Regions, Spatial Strategies and Sustainable Development

With its mandate for promoting sustainable development and supporting economic development, regional planning has been right at the center of some of the most important policy debates in English regionalism. Where regional economic strategies for instance were produced quickly and with little dissent, regional planning has been the site of some major public disputes, with public examinations providing the opportunity for 'hidden' tensions to be teased out and debated. The result has been some fascinating debates about the very nature of regionalism, and indeed the nature of planning, which have challenged the ability of regional planning to find solutions to the very differing underlying value assumptions of economic development protagonists, environmental groups, and social housing interests, amongst others. The book focuses on recent regional policy and planning debates in all eight English regions, with a range of local case studies used to ground the analysis in local as well as regional planning.The analysis builds on a range of theoretical insights, including state theory and governance, political ecology, governmentality and collaborative planning. Drawing particularly on a discourse approach, the major empirical sections examine a range of major controversies from the past give years of regional planning, including: - the socio-political nature of resistance to new housing on greenfield sites, - alternative approaches to promoting sustainable urban development and policies for 'urban renaissance', - disagreements over policies to redirect or constrain economic expansion in high pressure growth areas, - the social and political basis of new planning technologies for protecting environmental assets for the future, including sustainability appraisals.

David Counsell is a planner working as a research fellow in the Department of Geography at the University of Hull.