Localism And Planning

As in many other areas of public policy in the United Kingdom, in recent years city planning has increasingly been localized, all the way down to the neighborhood level. This book is the first to critically analyze this shift, which has proved to be among the most contentious and controversial of all contemporary planning initiatives. Focusing on the newly granted rights of communities to draw up statutory Neighbourhood Development Plans, it moves from there to engage with larger debates about the theory and practice of localism, setting this trend within an international context with cases from the United States, Australia, and France, as well as the United Kingdom.

Governments around the world are seeing the locality as a key arena for effecting changes in governance, restructuring state/civil society relations and achieving sustainable growth. This is the first book to critically analyse this shift towards localism in planning through exploring neighbourhood planning; one of the fastest growing, most popular and most contentious contemporary planning initiatives. Bringing together original empirical research with critical perspectives on governance and planning, the book engages with broader debates on the purposes of planning, the construction of active citizenship, the uneven geographies of localism and the extent to which power is actually being devolved. Setting this within an international context with cases from the US, Australia and France the book reflects on the possibilities for the emergence of a more progressive form of localism.

"Localism" has been deployed in recent debates over planning law as an anodyne, grassroots way to shape communities into sustainable, human-scale neighborhoods. But "local" is a moving category, with contradictory, nuanced dimensions. Reconsidering Localism brings together new scholarship from leading academics in Europe and North America to develop a theoretically-grounded critique and definition of the new localism, and how it has come to shape urban governance and urban planning. Moving beyond the UK, this book examines localism and similar shifts in planning policy throughout Europe, and features essays on localism and place-making, sustainability, social cohesion, and citizen participation in community institutions. It explores how debates over localism and citizen control play out at the neighborhood, institutional and city level, and has come to effect the urban landscape throughout Europe. Reconsidering Localism is a current, vital addition to planning scholarship.

The UK's Localism Bill, due to be enacted in April 2012, provides the most radical reform of UK planning law in 20 years. This book is a clear practical guide to what the reform is likely to mean in practice for developers, local authorities, planning consultants, and communities in general. It covers not just the Bill but other proposed legislative changes and the UK government's policy direction on planning issues more generally (for example, the proposed National Planning Policy Framework is due to be finalized in April 2012).

This book mixes conceptual rigour with accessible case study analysis and aims to expose the operation of community-led planning activities and frame them in a discussion of the effectiveness of collaborative planning processes.

This book looks at the transition from New Labour’s ‘Spatial Planning’ approach to the Coalition Government’s preferred ‘Localism’ approach. Localism we are told will liberate local planners from the heavy hand of central government and allow planning to flourish at the local level. Alternatively, austerity cuts nationally mean planning faces cuts. In just two years the machinery of regional planning has been dismantled and local authorities are being asked to do more with less. Innovation is also evident, however, notably with the introduction of neighbourhood planning and Local Enterprise Partnerships. This collection contain chapters looking at the planning system overall, sustainability and planning, new approaches to infrastructure planning, and the critical interface between urban policy, local economic development and planning. This book was published as a special issue of Planning Practice and Research. It also contains a brand new afterword, written by the editors: ‘Localism, austerity and planning.’

Planning Practice: Critical Perspectives from the UK provides the only comprehensive overview of contemporary planning practice in the UK. Drawing on contributions from leading researchers in the field, it examines the tools, contexts and outcomes of planning practice. Part I examines planning processes and tools, and the extent to which theory and practice diverge, covering plan-making, Development Management, planning gain, public engagement and place-making. Part II examines the changing contexts within which planning practice takes place, including privatisation and deregulation, devolution and multi-level governance, increased ethnic and social diversity, growing environmental concerns and the changing nature of commercial real estate. Part III focuses on how planning practice produces outcomes for the built environment in relation to housing, infrastructure, economic progress, public transport and regeneration. The book considers what it means to be a reflective practitioner in the modern planning system, the constraints and opportunities that planners face in their daily work, and the ethical and political challenges they must confront.

This book carries out an in-depth investigation of a neighborhood planning process that engages critically with the issues surrounding articulation of local concerns in a strategic manner and the prospects of implementing ‘bottom up’ community initiatives successfully. It highlights the dynamics involved in shaping the content of a neighbourhood plan and the implications of the different ways in which a place is constructed. The book challenges the notions of a singular place that is described in a neighbourhood plan. It examines conceptual, thematic, strategic and performative constructions of place and the capacity for neighbourhood plans to be developed within this context. It explores the value of connecting the formulation of a neighbourhood plan with the emergence of a relevant local plan, allowing for more meaningful local influence on strategic policymaking. With first-hand insights on neighbourhood planning, this book offers a novel contribution to the fields of planning, urban studies, and urban geography.