Getting the Planners Off Our Backs: Questioning the Post-Political Nature of English Planning Policy

Lord, Alexander; Tewdwr‐Jones, Mark

doi:10.1080/02697459.2018.1480194

Cited by 9 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…In resilience thinking, emphasis is more often put on the "local" as the preferred level of action [1] and on the celebration of local knowledge and local entrepreneurship [89,93]. However, the "local turn" in spatial planning has been subject of criticism as a way to further weaken statutory public planning [94] and on the basis of the dysfunctionalities that occur in very fragmented planning systems when many local authorities act in an uncoordinated way [95]. Similarly, whilst the time horizon of sustainability is by definition the long run, resilience thinking tends to focus on short-term responses [24][25][26]29,30], which may prove unsustainable in the longer term [30].…”

Section: Synergies and Divergences Between Sustainability And Resiliementioning

confidence: 99%

The Rise of Resilience in Spatial Planning: A Journey through Disciplinary Boundaries and Contested Practices

Rega¹,

Bonifazi

2020

Sustainability

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Resilience has become a popular term in spatial planning, often replacing sustainability as a reference frame. However, different concepts and understandings are embedded within it, which calls for keeping a critical stance about its widespread use. In this paper, we engage with the resilience turn in spatial planning and we dwell on the relation between resilience and sustainability from a planning perspective. Building on insights from ecology, complex system theory and epistemology, we question whether resilience can effectively act as a ‘boundary object’, i.e., a concept plastic enough to foster cooperation between different research fields and yet robust enough to maintain a common identity. Whilst we do not predicate a dichotomy between resilience and sustainability, we argue that the shift in the dominant understanding of resilience from a descriptive concept, to a broader conceptual and normative framework, is bound to generate some remarkable tensions. These can be associated with three central aspects in resilience thinking: (i) the unknowability and unpredictability of the future, whence a different focus of sustainability and resilience on outcomes vs. processes, respectively, ensue; (ii) the ontological separation between the internal components of a system and an external shock; (iii) the limited consideration given by resilience to inter- and intra-generational equity. Empirical evidence on actual instances of planning for resilience from different contexts seems to confirm these trends. We advocate that resilience should be used as a descriptive concept in planning within a sustainability framework, which entails a normative and transformative component that resonates with the very raison d’être of planning.

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Section: Synergies and Divergences Between Sustainability And Resiliementioning

confidence: 99%

The Rise of Resilience in Spatial Planning: A Journey through Disciplinary Boundaries and Contested Practices

Rega¹,

Bonifazi

2020

Sustainability

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“…If ideology is always contradictory and seeks to stitch potentially disparate developments, lines of argument and emotional commitments together, it is possible to conclude that the distinctive Conservative articulation of neoliberalism and localism from 2010 to 2015 proved a relatively successful means of ‘holding’ a position, containing the potentially problematic politics of new housebuilding and enabling the roll-out of a new phase of neoliberal restructuring (Lord and Tewdwr-Jones, 2018). The planning system played a significant role in this ideological formation, positioned as both an ideological ‘scapegoat’ (Gunder, 2016) for the supply shortages ‘causing’ the housing crisis and a means of placating opposition to new housing development through appeals to ‘localism’.…”

Section: Hegemony Crisis and The Politics Of Planning For Housing: Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The cumulative result of these piecemeal changes is still hard to assess but has been deeply significant, reducing planning capacity in local government and control over the location, quantity and tenure of new housebuilding. Overall, the 2010-2015 government may have overseen the most significant ideologically driven reconfiguration of planning policy and practice since the introduction of a comprehensive planning system in 1947 (Lord and Tewdwr-Jones, 2018).…”

Section: The Housing Crisis Homeownership and The Deepening Of Neolimentioning

confidence: 99%

Thinking conjuncturally about ideology, housing and English planning

Inch

Shepherd

2019

Planning Theory

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This article explores the value of Stuart Hall’s approach to conjunctural analysis for examining the complex relations between ideology and planning. By ‘thinking conjuncturally’, we explore planning as a site where multiple social, economic and political forces coalesce; ideology is one of these forces whose role and influence must be tracked alongside others. To illustrate this, we draw on recent and ongoing planning reforms in England and their relationship with housing development. Highlighting the faltering role of a particular ideological formation in ‘suturing together contradictory lines of argument and emotional investments’ around housing and planning, this article draws attention to planning as a space where ideological struggle takes place within the frame of a broader, contingent cultural hegemony. This struggle may help to reaffirm that hegemony, but it can also open space for alternative visions to be articulated, with potential to transform dominant logics of planning, and reveal routes to practical and progressive action.

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“…The paper builds on previous work examining the relationship between the political ideology of the Conservative Party (which was a distinct amalgam of neoliberal and conservative concepts) and planning reform in England after 2010 (e.g. Inch & Shepherd, 2020;Lord & Tewdwr-Jones, 2018;Tait & Inch, 2016) and complements two previous papers in which I examined the relationship between the particular political ideological orientation of English governments and national planning reform (Shepherd, 2018(Shepherd, , 2020. These studies explored the relationship between contesting political ideologies and national planning policy and law, and argued that institutional change in planning is "partly a function of ideological competition over the proper meanings of the concepts which it shares with competing ideologies" (Shepherd, 2020, p. 7).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These studies explored the relationship between contesting political ideologies and national planning policy and law, and argued that institutional change in planning is "partly a function of ideological competition over the proper meanings of the concepts which it shares with competing ideologies" (Shepherd, 2020, p. 7). However, the national policymaking process by which ideas that are related to abstract political ideologies found their way into the institution of English planning to create change in the coalition period has rarely been explored (although see Lord & Tewdwr-Jones, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ideology and Institutional Change: The Case of the English National Planning Policy Framework

Shepherd

2021

Planning Theory & Practice

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This paper deploys a discursive institutionalist framework to explore how various categories of ideas -from ideology, to programme, to policy -interact to shape the planning policymaking process. Using the emergence of the 2012 National Planning Policy Framework in England as a case study, the role of the political ideology of the leadership of a political party (as distinct from, but related to, the broader category of 'neoliberalism') in shaping and legitimising planning reform is analysed. It is shown that it is not only the political ideological legacy of a political party and how it melds with the prevailing paradigmatic orthodoxy (such as neoliberalism) that matters in framing planning reform, but that the way in which ideas are communicated and consulted on in the policymaking process is also significant.

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Getting the Planners Off Our Backs: Questioning the Post-Political Nature of English Planning Policy

Cited by 9 publications

References 42 publications

The Rise of Resilience in Spatial Planning: A Journey through Disciplinary Boundaries and Contested Practices

The Rise of Resilience in Spatial Planning: A Journey through Disciplinary Boundaries and Contested Practices

Thinking conjuncturally about ideology, housing and English planning

Ideology and Institutional Change: The Case of the English National Planning Policy Framework

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