Devolution, Regionalism and Regional Development provides an overview and critical perspective on the impact of devolution on regionalism in the UK since 1999, taking a research-based look at issues central to the development of regionalism: politics, governance and planning. This multidisciplinary book is written by academics from the fields of geography, economics, town planning, public policy, management, public administration, politics and sociology with a final chapter by Patrick Le Gales putting the research findings into a theoretical context. This will be an important book for those researching and studying economic and political geography and planning as well as those involved in regional development.
This contributors provide a range of perspectives on the increasingly central issues of state reform, European integration and British regionalism in the 1990s. Using case material, the contributors examine: the effects of state reform and European integration on British regionalism and the devolution debate; and the nature of recent central responses to the re-emergence of regional and devolution issues, with a particular focus on the recent policies of the Major governments and the policies of the Opposition parties. They also present some evidence which suggests that state reform and EC/EU developments have determined and accentuated important new trends in British regionalism, and underpin the plausibility of far-reaching regional and devolution reforms.
Local and regional development is an increasingly global issue. For localities and regions, the challenge of enhancing prosperity, improving wellbeing and increasing living standards has become acute for localities and regions formerly considered discrete parts of the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ worlds. Amid concern over the definitions and sustainability of ‘development’, a spectre has emerged of deepened unevenness and sharpened inequalities in the development prospects for particular social groups and territories. Local and Regional Development engages and addresses the key questions: what are the principles and values that shape definitions and strategies of local and regional development? What are the conceptual and theoretical frameworks capable of understanding and interpreting local and regional development? What are the main policy interventions and instruments? How do localities and regions attempt to effect development in practice? What kinds of local and regional development should we be pursuing? This book addresses the fundamental issues of ‘what kind of local and regional development and for whom?’, frameworks of understanding, and instruments and policies. It outlines what a holistic, progressive and sustainable local and regional development might constitute before reflecting on its limits and political renewal. With the growing international importance of local and regional development, this book is an essential student purchase, illustrated throughout with maps, figures and case studies from Asia, Europe, and Central and North America.
The Handbook of Local and Regional Development provides a comprehensive statement and reference point for local and regional development. The scope of this Handbook’s coverage and contributions engages with and reflects upon the politics and policy of how we think about and practise local and regional development, encouraging dialogue across the disciplinary barriers between notions of ‘local and regional development’ in the Global North and ‘development studies’ in the Global South. This Handbook is organized into seven inter-related sections, with an introductory chapter setting out the rationale, aims and structure of the Handbook. Section one situates local and regional development in its global context. Section two establishes the key issues in understanding the principles and values that help us define what is meant by local and regional development. Section three critically reviews the current diversity and variety of conceptual and theoretical approaches to local and regional development. Section four address questions of government and governance. Section five connects critically with the array of contemporary approaches to local and regional development policy. Section six is an explicitly global review of perspectives on local and regional development from Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America. Section seven provides reflection and discussion of the futures for local and regional development in an international and multidisciplinary context. With over forty contributions from leading international scholars in the field, this Handbook provides critical reviews and appraisals of current state-of-the-art conceptual and theoretical approaches and future developments in local and regional development.
‘The region’ has been used to understand and propose solutions to phenomena and problems outside the dominant spatial scale of the twentieth century – the nation state. Its influence can be seen in multiple social science disciplines and in public policy across the globe. But how was this knowledge organised and how were its concepts transmuted into public policy? This book charts the development of the academic field of Regional Studies and the application of its concepts in public policy through its learned society, the Regional Studies Association. In their modern form, learned societies often play a complementary role to universities, offering networks that operate in the spaces between and beyond universities, connecting specialised academics and knowledge and making it possible for them to have impact outside the academy. In contrast to the geographically tangible and popularly understood role of the university, contemporary learned societies are nebulous networks that transcend barriers and whose contribution is difficult to discern. However, the production and dissemination of knowledge would be stunted were it not for the learned society connecting scholars through a network of publications and events. This book traces the intellectual history of regional studies and regional science from the 1960s into the 2000s and the impact of the regional concept in public policy through the changing priorities of government in the UK and Europe. By approaching the history through the Regional Studies Association, it interrogates the role and function of the ‘learned society’ model of organisation in contemporary academia and importance as a knowledge exchange vehicle for public policy influence.
Town and Country Planning in the UK provides one of the most authoritative and comprehensive accounts of British planning history, institutions, legislation, policies, processes and practices. This 16th edition has been substantially revised and re-organised to provide an up-to-date overview of the planning systems in the four nations of the UK, supported by analyses, interpretations, illustrations and examples from planning practice. The new edition features: details of the legislative and policy changes since 2015 and discussion of their implications, including the early stages of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act, 2023 discussion of environmental policies and programmes and the impact of Brexit on environmental regulatory landscape in Britain changes to climate change and resilience policies, notably the government’s ‘Net Zero’ agenda and their implications for planning updates to the substantive issues in plan-making, especially the responses to the shortage of affordable housing and the development of major infrastructure changes to the processes involved in plan-making and development management an expanded and revised chapter on design to include the growing significance of public health in the built environment major revisions to the chapter on rural planning revisions of the text on planning theory especially in relation to management of conflicts over the use and development of land extended discussion of politics, professionalism and participation in planning The 16th edition of Town and Country Planning in the UK is an ideal starting point for those who are studying or working in the planning field, and for other professionals who need to locate their work in the planning context.
Concentrating on three countries, Spain, France and the United Kingdom, and three regional case studies of Galicia, Brittany and Wales, this book offers an analysis of the development of political regionalism after regionalisation.
"Across Europe, regional development agencies (RDAs) have become a central feature of regional policy, both as innovative policy-makers and as the implementers of programmes and initiatives originating from the national or European level. Since the first generation of RDAs were established in the 1970s and 1980s, major changes have swept through the policy arena: - globalisation has increased competitive pressure and moved the position of regions in the international division of labour to the forefront of regional strategy-making - the digital revolution and the EU Lisbon agenda have highlighted the importance of production and access to knowledge as key factors in regional competitiveness - regional policy has become part of a wider system of multi-level governance so that their geographical horizon has expanded in terms of sponsors and collaborators - issues of governance and accountability of RDAs have been one of the drivers to devolution of powers to governments and bodies below the level of the nation state, raising questions over their status and distance from political control. The aim of this book is to develop a profile of the next generation of RDAs that will identify key issues and trends regarding: policy aims, strategy-making and the new role of knowledge; the organisation of policy delivery, with emphasis on interactive knowledge brokerage; the organisational shift towards smaller and more flexible RDAs; and the political governance of regional policy. By drawing on a combination of conceptual reflection, surveys, comparative research, and systematic use of critical case studies, the book provides a new point of reference by identifying key features of the current, and, indeed next, generation of regionally-based economic development organisations"--
Turbulence characterises the current global scene. This book uses complementary theoretical approaches to understand and help prescribe policies to ‘re-frame’ the regional development problem in turbulent times. These approaches are: evolutionary complexity; evolutionary economic geography; emergence theory; and resilience theory. From below, they address the four major crises creating a ‘perfect storm’ for societies and economics involving: the climate change crisis; the energy crisis; the banking and financial crisis; and the global economic crisis. This book analyses and proposes ways in which regional economies, in particular, are having to be ‘reframed’ to address these crises. First, many must evolve in new ways, possibly moving back from the ‘service economy’ towards a new, greener form of manufacturing of goods as well as services. Accordingly, regional economies are innovating in new ways. Amongst these are the quest for ‘relatedness’ within their own regional orbits, and promoting ‘modularity’ as a mode of analysis and a policy stance to stimulate innovation across industry and geographical borders. Finally, regional economies and societies are discovering that, from a ‘resilience’ perspective, they must find answers to the higher levels of governance with which they increasingly struggle. In this respect regional economies are in ‘transition’ and regional processes are ‘emergent’. The transition seeks to address the four crises, involving re-balancing, re-directing and re-framing future policy and practice. This book describes many of the novel ‘framings’ involved in understanding the new ways in which this major task is being addressed in theory, policy and everyday practice.
