Philip Allmendinger

The New Spatial Planning: Territorial Management with Soft Spaces and Fuzzy Boundaries

Preface 1. The New Spatial Planning: Territorial Management and Devolution 2. Rethinking Planning: State Restructuring, Devolution and Spatial Strategies 3. Irish Spatial Planning and the Cork Experience 4. Spatial Planning in Northern Ireland and the Emergent North West Region of Ireland 5. Spatial Planning in a Devolved Scotland 6. The Wales Spatial Plan and Improving Policy Integration 7. English Spatial Planning and Dealing with Growth in the Leeds City Region 8. Congested Governance and the London Thames Gateway 9. A New Spatial Planning?

Towards a post-positivist typology of planning theory

The post-positivist domination of planning theory in recent years has rightly highlighted the social and political context of theories. Its impact through various guises including collaborative, postmodern and neo-pragmatic approaches has been significant. However, one area that has been immune to these broad changes and interpretations is typologies of planning. Typologies provide heuristics for academics and practitioners that help map the landscape of ideas that influence a particular field. As such they are crucial to any understanding of a diverse theoretical area such as planning. This article seeks to develop a post-positivist typology for planning theory. My typology is based upon the broad themes of post-positivism including the belief that all theory is to greater or lesser degrees normative, a non-linear conception of time and progress and the introduction of spatial and temporal variance in any understanding of the formulation, interpretation and application of theory. The result is an approach that does away with two traditional planning theory dualisms - the procedural-substantive distinction and the theory-practice gap. It also provides a locally diverse and unique interpretation of planning theory at the national and sub-national scale that rejects the idea that local interpretation of theories and their application can be assumed to be consistent with ideas operating at a higher (often supra-national) scale.

Planning Futures : New Directions for Planning Theory

Introduction. 1. The Post-Positivist Landscape of Planning Theory. Part One: Planning Thoughts and Perspectives. 2. Collaborative Planning: From Theoretical Foundations to Practice Forms. 3. Planning and Foucault: In Search of the Dark Side of Planning Theory. Part Two: Planning Praxis and Interfaces. 4. Personal Dynamics, Distinctive Frames and Communicative Planning. 5. Values and Professional Identities in Planning Practice. 6. Direct Action and Agonism in Democratic Planning Processes. 7. Governmentality, Gender, Planning: A Foucaudian Perspective. Part Three: Planning Movements and Trajectories. 8. A Pragmatic Attitude to Planning. 9. Planning and the Postmodern Turn. 10. A Hayekian Liberal Critique of Collaborative Planning. Conclusions. 11. Communicative Planning, Collaborative Planning and the Post-Positivist Planning Theory Landscape. References.

The Communicative Turn in Urban Planning: Unravelling Paradigmatic, Imperialistic and Moralistic Dimensions

The emerging paradigm of communicative or collaborative planning has dominated theoretical discourse since the early 1980s. Rather than one coherent position, there are a variety of schools that vary in their emphasis on different aspects of social and critical theory and their mixture of analyses and prescription. Critiques of communicative planning have been scarce and have challenged or questioned specific aspects rather than critiquing the paradigm as a whole. We identify six broad themes in the paper from a variety of sources and explore their relationship to communicative planning theory. These critiques do not, in our opinion, threaten to undermine communicative planning but present questions that need to be addressed. In undertaking a dialectical engagement with such critiques, communicative planning theory will be strengthened and made more attractive to practitioners--an audience that so far has been less than willing to take up such ideas.

The fluid scales and scope of UK spatial planning

In this paper we argue that the emerging new systems for subnational plans and spatial strategies represent a highly contested policy terrain over which battles are being played out about what constitute the appropriate scale, scope, and process of strategic planmaking activities. Significantly, these debates are being played out in different ways in different parts of the post devolutionary UK state. The approach adopted here engages with and develops existing work on state restructuring and sociopolitical rescaling. In doing so we bring struggles over spatial planning to the centre of the analysis, addressing calls for increasing integration across different sectoral policy domains.

The contested strategies of local governance: community strategies, development plans, and local government modernisation

The current round of local government modernisation in England, which commenced in 1997, has focused primarily on three main areas—new council constitutions, e-government, and performance. However, a fourth strand of initiatives relates to the power of well-being and the duty to prepare a community strategy, in partnership with a local strategic partnership. Academic commentators and planners, who have been focusing on the proposed UK planning reforms as contained within the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act (passed in 2004), have largely ignored the development of this strand. In this paper we explore these aspects of the local government modernisation agenda for planners and pull out some of the key issues for comparison in the ownership, role, and development of the new plans: community strategies and development plans. Opportunities and difficulties of ensuring that new development plans become the spatial expression of community strategies is assessed through an illustration of the relationship between the London Borough of Camdens community strategy and its unitary development plan. Following a review of the content of both documents, wider assessments are drawn out and we conclude by debating the implications of and challenges for a future reformed planning system at the local level.

Devolution and the modernization of local government: Prospects for spatial planning

Abstract The creation of devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales, coupled with the proposals for the English regions are creating new operational environments for local government in different parts of the UK. This paper reviews both the key factors affecting these new environments and their relationship with local government. The paper assesses the factors influencing the context for change, and considers these comparatively within England, Scotland and Wales. Attention is focused on emerging forms and practices of spatial planning within the devolved countries at the local level, caused by sub-national, local and community institutional change. Spatial planning is utilized as an example of the changing nature of central–local government relationships within the UK. The article concludes that there is evidence of convergent and divergent trends occurring at different speeds within the three countries and that the new local government relationships in Scotland and Wales may be more defined as a direct consequence of devolution. In England, by contrast, the new relationships between local government and central government appear more complex, not least as a result of the emerging picture of governance being brought about by regionalization. This leaves the future structure and powers of spatial planning within English local government more uncertain at the present time.

Europeanizing territoriality—towards soft spaces?

This paper explores the coexistence of relational and territorial spaces—soft spaces—through the experiences of EU integration and territorialization. First, we seek a better understanding of EU integration through an engagement with the literature and research on soft spaces. We propose that EU integration is best understood as involving an interplay between territorial and relational understandings and approaches that vary through time, a variation that can be categorized as involving pooled territoriality, supraterritoriality, and nonterritoriality. Second, we seek to add to the current research and literature on soft spaces by focusing upon the changing character of soft spaces and their temporalities. We approach these two dimensions through an exploration of two ex post case studies, the development of which typically shows different stages of softening, hardening, and of differing degrees of Europeanization. With the focus on Europeanization, the paper concludes with three findings: the new spaces of European territoriality are characterized by, first, temporal dynamics, second, their parallel existence with ‘hard’ spaces, and, finally, they can be employed as a political tool.

Housing supply and planning delay in the South of England

There is widespread concern about the need to deliver increased housing supply in the UK in order to address problems of affordability. One problem in achieving this is the nature of the planning system. UK housebuilding proposals need to be approved by Local Planning Authorities. The system in the UK differs from that in other areas of Europe in the extent to which decisions on planning permission are largely discretionary. Concern exists over delays in the evaluation of proposals and the negotiation of required changes. In practice, several factors may account for the time a new housing proposal takes to secure planning permission. Some delay may be due to planning whilst other factors relate to the ways in which proposals are formulated and/or specific site characteristics. Currently, there is little firm detailed empirical evidence on the causes of delay. The paper presents the findings from an ESRC funded research project that collected data on the time taken to gain planning permission for selected recent major housing projects from a sample of local authorities in southern England. Key characteristics of those developments such as number of units, location, etc were included. The whole chain of events in securing planning permission was also covered, including re-submissions and appeals. Hedonic analysis of the data highlights the factors determining the time development proposals take in the planning process. These results have been triangulated with interviews with key actors in the planning and development process in order to explore possible ways forward. The paper concludes with a range of recommendations.

Zoning by Stealth? The Diminution of Discretionary Planning

Abstract Two distinct views on English planning are driving changes within government. The first highlights its spatial nature and the role planning plays in coordination, integration and collaboration at different spatial scales. The other view is dominated by the need to deliver upon a range of targets related to national priorities such as housing development. Both views concern different aspects of planning: the former to development planning and the latter to development control. The long-term implications of these driving forces could be significant. One implication could be the diminution of the discretionary foundations of development control and involve a zoning approach. Another could be the re-emergence of a more centralized approach to development planning. This paper explores the driving forces behind changes to English planning and highlights a range of possible future trajectories.