Routledge Regions, Spatial Strategies and Sustainable Development (Regions and Cities)

Focusing on recent regional policy and important planning debates across the English regions, this book analyzes the issues, disputes and tensions that have arisen in regional planning in the new millennium. With a range of local case studies to ground the argument in local as well as regional planning, the authors here build on a range of theoretical insights including state theory and governance, political ecology, governmentality and collaborative planning. Drawing particularly on a discourse approach, the empirical sections examine a range of major controversies from the past five years of regional planning, including: the socio-political resistance to new housing on Greenfield sites alternative approaches to promoting sustainable urban development and policies for urban renaissance policies on redirecting or constraining economic expansion in high-pressure growth areas the social and political bases of new planning technologies for protecting the environment, including sustainability appraisals. Review 'Very well written and clearly laid out. It covers a wide range of material and provides the reader with a significant depth of information and knowledge ... just about every relevant government document and statement has been identified and analyzed here and this will make it a key text for researchers, students abd practitioners working on issues such as regional development, spatial policy, state theory and regional politics.' - Mike Raco, Urban Studies, 2005 'Overall, this is well crafted and energetically written book. It covers a complex set of policy and academic debates in a manner that is both readable and enlightening. It should be core reading for researchers and higher-level undergraduate and postgraduate students. I strongly recommend it for those with an interest in the discourses and practices of sustainable development and regional policy in the UK.' - Urban Studies 'The best summary to date of the transformation of regional planning in England during the period 1998 to 2003.' - Tim Marshall, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, March 2005