Strategic Spatial Projects

Strategic Spatial Projects presents four years of case study research and theoretical discussions on strategic spatial projects in Europe and North America. It takes the position that planning is not well equipped to take on its current challenges if it is considered as only a regulatory and administrative activity. There is an urgent need to develop a mode of planning that aims to innovate in spatial as well as social terms. This timely, important book is for spatial planning, urban design and community development and policy studies courses. For academics, researchers and students in planning, urban design, urban studies, human and economic geography, public administration and policy studies.

A pan-European survey of strategic planning issues in response to technological innovation and its spatial consequences, this text should interest all planners, geographers and others concerned wtih the planning and management of economic development.

A pan-European survey of strategic planning issues in response to technological innovation and its spatial consequences, this text should interest all planners, geographers and others concerned wtih the planning and management of economic development.

This provocative collection of essays challenges traditional ideas of strategic s- tial planning and opens up new avenues of analysis and research. The diversity of contributions here suggests that we need to rethink spatial planning in several f- reaching ways. Let me suggest several avenues of such rethinking that can have both theoretical and practical consequences. First, we need to overcome simplistic bifurcations or dichotomies of assessing outcomes and processes separately from one another. To lapse into the nostalgia of imagining that outcome analysis can exhaust strategic planners’ work might appeal to academics content to study ‘what should be’, but it will doom itself to further irrelevance, ignorance of politics, and rationalistic, technocratic fantasies. But to lapse into an optimism that ‘good process’ is all that strategic planning requires, similarly, rests upon a ction that no credible planning analyst believes: that enough talk will miraculously transcend con ict and produce agreement. Neither sing- minded approach can work, for both avoid dealing with con ict and power, and both too easily avoid dealing with the messiness and the practicalities of negotiating out con icting interests and values – and doing so in ethically and politically critical ways, far from resting content with mere ‘compromise’. Second, we must rethink the sanctity of expertise. By considering analyses of planning outcomes as inseparable from planning processes, these accounts help us to see expertise and substantive analysis as being ‘on tap’, ready to put into use, rather than being particularly and technocratically ‘on top’.

Bringing together authors from academia and practice, this book examines spatial planning at different places throughout the British Isles. Six illustrative case studies of practice examine which conceptions of space and place have been articulated, presented and visualized through the production of spatial strategies. Ranging from a large conurbation (London) to regional (Yorkshire and Humber) and national levels, the case studies give a rounded and grounded view of the physical results and the theory behind them. While there is widespread support for re-orienting planning towards space and place, there has been little common understanding about what constitutes ‘spatial planning’, and what conceptions of space and place underpin it. This book addresses these questions and stimulates debate and critical thinking about space and place among academic and professional planners.

This book introduces a planning support system called Strategic Spatial Plan Support System (SSP-SS) to visualize population growth and predict energy demand, land use, and waste discharge resulting from urbanization. By analyzing policy interactions between household agents, the book uses SSP-SS to visualize policy effects on urban areas during stages of growth and decline. Simulations are created based on these policy outcome assessments, taking into account the influences of energy and resource consumption on sustainable development in urban environments. The book is geared towards researchers, universities, and urban policy makers. The book begins by presenting a framework of urban growth simulation, and introducing SSP-SS. Then, household lifecycle and relocation models are employed for simulating policy impacts on urbanization, and investigating the impacts of spatial strategic planning. Several projects are assessed using agent-based modeling including shopping centre construction, day-care service for aging populations, and shelter accommodation capacities for earthquakes and other disasters. The final chapters discuss water and energy management, the environmental impacts of demand and consumption, and future recommendations for sustainable development and policy implementation. Introduces Strategic Spatial Plan Support System (SSP-SS) to visualize population growth and predict energy demand, land use, and waste discharge resulting from urbanization. Analyzes policy effects on urban areas during stages of growth and decline. Discusses the influences of water and gas consumption on environmental issues in urban areas for sustainable development.

This postgraduate level book uses research findings to address key questions relating to the performance of large-scale strategic urban projects.

All over the world societies are facing a number of major problems. New developments, challenges and opportunities cause these issues and yet cases tell us that traditional spatial planning responses and tools are often insufficient to tackle these problems and challenges. Situated Practices of Strategic Planning draws together examples from across the globe – from France to Australia; from Nigeria to the United States, as it observes international comparisons of the strategic planning process. Many approaches and policies used today fail to capture the dynamics of urban/regional transformation and are more concerned with maintaining an existing social order than challenging and transforming it. Stewarded by a team of highly regarded and experienced researchers, this book gives a synthetic view of the process of change and frames future directions of development. It is unique for its combination of analysis of international case studies and reflection on critical nodes and features in strategic planning. This volume will be of interest to students who study regional planning, academics, professional planners, and policy makers.