Town and Country Planning articles from May 2003

Town and Country Planning archives from May 2003

Professor Michael Breheny--an appreciation.
May 1, 2003... Michael Breheny, Professor of Planning in the Department of Land Management at the University of Reading, and Vice-Chair of the TCPA, died tragically--and suddenly, albeit after a long illness--on 11 February 2003, aged 54. He was educated...

Fractured nation? England--a fractured nation? TCPA Conference, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 21 March 2003.
May 1, 2003... It has been clear for decades that England has not developed in a balanced way. This balance may have shifted between regions, but there have always been clear regional differentiations. Traditionally, this has been tackled through regional...

Prophet in the suburbs. (People & Ideas).
May 1, 2003... It was fascinating to read the series of articles in the January T&CP discussing the GLA Report A City of Villages, not least for the comments of the planning officer for the suburb where I grew up (although it had another name then) that the...

Turning point? (Planning World).
May 1, 2003... The world's planners are coming to London. Or at least, a goodly proportion of them are: at the end of May the International Federation for Housing and Planning (IFHP) holds its spring conference here, for the first time in decades. The TCPA is...

'Not a shred of evidence'. (Trading Places).
May 1, 2003... The recent struggle to take over the Safeway supermarket chain has raised some important wider issues. The value of the company to its suitors lies partly in its customer base--if another food retailer gains control, that will reinforce its...

Sustainable development corporations. (Off the Fence).
May 1, 2003... The 'First Secretary of State', as Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott is now styled when dealing with planning matters, invites local stakeholders to say what arrangements they would prefer for the management of the supergrowth areas in the...

Positive planning for micro renewables: if the Energy White Paper is to be believed, the Government has woken up to local policies promoting 'positive planning' for renewables.
May 1, 2003... For many years, the UK planning and renewable energy debate has focused on the needs of large-scale wind and biomass developments in rural and urban fringe areas. Here, the key issue remains how best to deal with those negative planning...

The edgelands. (Cover Story).
May 1, 2003... The expanses of no-man's-land which have sprung up on the margins of our towns and cities play host to a mix of uses characteristic of our age. Rough and ready in the naked functionalism of their edifices and in the lawlessness and vigour of...

Reducing regional disparities through public policy: John Tomaney, Andy Pike, and Paul Benneworth look at the potential role of public policy in meeting the Government's long-term objective of reducing the persistent gap in growth rates between the regions.
May 1, 2003... The broad pattern of regional disparities within the UK has remained remarkably consistent since the period between the First and Second World Wars, and evidence clearly suggests that regional inequalities widened during the 1980s and 1990s....

Glasgow--grit, glitz, and globalisation: Dennis Hardy returns from a trip to Glasgow impressed by the rare energy and determination with which the city is remaking itself, but also conscious that beneath the image of 'big bang' change, social transformation takes a lot longer. (Hardy Country).
May 1, 2003... Glasgow has always been a city of powerful images. There's something about its very setting in the west of Scotland; the kind of place where you turn up your collar against the driving winds from the Atlantic. One thinks, too, of the impressive...

Counting the counterurbanisers--reasons for continuing metropolitan out-migration in the UK over the 1990s: John Allinson follows up an earlier article on metropolitan out-migration in the UK over the 1990s with a look at the results of an examination of statistical relationships between the socio-economic characteristics of areas and their migration 'performance'.
May 1, 2003... People simply do not like living or working in urban areas. But why not? A previous article in T&CP on 'counterurbanisation' (1) illustrated that migration is increasing everywhere, but most rapidly in the body of moves out of metropolitan...

On the waterfront: Peter Jones, Daphne Comfort, and David Hillier look at the origins, aims, and principal features of the Mersey Waterfront Regional Park initiative, a large-scale programme of waterfront regeneration.
May 1, 2003... Plans and programmes for 'waterfront regeneration' are an increasingly, important feature in a number of large cities within the UK. In Edinburgh, for example, there are ambitious plans to transform the former industrial Granton waterfront,...

Planning at the periphery. (The Euro-Files).
May 1, 2003... Peripherality is an issue of considerable importance to spatial planning, particularly in the context of the European Union Structural Funds, where it has been employed as a criterion for eligibility for Objective 1, 5b, and 6 status....

Slamming the New Jersey stable door. (Inside America).
May 1, 2003... The miles of oil refineries and chemical plants visible from the freeway as one drives west and south from New York City form the image of the state of New Jersey for most people. Indeed, the state is one of the most industrialised and the most...

Lessons from New Zealand. (Connections).
May 1, 2003... If watching MPs debate the intricacies of a Planning Bill turns you on, London is not the only place for you. For New Zealand is going through the same process. However, the similarity ends there. For the starting point for the New Zealand...

Regional excellence. (Connections).
May 1, 2003... Meanwhile, we have regional development agencies. They are unelected and are closely supervised by their central government paymasters. So it is hardly surprising that, when central government is in the throes of trying to develop an energy...

Trees--the good and the bad. (Connections).
May 1, 2003... Ronald Reagan's infamous remark that 'air pollution comes from trees' appears after all to have a grain of truth. Recent research at Lancaster University shows that a number of trees--including oaks, willows, and poplars--do help to form...

All at sea. (Connections).
May 1, 2003... As Reagan obviously understood, preconceptions are frequently the enemy of good decisions on environmental matters. The best choice for the environment is often counter-intuitive. The latest example I have come across arose when objectors...