Juliet Carpenter

Addressing Europe's Urban Challenges: Lessons from the EU URBAN Community Initiative

Urban issues have moved up the European Unions policy agenda over the past 10 years. Since the launch of the URBAN I Community Initiative (CI) in 1994, urban issues within regional policy have increasingly featured in EU policy documents. This paper presents the findings of the ex-post evaluation of the URBAN CI that was implemented from 1994 to 1999, funded by the European Commission. It shows that while URBAN-style area-based initiatives were already taking place in some member-states, in the majority of countries the URBAN CI presented an innovative way of addressing area-based urban challenges, effectively leading the way for a sea-change in thinking on urban regeneration in many member-states, both in terms of content and process. The paper concludes with some reflections on the implications of the findings for addressing urban deprivation through area-based initiatives.

The Residential Mobility of Ethnic Minorities: A Longitudinal Analysis

Studies of ethnic minority settlement in major cities usually depend upon snapshot evidence derived from periodic population censuses. The objects of such research are usually city regions, neighbourhoods or census tracts, and changes through time can not be undertaken as process studies but only as comparisons between given dates. In discussing the residential mobility experiences of ethnic minority populations it would be extremely valuable to be able to use individuals as the research units instead of geographical areas. This possibility exists for the study of ethnic minority residential mobility in the Paris region through the secondary analysis of a major survey carried out in 1986 by the French National Demographic Research Institute (INED). The results of such an analysis lead to a questioning of certain established ideas on the importance of the inner city for residence, but provide confirmation of higher-than-average mobility rates.

Increasing participation in planning: Emergent experiences of the reformed planning system in England

This article seeks to explore the emerging picture of participation under the New Labour planning reforms. In many senses this may appear as a familiar story of the gap between rhetoric and reality and the operation of persistent barriers to participation. However, we believe the situation is more complex than a focus on gaps would suggest, a view that is confirmed by accounts which both set out the limits to participation in planning under New Labour (Bedford et al., 2002; Kitchen & Whitney, 2004; Brownill & Carpenter, 2007a) and others which point to some potential for innovation (Doak & Parker, 2005). Instead it is the interplay between persistent barriers to participation and particular features of the governance of planning under New Labour that forms the basis of this article. There are twin dangers associated with typifying distinct eras of planning such as Thatcherite or New Labour. One such danger, as Allmendinger (2003) points out is that factors that continue whatever the particular ideology that is pursued can be ignored – hence our concentration on persistent barriers to participation. Second, as Hall (2003) argues, we may concentrate too much on the apparent coherence of particular approaches to planning rather than on the tensions and contradictions within them. The New Labour ‘brand’ of planning is no exception here and this article identifies a number of tensions as factors that are key to understanding the emerging patterns of participation. These tensions overlie and are likely to interact with the constant of barriers to participation. While focusing on the reformed planning system in England, the argument in this article is relevant to wider international debates about the restructuring of planning and the role of participation within this (Albrechts, 2002). Bearing this in mind the article begins by outlining debates concerning the limits to participation within planning. It then goes on to explore the post-2004 planning system in England and the narrative of participatory planning which informs it using a framework which sees these reforms as holding within them dynamic tensions between different modes of governance. Using information from literature reviews and a local case study of participation in Oxford, this framework is used to explore how the processes of modernization are emerging around particular aspects of participation under the new planning regime and in particular places. The article concludes by arguing that the continuation of an ever-present ‘participation gap’ is only a partial explanation of current events. Instead a dynamic and shifting picture is emerging as a result of the interaction between the continuation of persistent limits to participation and the particular tensions within the overall objectives of the reformed planning system and

Approaches to Democratic Involvement: Widening Community Engagement in the English Planning System

Participation has become integral to the delivery of public services, as governments attempt to involve citizens in decision making through processes of consultation and engagement. This paper addresses the issue of community participation in the context of the English planning system, which has recently been restructured to focus more sharply on integrating communities in the planning process. It presents findings of research into the workings of the reformed planning system, in particular in relation to the objective of public participation, using the case of the Planning Aid service. The paper sets the discussion in the context of two different forms of democracy (representative and deliberative democracy) and associated strategies for participation. It then outlines the recent reforms in the planning system, highlighting the different approaches to participation that are being applied. The paper then examines the case of Planning Aid, a service that aims to involve disadvantaged groups in the planning system. The paper concludes that the outcomes from recent experiences of participation in planning are in part due to the “hybrid” approaches that are emerging within the system. While this provides the potential for more inclusive planning, it is argued that this “hybridity” needs to be acknowledged by policy makers and practitioners if strategies and mechanisms are to be put in place that respond to the demands of different forms of democracy.

New Labour's Spaces of Competitiveness

New Labours engagement with sub-national economic governance was a stuttering and uneven story marked by both significant achievements and jolting failures. While devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the introduction of Regional Development Agencies in England represented early successes, the bold rhetoric of New Labours programme was not in reality matched by solid ideological foundations and a coherent policy approach. Rather, the decentralisation project was constructed around a distinctive ‘rationality’ based around the role of place in driving competitiveness in the face of a global, knowledge-based economy. This had significant implications for the level and clarity of political commitments in this sphere, and the durability of new forms. After the comprehensive ‘no’ vote in the referendum for the North East Elected Regional Assembly in 2004 and the subsequent collapse of the English regional agenda, a period of hiatus gave way to an emerging sub-regional agenda, where developments were influenced at least in part by bottom-up pressures and allowed for some degree of local autonomy and flexibility in the construction of new governance forms. Yet the continuing absence of a clear ideological drive emphasized the ad-hoc nature of these changes and accentuated the lack of an over-arching political resolution. In this context Labours proposals for sub-national economic governance were muddied, raising questions over the sustainability of new arrangements. The paper concludes with a brief commentary on the experience of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government following the general election on 6 May 2010.

Towards an Evolutionary and Endogenous Growth Theory Explanation of Why Regional and Urban Economies in England are Diverging

Across Europe, especially with the entry of states from the East, there is much interest in the topic of whether national and regional economies are or can be induced to converge over time. The large differences in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and growth rates across the Union stimulate this concern. Of particular interest is how the Structural Funds may be used to reduce these discrepancies. Although there are some signs of convergence across Europe at the cross-country and cross-regional level, within some of the more prosperous national economies, regional differences remain stubbornly resistant to real and measurable convergence. In the United Kingdom, for example, the issue of the comparatively poor economic performance of some English regions and many of the cities located in them has risen up the policy agenda since the 2002 Spending Review. There, for the first time in two decades, the Government committed itself to reducing the disparities in growth between the English regions through a Public Service Agreement (PSA). PSAs are 3-year agreements negotiated between each of the 19 main UK Government Departments and the Treasury to improve the performance in key areas of policy. Three ministries have set themselves the jointly held target of making ‘sustainable improvements in the economic performance of all English regions and over the long term reduce the persistent gap in growth rates between the regions, defining measures to improve performance and reporting progress against these measures by 2006’. The Ministries involved are the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) through their PSA 2 (at the time, the Ministry responsible for planning, housing and regional policy), the Treasury (PSA 6), and the Department for Trade and Industry (PSA 7).

The Spiral of Knowledge Development: Professional Knowledge Development in Planning

Abstract This paper explores knowledge development in professional planners in England, in both the public and private sectors. Through an exploration of how they engage and interact with a rapidly expanding knowledge base, the paper identifies how knowledge and expertise are developed that thereby inform their professional practice. It identifies the role, position in the career and level of expertise of the planner as influential to the drivers for knowledge development and the tools and techniques employed. It proposes that the level of expertise in professional planners should be seen as a spiral rather than a linear transition, and that the planning professional will move in and out of this spiral during their career in response to the changing demands of their professional practice. This paper adds to the body of academic work on the subject of practical knowledge development in planners, which is so far limited in the peer-reviewed literature.

Innovation and New Path Creation: The Role of Niche Environments in the Development of the Wind Power Industry in Germany and the UK

Abstract This paper seeks to explore the issues of innovation and new path creation in the UK and Germany, illustrated through the case of the modern wind power industry. Taking an evolutionary perspective drawing on path dependence theory, the paper examines the role of niche environments in the creation of new economic pathways. The research finds that new economic pathways are more likely to develop in places where niche conditions provide receptive environments for innovations to flourish. The policy implications of the research include the importance of supporting niche environments that encourage growth in new sectors and the need for financial support to bring innovations to market, to encourage the development of new economic pathways.