Introduction Since the 1970s and 1980s the concept of`governance' has become increasingly fashionable in public management and administration. Also, in the domain of environmental management the concept of`environmental governance' has gained increasing prominence (Lemos and Agrawal, 2006). Although no singular definition of governance exists and can mean``anything and nothing'' (Jessop, 1998, page 29), the key element of the concept is that it distinguishes governance from`government'. This distinction highlights a shift from the hierarchical state and direct government management, through the application of laws and regulations, towards``a greater reliance on horizontal, hybrid and associational forms of government'' (Hill and Lynn, 2005, page 173), and implies a more inclusive government which involves a broader spectrum of actors, such as the private sector, nonprofit organizations, or other government agencies. Swyngedouw (2005, page 1992) has referred to this shift as a move to``governance-beyond-the-state'', which concerns the``emergence, proliferation and active encouragement ... of institutional arrangements of`governing', which give a much greater role in policy-making, administration and implementation to private economic actors on the one hand and to parts of civil society in the other in self-managing what until recently was provided or organized by the national or local state.'' Underlying this shift from government to governance was the advent of neoliberalism in the 1970s as a reaction to the`overloaded state' (Skelcher, 2000). In the neoliberal perspective the hierarchical mode of governance was condemned as inherently inefficient and was to be replaced by an alternative mode of governanceöpreferably a market mode

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Academia and industry increasingly recognise the need for multifunctional urban spaces. But how do we meet this need? Emerging responses point to the promise of transdisciplinarity. We critically reflect on this claim by analysing the role of transdisciplinary practice in the successful conversion of a Sydney laneway into a multifunctional urban space. We trace the co-existence of different disciplinary practices throughout the project stages, to better understand how much transdisciplinarity contributed to its success. A tentative explanatory framework emerges from our analysis and is offered to map the enabling conditions, disciplinary dynamics and strategies that allowed this laneway's transformation into a multifunctional space. Enabling conditions were the municipality had institutionalised a concern for the environment; an organisational change programme ensured the project's independence from the capital budget; and an environmentally aware community group played a core role. The disciplinary dynamics observed were diverse. Planning and design were transdisciplinary, but implementation and maintenance were not. Finally, practitioners used various strategies to bring actors together: they understood the political nature of the organisation; they recognised the different types of actors involved in the project, and then used appropriate language to communicate ideas and to manage risks and expectations.