What Future for Green Infrastructure Planning? Evaluating the Changing Environment for Green Infrastructure Planning Following the Revocation of Regional Planning Policy in England

ABSTRACT

The revocation of the regional tier of planning by the UK Coalition Government in 2010 removed the established framework of strategic planning in England. Using a case study of green infrastructure (GI), this paper examines whether revocation has negatively impacted the development of environmental, and specifically GI policies and practice. It questions if changing government policy narratives have hindered advocacy and subsequently the delivery of GI and the extent to which it has been able to position itself as a mainstream approach in planning. Using the development of the RSS in England, and the North-East and East of England sub-regional GI strategies (areas of significant policy development), as case studies, the paper presents an ex-ante evaluation prior to revocation of the evolution of GI policy at a regional scale, alongside an ex-post assessment (2011–2015) of its continued growth within sub-regional policies. The paper concludes that whilst RSSs provided a promotional forum, that revocation has not negatively impacted upon GI development, as its advocates have facilitated a supportive policy-implementation environment which has led to the development of more integrated approaches in planning praxis.     

Planning the deployment of clergy

The deployment of Anglican clergy across the 43 dioceses of England provides an interesting case of quasi-quantitative planning in the Church of England. This paper examines the proposals that have been adopted and notes some unusual features connected with their development. Several steps are suggested which could lead to a fairer deployment of the clergy and to a general improvement in the planning processes of the Church of England.     

Material planning with uncertain product quality†

Traditional material requirement planning (MRP) is a system procedure to determine input quantities and ordering times to meet a specified demand in a deterministic framework. A variety of modifications to MRP have been proposed to incorporate different forms of uncertainty in production systems. In this paper, wc consider the case where the uncertainty is due to quality variations in the production process, and we develop an approach which links material planning with quality variations and control.     

日本式单元化生产——生产方式在日本的最新发展形态

日本式单元化生产是生产方式在日本的最新发展形态,是在电子等诸多行业被誉为超越精益的一种先进生产方式。我们通过这篇文章对日本式单元化生产做一简要介绍,一方面试图把它引入中国,为中国实现由制造大国向制造强国的转变和制造业的复兴提供一种可供参考的新型生产组织管理模式,另一方面以求引起中国研究者的关注,从而使更多的研究者加入这一生产方式的研究队伍。本文分六个部分,分别概述了日本式单元化生产的起源、产生背景、与传统的欧美式单元化生产的区别、本质特征、实施中的优劣势以及亟待研究的几个关键问题。     

Metropolitan Planning and the Phenomenon of Reurbanisation: The Example of Liverpool

This paper considers the process and dynamics of reurbanisation and its implications for metropolitan planning. After brief consideration of reurbanisation trends in the UK, through a case study of the city of Liverpool in North West England, the paper explores how these recent trends of population regrowth and changing patterns of housing production (including purpose-built student accommodation) have affected the social structure of the city and what are the implications for planning policy? The paper concludes that population regrowth has been associated with increased spatial social segregation but is likely to continue and will shape future metropolitan planning.     

Children and Planning: To What Extent Does the Scottish Town Planning System Facilitate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child?

Children are often not given explicit attention in land use planning outside of allocating space for schools, parks and playgrounds. This is problematic as children both use and navigate beyond these settings, and findings from research on and with children report how they are frequently marginalized in society. This is partly affected by the way town planning systems treat children's spatial needs and participation. Therefore, this article investigates whether and how the Scottish town planning system acknowledges children, particularly in light of the internationally recognized rights set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). It uses critical discourse analysis of key Scottish planning policies, along with a survey of Scotland's planning authorities to ascertain the extent to which children are provided for and participate in the system. It argues that children's rights are not widely acknowledged or incorporated into town planning policy and practice, and suggests this must be addressed to achieve greater social justice and support Scotland's commitments as a signatory of the UNCRC.     

Production planning in practice

The changes and pressures facing the manufacturing and engineering industries today are increasing the importance of effective aggregate manpower and production planning. Several different theoretical optimisation models to tackle this problem have been described in detail in the literature but there have been few applications of them in practice.The reasons for this are many but include: the difficulty in expressing managements' conflicting and mixed objectives in an objective function; the necessity to oversimplify real life systems to enable these methods to be used; the simplistic approach to manpower planning used in these models; the difficulty in gaining managements' acceptance and finally the fact that what management actually wants is a tool to assist them in planning and decision making.What is being used by many managements is a case-study deterministic simulation model. Many companies are adopting this type of model for all types of planning and twelve out of twenty-seven companies visited in a research project described in this paper were using this type of model for aggregate manpower and production planning. It is proving to be an effective management tool and is being readily accepted principally because modern specialised financial modelling languages are enabling these models to be built, understood and used by non-specialist managers.     

Planning Strategically or by the Book?—Contentious Land Use Planning in South-eastern Finland

The debate on strategic spatial planning highlights the limitations of statutory land use planning in weighing up future options for spatial development, particularly in instances of rapid change. This paper draws on this debate in order to analyse planning institutions and practices in Finland. The case in point is the south-eastern border region where interdependencies with Russia, particularly shopping tourism, have created pressures on land use and led to contentious planning processes between regional and central levels of government. It is argued that, in the absence of cross-border spatial co-ordination, there is a need to establish links between regional land use planning and visions of spatial scenarios in the national context.     

Bridging the Gap? The Role of Regional Governance in Delivering Effective Local Public Services: Evidence from England

Between 2004 and 2010 local area agreements (LAAs) represented a key part of the New Labour Government's agenda for local government in England, which centred on increasing the level of involvement that local areas had in the issues affecting them. To deliver this agenda, New Labour deployed government offices for the regions (GOR) to negotiate with localities on behalf of central government. As part of a broader consideration of the role of regional governance structures in delivering local public services, this paper draws upon the results of a national survey of LAA practitioners in England, and findings from more detailed case study work, to consider the role of GOR in the LAA process. These findings examine the role GOR played in negotiating LAA targets and the extent to which these negotiations allowed local areas to respond to local issues and priorities. Then, by considering local enterprise partnerships and the recently established combined authorities, the paper will consider how localism policy under the Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition government, who came to power in 2010, has responded to the lessons of the LAA. In doing so, the paper seeks to fit into the wider discussion about how local public services can be delivered effectively and draw out the challenges faced by those trying to link local and central policy together.     

Making Competitive Cities in the Light of the Meta-SWOT Tool: A Case Study of Tehran,Iran

ABSTRACT

While there is a growing body of scholarship on regional competitiveness, little attention has been paid to the planning methods that can pursue this objective. Public planners are mainly relying on conventional methods that have come under increasing criticism. This study aims to introduce Meta-SWOT as a novel planning tool in urban and regional studies. Meta-SWOT provides competitive and realistic strategies for planners. It systematically tries to present strategies rooted in internal resources and capabilities while acknowledging the challenges posed by the external environment. Nevertheless, it has several limitations that should be considered when applying to urban and regional planning.     

Fear and Urban Planning in Ordinary Cities: From Theory to Practice

The paper complements Abu-Orf's theory about violent settings by setting out a theory of fear in urban planning in ordinary urban contexts around three arguments: spatialization of fear; (modernist) spatialities and the encounter and political economies of urban fear. The three theoretical arguments are used to re-frame the planning history of Chelas, an affordable housing district in Lisbon, Portugal, and debate the way fear shapes, and is shaped in turn by, planning practice. Confirming that (growing) fear in ordinary urban contexts is not just an effect of the contemporary organization of cities, the paper argues for a theorization of fear that combines global (hegemonic) and a local (discursive/contingent) perspectives in the theorization of urban fear, and advocates for the need to put fear, and its capacity to create a crisis in urban policy, at the heart of planners' agendas.     

Experiences of running negotiable and non-negotiable developer contributions side-by-side

In England, Since the 1970s, a system of negotiated project-specific agreements between local planning authorities and developers/landowners has evolved into the sole mechanism by which part of land value uplift ‘released’ by the grant of planning permission is captured by government. In 2010, in an attempt to simplify and speed up the planning process – negotiated planning agreements were regarded as time-consuming and a brake on development – the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) was introduced. Originally intended as a simple flat rate charge to replace site-specific planning agreements, CIL now sits alongside that mechanism so that developers pay CIL to help fund infrastructure provision in the locality, whilst planning agreements help mitigate the impact of their development and provide affordable housing. The experience of running a system of negotiated planning agreements alongside a non-negotiable infrastructure levy offers an opportunity to evaluate these policy shifts in order to assess their strengths and weaknesses and whether there are any wider lessons for international discussions of best practice in land value capture. Drawing on survey findings the paper considers the implementation of CIL alongside planning agreements, the revenue and expenditure patterns, and the impact of these combined land value capture mechanisms on development activity and, in particular, on affordable housing supply.     

Half Empty? Drinking Water Systems and Regional Resilience in Rural Canada

This paper investigates the extent that new regionalism has been employed in the planning of rural drinking water systems as a strategy to support rural regional resilience. Through a content analysis of policy documents, this paper explores the question of whether current approaches to the planning of rural drinking water systems reflect a transition towards regional resilience. While there is potential for drinking water systems to support or enhance rural regional resilience, this potential is emergent at best. Policy documents reveal the adoption of regionalist practices is challenged by a lack of regional cohesion and barriers from existing institutional structures.     

Does China receive more regional FDI than gravity would suggest?

It is an empirical regularity that the activities of multinational corporations are concentrated in their home region. This has been shown to be the case for a majority of the 500 largest multinationals as well as for subsets of this 500 sorted by region or industry. The analysis has also been applied to the activities of a sample of all US and OECD multinationals, aggregated by country. These concentrations have been explained using theories, such as region-bound FSAs which constrain the ability of multinationals to internationalize, as well as transactions costs which make doing business outside a multinational’s home market more costly. To date, there has been no analysis that focuses on the regional and global character of multinational activity destined for China. This paper works to fill that void. Using data on FDI into China from each investor country over the period 1995–2005, this paper documents a significant regional concentration of Asian multinational activity operating within China. This regional concentration is sustained even after the special relationships with Hong Kong and (other) Offshore Financial Centres are accounted for. The evidence therefore extends the evidence of regional concentrations of MNE activities found elsewhere to China and its relationship with Asia.     

Strategies for planning

In recent years there has been a good deal of discussion amongst planning specialists and academics about the gap which exists between the theory of planning as set out in journals and textbooks, and the practice of planning in private and public organizations. Planners are continually complaining about the resistance to planning by top management and operating managers in divisions and departments.In this article the author aims to produce a reconciliation between theory and practice and to discuss what alternative strategies are open to planners in devising planning systems for their organizations.He suggests that the problem has its origin in the fact that corporate planning theory was first developed by management scientists as a total systems approach. Corporate planners have failed to sell an integrated planning system either as programme budgeting or as corporate planning. Research suggests that a management team can only adopt and implement a comprehensive planning system in very special circumstances, e.g. when the organization's survival is threatened, a new management team has been appointed and the staff of the organization are ready to accept radical change.In normal circumstances the planner is wrong to advocate a ‘root and branch’ solution. He must diagnose the planning needs of the organization and his objective must be not merely to establish a particular planning procedure but rather to discover how he can best improve the quality of management decisions.Recent studies on strategy formation indicate that the introduction of a formal planning procedure is only a partial answer to the problem of improving the quality of management decisions.The paper reviews various approaches to planning and considers how they relate to organizations with different strategic problems, with differing organization structures and various management styles.     

Indigenous Resource Management Plans: Transporting Non-Indigenous People into the Indigenous World

The paper explores the degree to which Indigenous groups perceive that resource management plans they develop are able to help deliver outcomes they seek through formal planning systems. It does this by a case study of practice in Aotearoa New Zealand. Some Indigenous groups are concerned they are being encouraged to devote considerable effort to production of major planning documents for use in interaction with environmental agencies, yet in practice, such plans can appear to have a limited role in bringing about desired change or affecting wider planning processes. The research contributes a New Zealand dimension to this international debate.     

Taking Stock of Neighbourhood Planning in England 2011–2016

Neighbourhood planning (NP) as enabled by the 2011 Localism Act in England has precipitated a considerable literature discussing its potential, limitations and likely shortcomings referenced against government rhetoric and the reporting of initial experiences of the process. This paper provides an overview of the current literature on neighbourhood planning and sets out how it has been received and practised across England drawing on empirical evidence. The extent of take-up and the experience of those involved in the first five years of neighbourhood planning is used to consider how community-led planning may be designed and used following operational principles of inclusivity, capacity-building and adding value.     

Carry on Shrinking?: The Bankruptcy of Urban Policy in Detroit

Much attention has recently been focused on the bankruptcy of the City of Detroit in 2013 and the reasons for the largest municipal fiscal melt down in US history. Contrary to a view gaining currency, which dismisses Detroit as the product of exceptional forces and largely calls it the architect of its own collapse, this article argues the case that Detroit conveys more general lessons for European cities struggling with decline, not least of which is the need for interventionist regional planning to avoid predictable but avoidable urban distress. The article briefly reviews the well-documented decline of the city of Detroit measured against population, economic, fiscal and image impacts. It considers five current misreadings of the reasons for Detroit's predicament and implicit signposts for European practice before concluding with an assessment of what has been hailed as the shoots of yet another possible renaissance in the originally proclaimed Renaissance City over 40 years ago.     

地区人均GDP分布的基尼系数分析

本文利用基尼系数对地区经济分布进行分析。首先考察了我国1991￣2002年人均GDP基尼系数逐步上升的变动趋势。然后从理论上探讨地区分解对基尼系数的影响,证明地区分解时基尼系数不降只升,并计算了东中西部的基尼系数,从而指出东中西部差异是我国地域经济差异的主要表现。最后计算了各省市的人均GDP基尼系数,并利用人均GDP指数和基尼系数构成了综合判断各省市经济发展水平和均衡程度的4区域模型。     

A hierarchical approach to multi-project planning under uncertainty

We survey several viewpoints on the management of the planning complexity of multi-project organisations under uncertainty. Based on these viewpoints we propose a positioning framework to distinguish between different types of project-driven organisations. This framework is meant to aid project management in the choice between the various existing planning approaches. We also discuss the current state of the art of hierarchical planning approaches both for traditional manufacturing and for project environments. Next, we introduce a generic hierarchical project planning-and-control framework that serves to position planning methods for multi-project planning under uncertainty. We discuss various techniques for dealing with the uncertainty inherent to the different hierarchical stages in a multi-project organisation. In the last part of this paper we discuss two cases from practice and relate these to the positioning framework that is put forward in the paper.