This important text book is the first to be written about infrastructure planning in Britain. Written by an experienced author, the book reviews the rapid rise in the use of infrastructure delivery planning at national and neighbourhood level. The key components of infrastructure delivery are set out and analysed, including the development of government policy, planning regulation, funding, environmental processes and legal challenges. Situating this within international, European and domestic economic, territorial and social policy, the author draws on a variety of practical examples to discuss the role of different institutions in the delivery of infrastructure and to illustrate the various issues and merits of each approach. This is a key text for those engaged in the study and application of infrastructure delivery planning including planners, engineers, public administrators and policy advisers.

This thought-provoking book questions the framework of the Horizon 2020 strategy and the policies of smart development. It aims to answer the following question: Is there any possibility for a policy of smart development and smart specialization in rural and peri-urban areas? Based on detailed analytical studies, empirical and econometric methods, as well as various European case studies, several conclusions are drawn. Smart development policies are well adapted to the developed or intermediate regions containing at the same time rural and urban areas, but do not really function for the more rural or more peripheral regions. The development policies of rural areas must be adapted to their particular characteristics, to the structure of their economies (agriculture, small firms), as well as in their diversity (distant regions, intermediate regions, rural areas near the urban areas). It appears interesting to exploit natural and cultural amenities, to develop the multifunctional character of the agriculture, to promote territorial innovation under all its forms, to favor the synergies between the various uses of land and space, and to develop the knowledge on the ecological, socioeconomic processes, as well as on the mechanisms of territorial governance. These results are very important because they question the validity of the H2020 policy and the smart development and smart specialization policies and their applicability to the whole European area, and not only for the most urban and rich areas. It will be valuable reading for students, researchers and policy-makers in regional development, rural studies, spatial planning and economic geography.

Since the turn of the 21st century, there has been a greater pace of reform to planning in Britain than at any other time. As a public sector activity, planning has also been impacted heavily by the wider changes in the way we are governed. Yet whilst such reform has been extensively commented upon within academia, few have empirically explored how these changes are manifesting themselves in planning practice. This new book aims to understand how both specific planning and broader public sector reforms have been experienced and understood by chartered town planners working in local authorities across Great Britain. After setting out the reform context, successive chapters then map responses across the profession to the implementation of spatial planning, to targets, to public participation and to the idea of a 'customer-focused' planning, and to attempts to change the culture of the planning. Each chapter outlines the reaction by the profession to reforms promoted by successive central and devolved governments over the last decade, before considering the broader issues of what this tells us about how modernisation is rolled-out by frontline public servants. This accessible book fills a gap in the market and makes ideal reading for students and researchers interested in the UK planning system.

With trust in top-down government faltering, community-based groups around the world are displaying an ever-greater appetite to take control of their own lives and neighbourhoods. Government, for its part, is keen to embrace the projects and the planning undertaken at this level, attempting to regularise it and use it as a means of reconnecting to citizens and localising democracy. This unique book analyses the contexts, drivers and outcomes of community action and planning in a selection of case studies in the global north: from emergent neighbourhood planning in England to the community-based housing movement in New York, and from active citizenship in the Dutch new towns to associative action in Marseille. It will be a valuable resource for academic researchers and for postgraduate students on social policy, planning and community development courses.

Small farms represent important components of food systems and rural areas, as sources of occupation and livelihood, factors of socio-economic diversity, cradles of grass-roots innovation and experimentation. Their capacity to adapt and to contribute positively to societal challenges depends on the strategies they can develop and their ability to innovate. The book provides an in-depth exploration of the determinants, dynamics and outcomes of rural and agricultural change processes, with a special focus on the role of small and family farming. Covering both the system and the farm level of analysis, the authors offer a comprehensive view of approaches and models capable to grasp different complementary aspects of the development trajectories followed by farms, food systems and territories facing multi-dimensional drivers of change and exposed to a range of vulnerability factors. The emerging characters and roles of innovation networks and social learning, as well as the decision-making processes at the farm level are explored in particular depth, with attention to the multi-dimensional societal expectations vis-a-vis agriculture, small farms and rural areas, with specific attention to food and nutrition security concerns.

The rural-urban dichotomy is one of the most influential figures of thought in history, laying the foundation for academic disciplines such as rural and urban sociology. The dichotomy rests on the assumption that rural and urban areas differ fundamentally. By the mid-twentieth century, scholars had observed that many rural areas displayed a blend of rural and urban features. Since then, counter urbanisation, urban sprawl and ever-increasing flows of people, goods and ideas between rural and urban areas have blurred the distinctions even further. Attempts to create new rural-urban classification systems, whether based on factors such as population size, density or distances, have largely failed. Clearly, new classification systems must use the meaning of observed changes in rural-urban systems as their point of departure rather than simple measurements of these changes. These meanings can, despite the interdependencies of our global world, be explored only in their political, cultural and economic settings.

Neighbourhood planning offers a critical analysis of community-based planning activity in England, framed within a broader view of collaborative rationality and its limits. From the recent experience of drawing up parish plans, and attempts to connect these to formal policy frameworks, it identifies lessons for future planning at the neighbourhood scale. It is not a manual on community planning practice, nor does it provide a formula for producing parish or neighbourhood plans. But in the context of the latest 'localism' agenda in England it, first, examines the potential contribution of neighbourhood planning to building a 'collaborative democracy' and, second, asks how much movement towards genuine local partnership, and consensus around development decisions, can be achieved through the rescaling of 'statutory' planning as opposed to expending greater effort locally on building stronger relationships, and generating trust, between 'people and planning'

For many decades debates about the future of developed world agriculture policy have been dominated by a long political conflict between European/multifunctional policy regimes and the global trend towards trade liberalisation. The stalemate that had emerged between these two positions by 2000 has now been dramatically reconfigured. This book argues that there are four reasons why this area of policy has now reopened to wider debate: The World Food Crisis of 2008-2011 has signalled a potential end to the era of cheap food. The emergence of climate change as a core policy concern has shifted key targets for agricultural policy. New trends towards 'neo-productivist' agricultural policy have emerged to challenge multifunctional approaches to agriculture. New academic ideas around resilience of food chains and relevant policy interventions have challenged established approaches to achieving agricultural sustainability. Through international case studies, this book evaluates how these new policy challenges are having an impact on specific agricultural policy regimes, and what future lessons might be learnt from key policy experiments around neoliberalism and multifunctionality.

Housing problems have become increasingly complex in the Global South. An increased pressure to upgrade older stock, to provide adequate infrastructure, and bring city amenities to urban peripheries compounds the continued need for new housing of a decent standard. This comprehensive volume spans nine countries, simultaneously analyzing innovative housing policies and questioning the idea of innovation in this arena. The authors describe three persistent, global challenges to contemporary policy: the inherent difficulty in mass-producing housing of decent quality with access to the city; the challenge of community-based upgrading programmes, which often fail to benefit those who are worst off; and the political root of housing policies, which don't always consider the diverse needs of populations at the expense of the least powerful. This volume raises questions about what many consider the two most successful areas of housing policy in the Global South: the community-based land sharing programmes for redevelopment in South-East Asia and the finance-driven social housing programmes in Latin America. The authors examine mass housing production programmes, incremental development processes, community-based urban upgrading, the legal structure of condominiums, and land-sharing policies, while also highlighting challenges to policy learning across contexts. This book will be of great interest to students, researchers and those involved with contemporary housing policies, particularly in the Global South. It was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Housing Policy.

Some 7.3 billion people currently live on the planet. Of these, 3.4 billion live in rural areas. In just a few regions-Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa-less than 50 per cent of poverty is now located in rural areas. But for the rest of the world's regions between 55 per cent and 80 per cent of the poor continue to live in the countryside. Progress is being made, but much of the knowhow needed is not disseminated outside of a small coterie of professionals who work in the area. With urban development attracting a great deal of attention lately, poorer rural areas deserve the same and new knowledge for empowerment of rural communities is urgently needed. This book provides an overview of current thinking and practices that have emerged over the last thirty years for uplifting rural communities in developing economies. Drawing on a body of knowledge across a spectrum of relevant disciplines, this book provides a range of innovative ideas for rural planning, housing and infrastructure development. Governments in many emerging economies, where rural poverty is often most acute, have attempted to improve livelihoods. Approaches and techniques that have been used for urban development are often not applicable to rural communities. Studies show that money allocated for rural development is often not effectively spent due to distance, lack of infrastructure, lack of education, poverty and other factors. Meanwhile, the gap in development between the city and country continues to grow, sometimes leading to social and political instability, in both developing and developed countries. This book seeks to provide a guidebook for meeting such challenges. Through in-depth enquiry of global practices and thinking about rural development, and selected case studies, the authors argue that careful consideration must be given to incorporating issues of resilience, resourcefulness and the involvement of communities at grassroots levels in realising the transformation of rural settlements into Smart Villages.

This edited book contains salient papers presented at the XII World Congress of Rural Sociology held in South Korea in 2008. These papers have been selected for their quality and have undergone a peer review process. The rationale behind this book rests on the desire to share the wealth of research presented at the World Congress with interested individuals who could not attend the event and it reflects the empirical work and thinking characterizing contemporary rural sociology. As this sociological sub-discipline evolves along with society and the rural world, it appears of paramount importance to make available ground-breaking research to the international scientific community. Rural sociology is changing and this volume testifies of this change by documenting the introduction of new themes of research as well as the evolution of established ones. In this regard, it provides a unique and uniquely international view of the most recent advanced production in rural sociology. The volume consists of eighteen chapters representing original pieces of research and an introduction that frames them in the context of the evolution of the discipline.

For the past century, governments have been compelled, time and again, to return to the search for solutions to the housing and economic challenges posed by a restructuring countryside. The rural housing question is an analysis of the complexity of housing and development tensions in the rural areas of England, Wales and Scotland. It analyses a range of topics: from attitudes to rural development, economic change, land use, planning and counter-urbanisation; through retirement and ageing, leisure consumption, lifestyle shifts and homelessness; to public and private house building, private and public renting and community initiatives. Across this spectrum of concerns, it attempts to isolate the fundamental tensions that give the rural housing question an intractable quality. The book is aimed at policy makers, researchers, students and anyone with an interest in the future of the British countryside.

A major new introduction to the UK planning system. It outlines the evolution and use of the new spatial planning approach which is increasingly adopted at all levels of the UK planning system from European through to the national, regional, sub-regional and local level.

After Suburbia presents a cross-section of state-of-the-art scholarship in critical global suburban research and provides an in-depth study of the planet's urban peripheries to grasp the forms of urbanization in the twenty-first century. Based on cutting-edge conceptual thought and steeped in richly detailed empirical work conducted over the past decade, After Suburbia draws on research from Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, and the Americas to showcase comprehensive global scholarship on the urban periphery. Contributors explicitly reject the traditional centre-periphery dichotomy and the prioritization of epistemologies that favour the Global North, especially North American cases, over other experiences. In doing so, the book strongly advances the notion of a post-suburban reality in which traditional dynamics of urban extension outward from the centre are replaced by a set of complex contradictory developments. After Suburbia examines multiple centralities and diverse peripheries which mesh to produce a surprisingly contradictory and diverse metropolitan landscape.

Rebirding takes the long view of Britain's wildlife decline, from the early taming of our landscape and its long-lost elephants and rhinos, to fenland drainage, the removal of cornerstone species such as wild cattle, horses, beavers and boar - and forward in time to the intensification of our modern landscapes and the collapse of invertebrate populations. It looks at key reasons why species are vanishing, as our landscapes become ever more tamed and less diverse, with wildlife trapped in tiny pockets of habitat. It explores how Britain has, uniquely, relied on modifying farmland, rather than restoring ecosystems, in a failing attempt to halt wildlife decline. The irony is that 94% of Britain is not built upon at all. And with more nature-loving voices than any European country, we should in fact have the best, not the most impoverished, wildlife on our continent. Especially when the rural economics of our game estates, and upland farms, are among the worst in Europe. Britain is blessed with all the space it needs for an epic wildlife recovery. The deer estates of the Scottish Highlands are twice the size of Yellowstone National Park. Snowdonia is larger than the Maasai Mara. The problem in Britain is not a lack of space. It is that our precious space is uniquely wasted - not only for wildlife, but for people's jobs and rural futures too. Rebirding maps out how we might finally turn things around: rewilding our national parks, restoring natural ecosystems and allowing our wildlife a far richer future. In doing so, an entirely new sector of rural jobs would be created; finally bringing Britain's dying rural landscapes and failing economies back to life.

The landscape is a vital spatial and material frame for our natural and man-made environment and is considered by many stakeholders to be one of the most important aspects of a healthy, enjoyable life. This book deals with the current trends in the theory of the integration of landscape aspects in spatial planning and development processes. The authors discuss the need for integrated land use planning, landscape planning and impact assessment, and explore landscape consideration practice in European countries, with a special focus on Slovakia. Information about landscape decision-making approaches and cases illustrates current practice and lessons from experience, providing baseline material for landscape academic forum, members of the public and professionals in spatial development making: planners, designers, architects, engineers and others. This practice-oriented and up-to-date monograph is a sourcebook and reference guide to key trends, issues of and approaches to sustainable spatial development in European countries.

Building Effective Crisis Communications for Disaster Recovery: A Case of Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation in Sichuan, China reviews and evaluates public relations (PR) campaigns launched by the Chinese government to facilitate long-term disaster recovery after the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008. The Discourse of Renewal (DR) theory is employed to guide the study and explore how the Chinese government utilized communication to help communities recover from disaster and promote community growth. Steered by the co-creational perspective, this book also examines the influence of PR campaigns on the public's situation awareness, attitude agreement, perceived care and concern, and ultimately the public's relationship with the Chinese government in renewal. In addition to developing and testing a DR evaluation model, this study investigates the communication obstacles that constrain the effectiveness of DR. In-depth interviews, content analysis, and surveys are conducted to analyze the themes, characteristics, effectiveness, and barriers of the campaigns. The findings of Building Effective Crisis Communications for Disaster Recovery include that (1) DR theory, which has heretofore been developed and applied mainly in Western culture, can inform the study of crisis communication in an Eastern culture, especially in China, (2) DR employed in government campaigns can be very powerful in achieving PR goals in crisis renewal, and (3) imbalanced deployment of campaign resources can affect the outcome of DR. This book also discusses the implications of utilizing these findings to better plan and implement long-term DR campaigns.

In dealing with scarce land, planners often need to interact with, and sometimes confront, property right-holders to address complex property rights situations. To reinforce their position in situations of rivalrous land uses, planners can strategically use and combine different policy instruments in addition to standard land use plans. Effectively steering spatial development requires a keen understanding of these instruments of land policy. This book not only presents how such instruments function, it additionally examines how public authorities strategically manage the scarcity of land, either increasing or decreasing it, to promote a more sparing use of resources. It presents 13 instruments of land policy in specific national contexts and discusses them from the perspectives of other countries. Through the use of concrete examples, the book reveals how instruments of land policy are used strategically in different policy contexts.

This volume represents the result of almost two decades of trans-Atlantic collaborative development of a policy research paradigm, the International Comparative Rural Policy Studies program. Over this period dozens of scientists from different disciplines but with a common interest in rural issues and policy have collaboratively studied the policies in North America, Europe, and other parts of the world. A core element of the book is the idea and practice of comparative research and analysis - what can be learned from comparisons, how and why policies vary in different contexts, and what lessons might or might not be "transferable" across borders. It provides skills for the use of comparative methods as important tools to analyze the functioning of strategies and specific policy interventions in different contexts and a holistic approach for the management of resources in rural regions. It promotes innovation as a tool to valorize endogenous resources and empower local communities and offers case studies of rural policy in specific contexts. The book largely adopts a territorial approach to rural policy. This means the book is more interested in rural regions, their people and economies, and in the policies that affect them, than in rural sectors, and sectoral policies per se. The audience of the book is by definition international and includes students attending courses in agricultural and rural policy, rural and regional studies, and natural resource management; lecturers seeking course material and case studies to present to their students in any of the courses listed above; professionals working in the field of rural policy; policy-makers and civil servants at different levels seeking tools to better understand rural policy both at the local and global scale and to better recognize and comprehend how to transfer best practices.

Democratic rural organizations can play an important role in helping their members, who are frequently poor farmers living in the margins of the economy, to escape their disadvantaged starting point and to gain access to financial services, political influence and profitable markets for their product. Democratic Rural Organizations: Thresholds for Evolution in Africa and Asia traces the evolution of democratic rural organizations from small groups to larger, NGO financed, multi-tier democratic rural organizations in recent years. Rural citizens have historically formed democratic organizations by their own initiative, to enhance economic and social wellbeing, but in recent years rural mobilization processes are frequently initiated and supported by national Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), who are financed and guided by international NGOs, a process which has had mixed results. Using rich empirical material from Uganda, India, Bangladesh and Cambodia, Democratic Rural Organizations: Thresholds for Evolution in Africa and Asia identifies eight thresholds which represent practical stages in the development pathway of democratic rural organizations and influence success or failure. Both development practitioners and researchers of development and rural policy will find this book a useful guide to the deployment of democratic organization as a strategy for economic and political empowerment.

Originally prepared for the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, this is the first comprehensive assessment of global volcanic hazards and risk, presenting the state of the art in our understanding of global volcanic activity. It examines our assessment and management capabilities, and considers the preparedness of the global scientific community and government agencies to manage volcanic hazards and risk. Particular attention is paid to volcanic ash, the most frequent and wide-ranging volcanic hazard. Of interest to government officials, the private sector, students and researchers, this book is a key resource for the disaster risk reduction community and for those interested in volcanology and natural hazards. A non-technical summary is included for policy makers. Regional volcanic hazard profiles, with invaluable information on volcanic hazards and risk at the local, national and global scale, are provided online. This title is available as an Open Access eBook via Cambridge Books Online.

Teaching Landscape: The Studio Experience gathers a range of expert contributions from across the world to collect best-practice examples of teaching landscape architecture studios. This is the companion volume to The Routledge Handbook of Teaching Landscape in the two-part set initiated by the European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools (ECLAS). Design and planning studio as a form of teaching lies at the core of landscape architecture education. They can simulate a professional situation and promote the development of creative solutions based on gaining an understanding of a specific project site or planning area; address existing challenges in urban and rural landscapes; and often involve interaction with real stakeholders, such as municipality representatives, residents or activist groups. In this way, studio-based planning and design teaching brings students closer to everyday practice, helping to prepare them to create real-world, problem-solving designs. This book provides fully illustrated examples of studios from over twenty different schools of landscape architecture worldwide. With over 250 full colour images, it is an essential resource for instructors and academics across the landscape discipline, for the continuously evolving process of discussing and generating improved teaching modes in landscape architecture.

This comparative case study addresses central determinants of inequalities that persist in India and South Africa. The particular focus of the study is on programs aiming at the redistribution of land to the landless poor and these programs' consequences. The central question is why extreme inequalities persist despite land redistribution programs that have been in place for decades and what role different actors and dominant ideas play in this. Beyond this empirical focus, the study transcends theoretical cleavages in the social sciences by following the basic ideas of Giddens' Structurational Theory. An actor-centred approach is chosen as the primary tool for analysis. It is complemented with a structurational approach to discourse analysis for a detailed analysis of actors' preferences.

This book provides an overview of the complex challenges and opportunities related to forest-based rural development in the tropics and subtropics. Applying a socio-ecological perspective, the book traces the changing paradigms of forestry in rural development throughout history, summarizes the major aspects of the rural development challenge in forest areas and documents innovative approaches in fields such as land utilization, technology and organizational development, rural advisory services, financing mechanisms, participative planning and forest governance. It brings together scholars and practitioners dealing with the topics from various theoretical and practical angles. Calling for an approach that carefully balances market forces with government intervention, the book shows that forests in rural areas have the potential to provide a solid foundation for a green global economy.

This book intends to provide analytical and policy tools for investigating the question of the development of rural and peri-urban areas. The aim is to shed some light on this topic and in particular to contribute to a better understanding of the link between issues of regional or territorial development and issues of rural development. The text addresses the question of the disputed notions and definitions of rural development in rural and regional studies, examines the literature of regional and territorial development and the policies of regional development and planning. It also presents scenarios for the future of rural areas, with a focus on European territories.