PurposeCoping with and adjusting to disruptive challenges has always been a characteristic of human development. Formalisation of this has led to the emergence of a number approaches addressing disruptive challenges. Often formalised practice has a narrow focus. Increasingly complex challenges require a refocus of formalised approaches. Drawing from these approaches, the purpose of this paper is to posit that a greater focus on preparedness through pre‐disaster planning is needed for a more holistic approach to disaster management.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews the evolution of disaster management thinking and practice and proposes that changes are needed to the dominant disaster management model. These changes are drawn from a number of alternative perspectives. Based on the uncertainties surrounding complex or “wicked” problems, for example, climate change and variability, this paper develops a more holistic approach.FindingsResponding to “wicked problems” requires a greater focus on preparedness. In terms of disaster risk reduction a greater emphasis on pre‐disaster planning is needed driven by social learning processes.Originality/valueFaced with an increasingly uncertain and complex future, current approaches to conceptualising disaster management are inadequate. This paper develops an approach that is likely to be more effective.

Citation: Swords, Jon (2013) Michael Porter's Cluster Theory as a local and regional development tool -the rise and fall of cluster policy in the UK. Local Economy, 28 (4 Northumbria University has developed Northumbria Research Link (NRL) to enable users to access the University's research output. Copyright © and moral rights for items on NRL are retained by the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. Single copies of full items can be reproduced, displayed or performed, and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided the authors, title and full bibliographic details are given, as well as a hyperlink and/or URL to the original metadata page. The content must not be changed in any way. Full items must not be sold commercially in any format or medium without formal permission of the copyright holder. The full policy is available online: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/policies.html This document may differ from the final, published version of the research and has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies. To read and/or cite from the published version of the research, please visit the publisher's website (a subscription may be AbstractThere has been much written on industrial agglomeration, but it is Michael Porter's cluster theory, above all others, which has come to dominate local and regional economic development policy. His work has been adopted by the OECD, EU, national and local governments the world over. He and his consultancy group have led reviews of national economic growth strategies in dozens of countries. This rise to prominence, however, is in the face of widespread critique from academics. Cluster theory's theoretical foundations, its methodological approach and practical implementation have all been unpicked, leading some to label little more than a successful brand riding the wave of new regionalist fashions.Despite libraries of incredibly useful books and articles on clusters, there remains an absence of work which interrogates the translation of clusters into, and then through local and national policy. The aim of this paper is to go some way to remedying the situation by examining the influence of Porter's cluster theory is charted through an examination of UK regional development policy in the 1990s and 2000s. To help map the journey of clusters into and through UK economic development policy actor-network theory (ANT) is adopted as an explanatory framework.

Skateboarders re-invent and interrogate the physical structure of cityscapes as they use spaces, buildings and objects for skating. However, skaters are routinely regarded by the civic and business interests who dominate city centre planning and regeneration as, at best, a nuisance and at worst an unruly and dangerous blight. This paper reports findings from a research project involving skaters which begins to unpick this stereotype. A participatory methodology combining mapping, interviews and observation was used to identify spots used by skaters in Newcastle and Gateshead (North East England). The key spots were characterized using four criteria: trickability, accessibility, sociability and compatibility. Findings reveal that two further factors temporal and relational dimensions are crucial to the journeys skaters embark on. Sociability was the one constant factor defining favoured spots. The study revealed a sociable, entrepreneurial, creative skate scene. Far from being a problem the skaters add to the social capital of the cityscape. The findings suggest that rather than designing out skaters from the city the civic authorities should work with skaters to sustain their scene as a positive benefit to city regeneration. Skateboarding and the City

In this commentary, we explore how blockchain is being leveraged to address the fundamental problems with market-based forest protection globally. In doing so, we consider the ways 'cryptocarbon' initiatives are creating new challenges that have so far escaped critical scrutiny. A blockchain is a distributed and immutable electronic database-a ledger of every transaction that has ever taken place on a network, with the data stored as cryptographically secured blocks, strung together in a chain. The technology is being increasingly hyped as applicable for a whole range of industries, social service provisions, and environmental management concerns. This includes the facilitation of natural asset market mechanisms, like Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). The original aim of REDD+ was to incentivise conservation, making tropical forests more valuable standing than cut down. Multiple factors, including lack of consumer interest, created a deluge of supply. Ninety-five percent of the world's avoided deforestation credits, representing millions of hectares of conserved forest, were stuck without a buyer. Several flagging REDD+ projects are now hoping that blockchain technology can carry them to new heights of market capitalisation. However, like with any powerful new technology, the benefits remain ambiguous.

This article introduces a new mode of patronage of the arts: crowd-patronage. In so doing the article illustrates the plural roles of intermediaries in patronage networks which go beyond Bourdieuian cultural intermediaries to include regulatory and financial actors. A brief history of patronage is presented which outlines different modes and eras of patronage for the arts since the 12 th century. Particular attention is paid to the geographies of patronage networks, the mobility of artists, the plurality of roles played by intermediaries and the relations between patrons and artists. These themes then structure the analysis of crowd-patronage through a case study of the patronage platform Patreon in the remainder of the paper. Crowd-patronage is distinctive because of the scale and geographical scope of patronage networks, its focus on funding practice rather than outputs, a shift in the power relationships between patron and artist, and processes of re-intermediation.