Governing Space: Planning Reform and the Politics of Sustainability

Richard Cowell and Susan Owens
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Richard Cowell: School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3WA, Wales
Susan Owens: Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Downing Place, Cambridge CB2 3EN, England

Environment and Planning C, 2006, vol. 24, issue 3, 403-421

Abstract: The authors explore the relationship between land-use, or spatial, planning and the environmental sustainability of major areas of public policy. First, the planning–public policy relationship is conceptualised within a framework that challenges narrowly instrumental accounts of the role of planning in the promotion of environmental sustainability, emphasising instead how the exploitation of opportunity structures in planning has impinged over time on dominant sectoral objectives. This framework is then used to analyse reformist pressures on planning, with particular reference to England's ‘modernising planning’ agenda. The argument is developed through a critical analysis of how, in the light of key components of this agenda—rescaling, streamlining, and the introduction of a statutory purpose—planning, public policy, and environmental sustainability might be expected to interact in future. Early signs suggest that the initial reform proposals—to accelerate the delivery of development by restructuring opportunities for participation—were diluted (but not displaced) by strong opposition. Tracing the long-term impacts of the reforms will require research into the relations between the reconstituted tiers of planning and the ability of interest groups to use the new opportunity structures effectively—tasks that should interest analysts of the greening of the state as much as planning researchers.

Date: 2006
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envirc:v:24:y:2006:i:3:p:403-421

DOI: 10.1068/c0416j

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