Clapp, B. W., "An Environmental History of Britain since the Industrial Revolution" (Book Review)

Public Choice Theory and the Politics of Urban Containment: Voter-Centred versus Special-Interest Explanations

“…The MAFF and Forestry Commission have, for example, repeatedly fought attempts to introduce planning controls over agricultural and forestry operations ö the subsidies to which provide the major source of their budgets. Indeed, it was only with the prospect of additional budgets for so-called agrienvironment' subsidies that these agencies even began to consult the environmental-interest groups at all (Cherry, 1996;Pennington, 1996;Winter, 1996). The ability of the Department of Transport to maintain a commitment to new road buildingöthe major source of its budget, power, and political prestigeöand to resist the demands of the environmental lobby until very recently, may also reflect the influence of such bureaucratic discretion (Dowding, 1995;Pennington, 1997a, page 104).…”

“…Rydin (1998), who highlights the reluctance of policymakers both at the national and at the local level to act in order to improve urban air quality, has confirmed this analysis. Insofar as there have been movements to curtail excessive road useöas with the apparent death of the roads programme in the last years of the Major administration öthese appear to have been driven by the inability of the Department of Transport to secure funds from the Treasury, and by the existence of the very sort of concentrated nimbyist activity against road building which has arguably contributed to the more general emphasis on urban containment (Cherry, 1996).…”

Home, Sweet Home

“…And he was partially right. English early twentieth-century planners, much like their American colleagues, deeply admired German planning and zoning (Cherry 1994). 26 But English zoning schemes went farther than their German counterparts in including language discouraging not only the mix of homes and industry but also the mix of homes and shops.…”

Mixed Use by Default

“…The Germans were indeed the first to place restrictions on the location of polluting enterprises in specific residential zones. English towns, however, soon followed suit by designating areas for different uses in their “planning schemes,” which served as zoning instruments (Cherry 1996). Even before that time, a certain type of land-use separation occurred through market processes.…”