Gordon Dabinett

The Europeanization of spatial strategy: Shaping regions and spatial justice through governmental ideas1

Abstract This paper contributes to the current spatial turn in planning research by analysing the Europeanization of strategic planning practices in a specific territory, and the consequent implications for spatial justice. The narratives of policy making presented suggest that the normative construct of polycentric urban development, underpinned by the fundamental spatial organizing principles of frictionless mobility and balanced regional development, led to new expressions and meanings of space in the South Yorkshire case. These challenged the prevailing view on the future of the former coal mining communities, and reasserted a model of economic growth based on the indigenous assets held in city centres.

The European spatial approach: the role of power and knowledge in strategic planning and policy evaluation

This article presents a discussion about an emerging area of evaluation discourse, the ‘European spatial approach’. It examines the current policy framework at the European-wide level by exploring the alternative planning and public policy paradigms that underpin the case for rationality within this framework. By using such a theoretical review, the article seeks to argue that the current deployment of evaluation within strategic spatial policy and planning is poorly understood, and further work is needed to develop an understanding of the role of power and knowledge in rationality, and in particular the role they play within the pluralist models of evaluation that are emerging within the wider EU policy processes. This is illustrated by specific evaluation experiences within the EU Trans-European Transport Networks and Structural Funds.

Transnational Spatial Planning—Insights from Practices in the European Union

Much is made of the global–local relationship, and discourses that extend beyond the simple issue of scale (Healey, 1998). Thus the very notion that a European level of spatial planning should even exist stimulates critical and significant questions about the nature and scope of such activities (Bohme et al., 2004). This review addresses in what way urban planning might operate across national borders and seek influence outside the nation-state construct. The European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) was approved in 1999, following several years of re-drafting, negotiations and reporting (Faludi & Waterhout, 2002). The final ESDP set out a vision for spatial development at a transnational scale within the territory of the European Union (EU), then comprising of 15 member states. The ESDP aims at balanced and polycentric development and a new urban–rural relationship; parity of access to infrastructure and knowledge; sustainable development; and the prudent management and protection of nature and cultural heritage (CEC, 1999). The purpose of this review is to examine how this broad and strategic set of ideas was then put into practice through VISP, an EU-funded transnational project (see www.vispnet.org).

Creative Sheffield: Creating Value and Changing Values?

In Sheffield’s Core City Prospectus – Creative Sheffield – it is claimed that the city is being talked about as ‘being on the up’ as an outcome of innovative qualities that have characterised the history of the city – a creativity to make things on which other people will put high value (Sheffield City Council 2004). The term ‘Creative Sheffield’ builds on the Sheffield City Strategy (Sheffield First Partnership 2002), promoted by the City Council and local strategic partnership, Sheffield First. A strategy underpinned by a ‘culture of creativity’ that in turn advocates a comprehensive programme of change and development in all the main areas of civic life and society. The following key projects are seen as critical in delivering the next challenge in the City’s desire to become an ‘innovative producer city’.

Institutional Influences on EU Funded Regional Technology Development in the UK: A Study of the Yorkshire and East London Regions in the 1990s

This paper seeks to place policy research undertaken in the Yorkshire and East London regions of the UK within the broader context of regional innovation system building. In particular, it attempts to draw out the releasing factors and conditions that shaped stakeholder relationships in these two EU Objective Two regions during the 1990s. This is undertaken with a view to drawing out conclusions about the extent of autonomy, institutional lock-in and compatibility within regional governance. The extent to which such EU stimulated influences are relevant to the practice of regional technological development is explored in areas which have experienced industrial restructuring.

Spatial Justice and the Translation of European Strategic Planning Ideas in the Urban Sub-region of South Yorkshire

This paper analyses urban planning practices in South Yorkshire to reveal how EU strategic spatial ideas and values are reproduced. Specifically, the paper examines how the notion of spatial justice was interpreted as the organising concepts within the European Spatial Development Perspective became situated within a territory severely affected by deindustrialisation in the 1980s, but subsequently a major beneficiary of EU Structural Fund programmes. The analysis reveals how policy-making at this scale used a construct of polycentric urban development that reasserted a model of economic growth based on the indigenous assets held in city centres at the expense of more redistributive measures targeted at the former coal-mining communities in the sub-region.

Markets and the state and the role of local regeneration strategies: A case study of the defence sector in the UK in the 1980s

Outline This article reviews current practice and thinking in the UK with respect to changes occurring in the defence sector. Planned responses and interventionist measures to deal with the consequences of large scale job losses have not been approaches adopted by the UK Government during the 1980s. However, many of the changes have been triggered or directly caused by the Governments own policies to create a free trade and liberalised market economy. An opportunity has arisen for localities, through a growing local economic development function, to play a role in such readjustment. This article examines the extent to which such local responses can exercise any effective control over the future direction and impact of restructuring, and in particular address the role of the military‐industrial complex, arms conversion and the peace dividend from this perspective.

Promoting fairness in Sheffield

In the light of growing inequalities, several urban areas in the UK established Fairness Commissions between 2010 and 2013. In one of these areas, Sheffield, there was an attempt to do something different and innovative. Sheffield on average was, and remains one of the least deprived major cities in England, but also one of the most unequal. Following the publication of the Commission’s report which included an analysis of evidence and 90 recommendations, Sheffield responded by pursuing a number of city-wide initiatives involving different stakeholders. These included monitoring progress towards a fairer city, action on the living wage, a city-wide campaign to promote Sheffield as the fairest city, and ‘Sheffield Money’ to provide support for those households facing financial exclusion. The continuation of austerity measures still creates severe challenges to the ambitions and work of the Sheffield Fairness Commission, but experiences have shown how leadership through example and the co-production of an active campaign can give articulation to a shared desire to address injustices in the city.

Urban performance at different boundaries in England and Wales through the settlement scaling theory

ABSTRACT The relationship between transport-led agglomeration and economic performance is evaluated in an English and Welsh context. We examine the effects of scale, i.e., inter- versus intra-city mobility infrastructure, on urban size–cost performance. An additional contribution of this paper lies in its use of power-law scaling models of urban systems, enabling an assessment of optimality in the trade-off between economic output and mobility costs accounting for ease of access within cities coupled with their built density. Findings suggest economic underperformance coincides with inadequate mobility at both inter- and intra-city scales, while overperformance is accompanied by overgrown urbanized area and escalating mobility costs.

A New Strategic Approach to Science Cities: Towards the Achievement of Sustainable and Balanced Spatial Development

This chapter addresses the new challenges facing the internationalisation of science city projects. It is predicated upon an assumption that such projects are underpinned by a desire to overcome and address the real or potential consequences of uneven spatial development. A further assumption underlying the arguments in this chapter acknowledges that technology and its development do not inevitably lead to a series of foregone or determined impacts. Rather the applications and uses of technology are mediated via social structures and influences, including spatial planning (Borja and Castells 1997). Spatial policies can shape and be shaped by the various ways in which the emergence of a knowledge economy might be mediated through specific localities and territorial characteristics. These specific characteristics of localities and the spatial outcomes of general policy ideas become elements for debate in any assessment seeking to understand such complex interactions. The chapter constructs a critical perspective of science cities in light of future scenarios generated by globalisation and sustainable development. These scenarios will frame future successful economic development and desires to increase prosperity and the quality of life in all cities and regions. Experiences and practices, largely from Europe, are examined with respect to the extent to which common approaches situated in markedly different socio-economic localities are also able to manage the transition from, initially, an industrial to post-industrial economic order, and currently, onwards to a knowledge-based regional economy. The chapter argues that a new strategic approach is required in order for science city projects to contribute to sustainable development in the future. A form of development that will create difficult trade-offs between economic, environmental and equity goals, based on new forms of indigenous development and territorial governance, and a new approach to the social construction and reproduction of innovation and learning. Such a new strategic approach finds expression in the practices of polycentric urban development, multi-level governance and integrated spatial planning. The chapter begins with an account of the project-based development of science parks and associated developments, such as business and innovation centres and technology parks, through to the development of more strategic approaches to encouraging innovative milieu, such as the technopolis policy, science cities, regional innovation systems and ‘smart’ cities. This account is followed by an assessment of the regional development models and analyses that have underpinned the ideas and practice, an assessment that provides insights into the future role that such approaches and public policy might play in the future, and the limits to this in a new global order seeking greater sustainability. The final section begins to map out and give articulation to what a new strategic approach to science cities might entail.