Glasmeier conveys both his individual directness and the extraordinary breadth and detail of his work. Highlights include the 1978 lecture in Wurster Hall that led to his appointment as Professor of City and Regional Planning at Berkeley; the genesis and outcome of the great investigation of high-tech industries and regional restructuring funded by the National Science Foundation; Enterprise Zone controversies; how he re-engaged with London planning issues after his return to England; and the linking thread of hyper energetic enthusiasm for all things city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares planning system reform processes and outcomes over the last decade in Australia, England and New Zealand. (In the earlier years of last century planning legislation was UK based. However, it has become increasingly different across the four constituent jurisdictions. This paper, therefore, concentrates on the position in England.) All three countries share close cultural ties stemming from colonisation and similar legal systems. However, very different approaches to spatial planning have evolved over time. Nevertheless, a close reading of recent government reports and reform proposals from all three countries suggests that these differences are narrowing, with striking similarities in diagnoses of planning problems and in prescribed solutions. Our analysis highlights these similarities and asks whether apparent policy sharing and transfer across the three countries is reflected in substantive policy decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional relationship between politics and policy making has been challenged in recent years, highlighting how policy itself can generate political action. This raises questions about how conflict produced or mediated through the policy process is managed, particularly within what has been described as a 'postpolitical settlement' where fundamental politicoideological issues are liable to be 'displaced' rather than opened up for debate. I argue that such displacement generates its own distinctive politicomanagerial logic. Drawing on the discourses and practices of planning reform in England, I suggest that ongoing systemic reform might be understood as a product of a politics of displacement that seeks to cover over the causes of the antagonism generated by the logic of urban development. Tracing this logic through the policy process, I further suggest that displacement has a range of underexamined effects on local democracy and the legitimacy of local government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines commitment to the regional development of London as it emerged among individuals and groups interested in urban planning in the early twentieth century. Following a brief account of growth and reform in the capital during the nineteenth century, this article focuses on the development of debates about planning the metropolis in the first two decades of the century, exploring practical initiatives such as the Town Planning Conference held in 1910 and the production of The London Society's Development Plan for Greater London during the years of the First World War. London's associational culture was central in generating and hosting discussions about the future of the city during this period and the article provides an indication of the extent of overlapping memberships between groups such as the Royal Institute of British Architects, The London Society and the Town Planning Institute. In conclusion, this article suggests that the regional imagination, central to the later development of planning, was clearly visible in the programme of work undertaken during the First World War and that associational networks were an important part of early professionalization in planning in Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The author argues that power is being exercised by rural elites to prevent much-needed new housing being built in the English countryside. Evidence is presented from five case-study local authorities in rural England, via analysis of interview data and policy documents produced at the regional and local plan-making level. Technocratic explanations for the ongoing failure of the planning system to deliver more housing in line with the well-established need/demand for such are rejected. Drawing on the three dimensions of power presented by Lukes, the author explores how the exercise of power effectively subverts planning processes and leads overwhelmingly to decisions being made which favour the exclusionary preferences of certain groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the rural-urban fringe, with the ‘physicality’ of ‘edge landscapes’ (drawing on England as an example), and the way they are sometimes depicted or represented. Distancing itself from current pressure to ‘manage’ and re-plan the fringe, the paper examines the balance between the need for possible physical intervention at the fringe and the possibility of rethinking the fringe and the relationship between the aesthetics and functionality of landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the view of the author on the future of coastal policies in England. The coastal water quality is affected by the farming practices in river basins. Therefore, it is not practicable to define an absolute coastal zone. Area-based policies mainly deal with landscape protection and recreational provisions.

This paper critiques the process of arriving at housing allocation figures for development planning in England, focusing upon regional debates. It considers the balance struck between policy (national) considerations and (local) political priorities, illustrated through two case studies: the East of England (and RPG14) and the English North West (and RPG13). These particular regions exemplify the dual poles of current planning policy in relation to housing provision: avoiding over-supply in the north of England and delivering managed growth in the south. The paper concludes by looking at ‘ownership’ of regional and county figures, at the excesses of central intervention, and at how such interventions run contrary to government's own philosophy for planning for housing in England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the constructions of sustainability within a recent land use planning event. The focus is upon the discursive processes employed by key actors and agents in constructing concepts of sustainability during the local planning inquiry into a retail and leisure proposal in the District of Easington, County Durham `called in' by the Secretary of State for the Environment. It reveals which discourses in particular were employed and discusses their implications. It concludes that sustainability is very much part of a wider political-economic game and that a high degree of social power lies with those participants who are able to utilise the appropriate discursive spaces and concepts; as a result of these factors the rhetoric of the concept of sustainability is generally not being played out within local level planning contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the detailed examination of a case study, namely Plymouth, this paper explores the reasons for the demise of the regional planning framework, originally advocated by writers such as Ebenezer Howard, Patrick Geddes, Charles Fawcett and Patrick Abercrombie, in the early post-war years. Plymouth's reconstruction plan, prepared by Abercrombie and Paton Watson in 1943, was devised as a framework for planning an entire city region of 140 square miles (36,269 hectares). In order to unpack the complex history of the development and ultimate rejection of the city-region model for planning in Britain, engagement is required with the human narrative that drives decision making and determines the paths pursued at key moments of change. This historical case study, drawing on the exceptionally full surviving archives, highlights not only the role of Patrick Abercrombie in shaping Plymouth's post-war future, but also the clash of all the individuals at the local and national level engaged in a power struggle regarding `joint regional planning' for a city region, and the parallel quest to secure an extension to the city 's boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By 2004 the English regions had completed the first set of Regional Planning Guidance (RPG) of the new century. The previous round, completed in the mid-1990s, was widely considered at the time to be weak in a number of respects. Efforts by government and the planning profession to raise the quality of planning at the regional level have been considerable since that time. There have been some extra resources, supported by much involvement of agents from the wider economy and society. This paper takes an overview of what these planning instruments (RPG) are proposing in substantive terms. What agendas are they promoting? Have the weaknesses of the last round been overcome? Is ‘spatial planning’ becoming a reality? Is delivery of RPGs being effectively addressed? These are large questions, and the paper only gives tentative answers. But an assessment is timely, given the planning legislation finally passed in May 2004, with the replacement of RPGs by Regional Spatial Strategies (RSSs) and the abolition of structure plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Set within a general discussion of the characteristics of sub-regional planning and development, this paper reports the results of recent research on the proposed arrangements for strategic planning at regional and sub-regional levels in the English regions. It also examines the characteristics of strategic planning at regional and sub-regional levels in Scotland and Wales. Specific consideration is given to the advantages and disadvantages associated with sub-regional strategic planning and to a number of key issues, including — the scope and coverage of sub-regional planning; the appropriate spatial scale for sub-regional planning; the coordination or integration of and use, economic development, environmental management and ot her issues at sub-regional level; the institutional and organisational dimensions of sub-regional planning, management and governance; the remits, roles and methods of collaboration between the various bodies involved in sub-regional planning; and the issues of accountability, participation and stakeholder engagement. A final section of the paper briefly considers the lessons that can be used to help to introduce a more efficient and effective system of sub-regional planning in the English regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of proposals in the 2002 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill to replace the current system of development plans with a new generation of planning policy tools, this is an appropriate moment to reconsider the role of design policies within English planning practice. As the era of local plans, structure plans, and unitary development plans (UDPs) comes to a close, the author looks at one part of the remit that development plans aim to address—design. In doing so, he revisits the practice of a range of local planning authorities originally examined for research undertaken between 1992 and 1994. The author's aim is to gauge how the design-policy approaches of these authorities have fared: (a) twelve years after they were first required to prepare them by the 1990 Town and Country Planning Act, and (b) eight/nine years after they were initially examined in research undertaken for the then Department of the Environment and the Economic and Social Research Council. The research confirmed the benefits of a long-term commitment to better design, grounded within a well-established policy framework that is, nevertheless, responsive to lessons from local implementation experience. It revealed that there is no one right way to achieve this objective, and that the more flexible approaches to plan-making envisaged in forthcoming national legislation should encourage the best of local practice to spread beyond the limited number of local authorities that have so far made such a commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper demonstrates how the Merseyside Objective One (MO1) programme provided a platform for sub-regional partners to develop a consensus about strategic economic development priorities and resulted in innovations and collective learning particularly in terms of community economic development and closer engagement of Higher Educational Institutions and the private sector. However, such gains were partially offset by over-complex management arrangements, blurred accountability, competition for resources and match funding problems. Devolution of responsibility for programme content and implementation under the new Structural Fund regulations should allow partners to address many of these shortcomings in the second MO1 programme. Tighter financial controls may, however, reduce room for manoeuvre and discourage experimentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the role of participants in producing regional planning guidance in England. Selection of participating shareholders; Development of governance structures.

The article reports on the feasibility study regarding the implementation of urban and regional planning commissioned by the Planning Policy Unit of the Department of Environment (DoE) in London, England. The feasibility study is intended to develop a framework to help understand the issues important for the implementation of planning policies. As part of the study, interviews with the department's staff, local authorities and statutory bodies were conducted. It was found that there are many actions which have great impact on the real world which cannot be attributed to a particular policy or set of objectives.

The article describes the results of a survey on urban fringe farms between Tyneside and Sunderland in North-East England. With this, the analysis outlines the nature of offences which occurred, the type of offender, the time incurred by and cost of the incident to the farmer. The cost of the offences should determine how many resources are devoted to remedying the problem like the modifying local plans. Several surveys have investigated the nature of farming under urban fringe conditions have involved the continuous monitoring of criminal and civil law incidents.

The article discusses the objectives of the Structure Plans in the South West England including to promulgate and justify the county's general proposals and policies, interpret national and regional policies in terms of physical and environmental planning, and supply the structure and statutory basis for local district plans. It examines the differences in treatment of a policy area in each region and the future provision of employment in structure plans within the South West Region. Three questions are presented which raised against the approach to other central issues in the Structure Plans.

This article discusses the theory and practice of regionalism. The philosophy of regionalism and the art of regional planning are both very young everywhere, and of course, not least so in the U.S.; indeed, the first scarcely exists in the U.S. except as it has found incidental expression in the writings of sporadic writers like Henry Thoreau, Liberty Bailey and Mary Austin, while regional planning itself, instead of being identified with the general development of the region, has grown up out of the administrative and economic problems connected with congestion and expansion of great cities. It follows that there has been a hiatus between the cultural and economic sides of regional planning. An unconscious regionalism has been growing up in the cultural life of England and the U.S., as in other countries, and it has been abetted by the little theater movement, by the rehabilitation or the founding of regional universities; but this regionalism has been unsteady on its pins and spasmodic, because it was harnessed to no policy of land-planning, industrial resettlement, civic renewal and city-building. At the same time, all the technical endeavors in city-planning and industrial exploitation have been weakened and partly misdirected for lack of an accepted philosophy to give them setting and purpose, and for lack, too, of an enlightened public, for whom these matters would have a personal as well as practical appeal.

The article examines some of the problems of the technical officers of planning authorities in the administration of the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947 in England. It mentions the classifications of tasks of a planning department under the 1947 Act which include the carrying out of statutory and other consultation, and the collection of facts from which committee decisions will be drawn on applications for building and other forms of development; the preparation of the development plan in all its phases; and case work. One of the problems mentioned is the acquisition of adequate and properly trained staff.