Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space

This paper recognises the need to study the complex relations between spatial planning and cultural contexts in a more comprehensive way. The objective is to contribute to a theoretical basis and conceptual framework for a systematic analysis of spatial planning, that is, planning practices related to a cultural and social context, on the basis of a complex system of criteria. This may contribute to achieving a better understanding of the complex relationships between the cultural context—including the specific socioeconomic patterns and related cultural norms, values, traditions, and attitudes—and spatial planning as an operative instrument of territorial policy by introducing the term ‘planning culture’. Therefore, as culture is subtle and complex in nature and is based on fluid concepts, theoretical approaches of cultural change are also introduced to provide a more dynamic conception of planning cultures to analyse and understand recent changes in spatial planning.

In this paper we reflect on the relationship between planning and law. We analyse the Dutch interpretation and implementation of the European Union Habitats and Birds Directives by investigating the practices of delineation of protected areas. These directives provide a legislative framework for the designation of protected sites as well as for decision making about social and economic activities that might have negative effects on the conservation objectives. The formal boundaries of the protected area can have legal, political, and economic consequences and are therefore the subject of much debate. Using Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory, we analyse the debates concerning delineation and the potential for planning to reduce tensions and balance interests. It is argued that the irreducible differences between the economic, political, and legal perspectives, in combination with the Dutch path of a legalistic interpretation of EU directives, have produced a situation in which the role of planning is reduced and new forms of planning are hard to implement.

Territorial cohesion is a shared EU competence, but what is territory? This paper seeks to alert planners—in particular those involved in European spatial planning—that common-sense answers do not necessarily apply: it is not a container. A view of macrospace as filled with territories-as-containers—territorialism—is nonetheless the basis for common misunderstandings about the EU, and also about European planning, now being articulated in terms of territorial cohesion. Leaving the container view behind means that control over territories—territoriality—must be negotiated, something that relational regionalism also suggests. The planning literature is beginning to absorb such views, articulating soft rather than hard forms of planning for ‘soft spaces’. Hard planning is bound to continue, but it will be embedded in new practices, including the conceptualisation of multiple visions on territory.

Seminal papers on the firm emphasise the benefits of in-sourcing over out-sourcing services from the market. This provides a rationale for the growth of firms, especially in circumstances of market risk and uncertainty concerning the price and quantity of available services. This model is less successful when considering what firms do and where they do it, given their assets and the complementarities between related activities. In this paper we develop a model of financial institutions that is sensitive to the production and consumption of information (internal and external). Links are made between what the institution does and where it does it in relation to the information systems that enable financial institutions to reach beyond what they are able to achieve within their own organisations. This model is particularly relevant to pension funds, insurance companies, endowments, and sovereign wealth funds, many of which face hard-to-realise expectations concerning their investment performance. Making good on these expectations depends on the degree to which they are able to mobilise information at the margin of markets. In the penultimate section of the paper we consider the virtues or otherwise of three particular models of investing-at-a-distance. In conclusion, lessons are drawn for the theory and practice of financial intermediation in the context of increasingly distant investment opportunities.

One of the benefits often claimed for ‘moving’ the state closer to people through the institutional reforms of democratic decentralisation is an improvement in the inclusion of politically marginalised groups. Decentralisation promises to deliver both the closer physical presence of centres of government and the formalisation of practices of representation at the grassroots. These changes in turn are expected to provide opportunities for historically marginalised groups to improve their associational capacities, and to gain recognition as rights-bearing citizens. This idea is examined through the experience of Kerala, which has one of the most thorough programmes of democratic decentralisation within India. Decentralisation has indeed provided new pathways to engage with local government. However, attempts to ‘rescale’ the state to the local level have also reshaped existing institutional channels for representation, political discourses, and everyday state practices, in ways which produce new microgeographies of exclusion. This paper highlights the importance of these everyday experiences of marginalisation for programmes of state reform. It argues that if they are ignored, decentralisation risks reproducing narrow forms of majoritarian localism, and its potential to contribute to building substantive democracy will be lost.

Most analyses of ethnic penalties in the UK labour market focus on one source of minority-group disadvantage only: colour racism, based on people's self-identified ethnicity. Some authors have argued that operating alongside those penalties, and in general exacerbating them, are further disadvantages reflecting cultural racism: in the UK it is argued that particular religious groups suffer these additional penalties—especially Muslims. A number of studies have confirmed the presence of these two types of disadvantage, but almost all of them have used cross-sectional data only and so were unable to test directly whether the penalties are more severe at times of economic recession and growing cultural tensions—such as those experienced in the UK after 9/11 and 7/7. This paper provides clear evidence of both the anticipated dual penalties and their increase at the end of the decade, using a very large annual cross-sectional survey for the years 2002 to 2010.

Diseases which can pass between animals and humans (zoonoses) have been headline news several times in the last ten years. This paper looks at bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in the United Kingdom, which, although not a major health hazard for humans, has been problematic for farmers and the veterinary health institutions. At its current rate of spread, the disease will cost the authorities £1 billion in compensation to farmers for slaughtered animals and in administrative expenses over the next decade. The present Coalition government is planning to cull badgers in England because they are the principal wildlife reservoir of bTB and are said to pass infection to cattle. We argue in five stories that the heterogeneities of bTB help explain the difficulties in dealing with it. In our opinion, the present reductive set of policies would be improved by taking this ontological multiplicity into account.

A limited number of studies have been conducted to better understand community resilience in the context of changing resource-dependent communities. This study is intended to start bridging this gap by empirically examining three key factors associated with community resilience: local ownership of resources, residents' organizational capacities, and local institutional capacity to respond to change. Our objective is to deepen the understanding of such factors by uncovering the processes behind them in the context of two changing resource-dependent communities in Costa Rica. Findings suggest that community resilience is highly dependent on equity of resource distribution and access to financial resources, the quality of relationships between residents who live in the community as well as with newcomers, and the ability of local institutions to adapt in order to operate efficiently in the light of change.

When publishing official population statistics, many national statistical organisations define small areas termed ‘building blocks’ which are then aggregated into larger ‘output zones’ for data release. While output zones are known to have enormous influence on spatial analysis, there has not been any systematic analysis of the effect of building blocks on characteristics of output zones. This paper evaluates current international practice in building block design, identifying key conceptual and practical issues. Using the example of six local authorities in England and Wales, it employs automated zone design to evaluate the influence of two sets of building blocks (street blocks and postcodes) on output zone characteristics. Household-level census data, accessed under secure conditions, are used to evaluate the impact on both newly designed and maintained output zones. Postcodes are shown to be more effective building blocks than street blocks, providing more uniform population and household sizes, greater precision for matching postcoded data to census data, and enabling more zones to be maintained. However, street blocks deliver more compact output zones and greater internal homogeneity of tenure and accommodation type. The scale effect of the modifiable areal unit problem and the specific geographical patterning of variables are both shown to be important factors when designing building blocks. These findings have directly informed policies and processes for the 2011 Census in England and Wales and provide useful conceptual and practical guidance for any national statistical organisation or analyst designing their own building blocks. The paper concludes that some aspects of international building block design practice could be more effectively harmonised but that such design should always be nationally specific to incorporate locally varying conceptual and practical issues. Further research should extend this analysis to other building block types, notably grid squares.

A debate is taking place in Australia regarding potential changes to the legislation governing what proportion of owners must agree before apartment buildings can be redeveloped and whether a collective sale model should be adopted in order to facilitate urban renewal. To date, urban renewal has proven challenging because of difficulties of coordinating renewal within a planning system that relies on the market to deliver housing. This challenge is amplified by the governance framework created to promote multiunit housing—strata title—and associated tensions between communal management and individual property rights. This paper makes particular reference to the implications of this debate in the greater Sydney metropolitan area, which raises universal issues regarding tensions between the government and the market and between individual rights and the collective good. This paper argues that there is a case for changing the legislation, with government involvement required to respond to the significant social issues raised, to guarantee the needs of existing owners and tenants are met, and to ensure that high-quality, economically viable, buildings result.

The importance of the interactions between global environmental and socioeconomic changes in shaping vulnerability and exposure to hazards is now increasingly recognised. However, relatively little attention has been focused on the ways in which these interactions help to shape planning and policy in response to both processes. This paper examines how the intersections between the twin crises of economic recession and climate change are influencing hazards mitigation policy and climate change adaptation planning in three of Ireland's coastal cities. The cities of Dublin, Cork, and Galway are important case studies for this analysis due to the magnitude of socioeconomic and environmental changes they have witnessed in recent years. The paper begins by using the double-exposure framework to analyse how the interactions between global environmental and socioeconomic change have produced the contextual environment within which decision making and policy formation take place. This is followed by the presentation and analysis of the results of semistructured interviews with local decision makers and stakeholders. These illustrate that the interactions between environmental change and economic crisis have created the material and ideological conditions in which a neoliberal growth centred discourse of economic development dominates all areas of decision making and-policy. This has important implications for environmental policy and planning in cities, promoting a vision of a modern competitive city in which technological solutions are the preferred means of addressing flood risks. These decisions in turn reshape the exposures and vulnerabilities of local communities.

Increasingly, policy makers and planners must develop strategies to cope with urban shrinkage. This paper proposes that active retirement migration and health tourism can be parts of such strategies. Shrinking cities, normally observed as less competitive, could develop advantages over other cities with respect to attracting retirees if their spatial conditions were used effectively. By converting vacant space or improving access to high-quality green space, shrinking cities can attract retirees in search of quality of life, who in turn might represent a crucial catalyst in urban renewal for shrinking cities. The authors conclude that the potential of shrinking cities as green retirement cities can be considered by integrating existing research concepts: eg, green space typologies and the functionality of public space for older individuals. Furthermore, recent practical studies suggest that the potential for shrinking cities as retirement cities exists. However, the potential has led to specific policy to only a limited extent. Despite substantial opportunities, many challenges arise when this idea is put into practice. Therefore, recommendations are made at the end of this paper for addressing this topic in future research and urban planning.

This paper analyses the growing discourse on climate change and migration from the perspective of critical race theory. The main contention put forward is that the figure of the climate change migrant is racialised to the extent that it is made to bear racial connotations. The paper traces the racialisation of the figure of the climate-change migrant through three specific racial tropes evident in the discourse on climate-change and migration: naturalisation; the loss of political status; and ambiguity. The paper concludes with the observation that the racialisation of climate-change and migration discourse does not point to any sort of universal theory of racialisation pertinent to the discourse but, instead, reaffirms the notion that racialisation is a contingent phenomenon. The paper also calls for an interpretation of climate change that is sensitive to racialisation as a key social process in the configuration of climate-change and migration discourse.

This paper presents a new spatial interaction modelling framework for estimating subnational, international migration flows within Europe. We introduce a several-stage model which incorporates constraints at two geographical levels and produces estimates for a full matrices of interregional flows which adhere to known flows between countries in the EU system between 2002 and 2007. It is shown that internal migration data can be usefully employed to help distribute flows subnationally both through in-migration and out-migration distributions and through calibrated distance-decay parameters. Validation of the model outputs is achieved, in part, through comparison with national insurance number registration data from the UK.

While there is typically a strong correlation between air traffic and economic growth, the direction of causation between the two is not clear. To address the existence of causality in this paper we consider the nature of this relationship in different types of regions. The empirical analysis is based on European-level annual data from eighty-six regions and thirteen countries on air traffic and regional economic performance in the period 1991 to 2010. Granger noncausality analysis in a panel framework, which allows possible heterogeneity between regions, was used. The results suggest that the causality processes are homogenous from regional growth to air traffic. There is causality from air traffic to regional growth in peripheral regions, but this causality is less evident in core regions. Thus, air transportation plays a crucial role in boosting development in remote regions. There might, therefore, be a case for subsidizing local airports in these regions.