With its mandate for promoting sustainable development and supporting economicdevelopment regional planning has been right at the center of some of the mostimpo... » 

With its mandate for promoting sustainable development and supporting economicdevelopment regional planning has been right at the center of some of the mostimportant policy debates in English regionalism. Where regional economicstrategies for instance were produced quickly and with little dissent regionalplanning has been the site of some major public disputes with publicexaminations providing the opportunity for hidden tensions to be teased outand debated. The result has been some fascinating debates about the very natureof regionalism and indeed the nature of planning which have challenged theability of regional planning to find solutions to the very differing underlyingvalue assumptions of economic development protagonists environmental groupsand social housing interests amongst others.The book focuses on recent regional policy and planning debates in all eightEnglish regions with a range of local case studies used to ground the analysisin local as well as regional planning.The analysis builds on a range oftheoretical insights including state theory and governance political ecologygovernmentality and collaborative planning. Drawing particularly on a discourseapproach the major empirical sections examine a range of major controversiesfrom the past give years of regional planning including the sociopolitical nature of resistance to new housing on greenfield sites alternative approaches to promoting sustainable urban development andpolicies for urban renaissance disagreements over policies to redirect or constrain economic expansion inhigh pressure growth areas the social and political basis of new planningtechnologies for protectingenvironmental assets for the future including sustainability appraisals. «