Policy Press Community Action and Planning: Contexts, Drivers and Outcomes

With trust in top-down government faltering, community-based groups around the world are displaying an ever-greater appetite to take control of their own lives and neighbourhoods. Government, for its part, is keen to embrace the projects and the planning undertaken at this level, attempting to regularise it and use it as a means of reconnecting to citizens and localising democracy. This unique book analyses the contexts, drivers and outcomes of community action and planning in a selection of case studies in the global north: from emergent neighbourhood planning in England to the community-based housing movement in New York, and from active citizenship in the Dutch new towns to associative action in Marseille. It will be a valuable resource for academic researchers and for postgraduate students on social policy, planning and community development courses. Review "A valuable contribution to our understanding of community action and public participation in planning that pushes boundaries in its reframing of participation as an integral part of planning and governance. Compelling reading for scholars, educators, and reflective practitioners." --Professor Emerita Judith E Innes, University of California Berkeley "A rich view, neither benevolent nor romantic, of actual communities in different parts of the world struggling to take control of their lives and homes, and a close investigation of their torn connections to the planning system" --Dr. Marco Cremaschi, University Roma Tre About the Author Nick Gallent is Professor of Housing and Planning and Head of the Bartlett School of Planning at University College London. His research focuses on UK planning policy as it pertains to housing delivery and as it affects rural communities. Daniela Ciaffi is Professor of Urban Sociology in the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Palermo. She has published widely in the fields of strategic and inclusive planning, participative planning and urban sociology.