Scotland (UK) is a strong innovator, ranking among the top 20% of economies among European regions, with strengths in university-firm collaborations and skills for innovation. With close to two-thirds of all growth in productivity from 2010 to 2018 coming from better use of resources in remote rural areas, rural areas are critical to economic prosperity.
Rich in case study insights, this book provides an overview of city-region building and considers how governance restructuring shapes political, economic, social and cultural landscapes. Reviewing city regions in Britain, the authors address the tensions and opportunities for local elites and civil society actors.
Some 30 years after Glasgow turned towards regeneration, indicators of its built environment, its health, its economic performance and its quality of life remain below UK averages. This interdisciplinary study examines the ongoing transformation of Glasgow as it transitioned from a de-industrial to a post-industrial city during the 20th and 21st centuries. Looking at the diverse issues of urban policy, regeneration and economic and social change, it considers the evolving lived experiences of Glaswegians. Contributors explore the actions required to secure the gains of regeneration and create an economically competitive, socially just and sustainable city, establishing a theory that moves beyond post-industrialism and serves as a model for similar cities globally.
Cultural and creative sectors and industries are a significant source of jobs and income. They are a driver of innovation and creative skills, within cultural sectors and beyond. The report outlines international trends with new data, including at subnational scale.
The Scottish economy is at the heart of contemporary constitutional and public policy debates. This substantial new edited collection, the first comprehensive and authoritative analysis for more than 60 years, is a timely update on the classic volume of the same name edited by Sir Alec Cairncross in 1954. It is data rich, and offers links to updatable data and leading indicators of the Scottish economy including measures of public finances, distributional evidence and growth. Readers will find a series of easy to follow chapters covering the Scottish economy from every angle – oil and gas, health, education, finance, rural Scotland, inequality, climate change, gender and work, housing, infrastructure and cities. Each sector-based chapter explores the main issues, draws out key empirical facts and considers policy challenges that lie ahead. This book includes: an historical account of the development of the Scottish economy; the trajectory of economic policy in Scotland; reviews of the current fiscal position and the wider economic landscape; and also an intriguing insight into the emerging distinctive approach to Scottish public policy. This book brings together evidence and high quality research by experts on the Scottish economy in a politically neutral, accessible and non-technical way. The volume will assist readers in navigating their way through the many political debates about constitutional and economic futures that are underway in modern Scotland and the UK. A website also exists to accompany The Scottish Economy - www.scottisheconomy.scot. In today's inter-connected world, it makes sense to have a book on the Scottish economy supplemented by online access to important data, information and evidence as a means of keeping material current.
Intergovernmental Relations in the UK provides a timely and up-to-date analysis of a turbulent decade in British politics and presents a fascinating case study of intergovernmental relations and territorial power in a devolved unitary state. As over time a widening range of powers has been transferred from the Westminster Parliament to the devolved legislatures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, intergovernmental relations have become increasingly important to deal with the corresponding overlaps of legislative and fiscal authority. However, leaving the European Union has exposed the weakness of the intergovernmental architecture and challenged the functionality of the UK’s multilevel polity. Until now, the question of how powerful the devolved administrations really are has not been satisfactorily answered. The author uses insights from comparative studies of federations to develop a systematic account of shared rule and intergovernmental relations. This book examines how informal institutions and practices can provide political influence beyond formal structures, with reference to an extensive range of institutions, practices, policies and political decisions. Unlike other studies focused predominantly on the state of the Union, this volume points to the interplay between conflict and cooperation, and demonstrates that the proclaimed ‘break-up of the Union’ is accompanied by efforts to integrate the different jurisdictions. This book will be of interest to scholars and postgraduate students of comparative politics, political systems, multilevel governance, regional and federal studies, British politics and public administration. It will also appeal to politicians, government advisers, civil servants and other practitioners who seek a better, more nuanced understanding of the UK’s multilevel constitution and politics, and the nature of intergovernmental relations in the UK.
Shaking Up the City critically examines many of the concepts and categories within mainstream urban studies that serve dubious policy agendas. Through a combination of theory and empirical evidence, Tom Slater “shakes up” mainstream urban studies in a concise and pointed fashion by turning on its head much of the prevailing wisdom in the field. To this end, he explores the themes of data-driven innovation, urban resilience, gentrification, displacement and rent control, neighborhood effects, territorial stigmatization, and ethnoracial segregation. With important contributions to ongoing debates in sociology, geography, urban planning, and public policy, this book engages closely with struggles for land rights and housing justice to offer numerous insights for scholarship and political action to guard against the spread of an urbanism rooted in vested interest.
This book highlights the discontinuities and the ongoing development of the urban question in policy-making in the context of the controversial current issues of global reversal and regional revival. It critically examines contemporary public policies and practices at the urban, regional and national scales in order to offer a timely contribution to the debate on the significance of the urban dimension and interpretation in terms of the theory, policy and practice of social-spatial research in the twenty-first century. Focusing on Europe, it explores the current urban policy agendas at different scales - and the mobility of those agendas -, their implications, contradictions and controversies. It brings together original contributions from multiple disciplines but with an urban perspective, including empirical case studies and critical discussions of the following topics: the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the global “New Urban Agenda” as part of the Habitat III process; the Urban Agenda for the European Union; national spatial policies related to urban agendas; urban agendas at regional/urban levels; city regionalism discourse and state rescaling; new formal regional and metropolitan governments as a solution (or problem); the role of new actors in regional urbanization dynamics; multi-level governance processes in developing an urban agenda; informal assemblages at the metropolitan scale aiming at constructing the urban concept and dimension. Given its scope, the book is of interest to urban, regional and EU policy-makers, scholars and students working in the fields of urban geography, urban studies, EU urban and regional policies, and planning.
This book considers the major forces that have emerged to reshape planning following 2010, including national infrastructure project delivery, the Localism Act (2011) and neighbourhood planning. This period also saw the introduction of the replacement of regional plans by new strategic sub-regional approaches in combined local authorities for functional economic areas. All of this is set within the UN’s New Urban Agenda, Brexit, the changing programme for the EU post 2021 and the likely effects that these will have on UK planning practice. There is also a discussion on the evolving planning policies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the ways in which the UK nations are beginning to work together more closely and with Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man through the spatial planning group in the British–Irish Council. Although primarily focused on the UK, the text sets some of the policy discussions in a wider international context including agreements on the environment and the emerging alignment of governance and economies in newly recognised sub-regional spaces. It follows Effective Practice in Spatial Planning (2011), which addressed the developments in planning in the UK between 2004 and 2010, and discusses the major changes in all aspects of planning policy in the following period.
This comprehensive introduction to the concepts and theory of regional planning in the UK. Drawing on examples from throughout the UK is the essential, up-to-date text for students interested in all aspects of this increasingly influential subject.
