One Nation,Two Planning Systems? Spatial Planning and Multi-Level Policy Integration in Ghana: Mechanisms,Challenges and the Way Forward

Effective integration across policy domains and between spatial scales is indispensable in dealing with the inherently complex process of policy formulation and implementation at all levels. In this paper, we examine the key features of Ghana’s spatial planning system focusing on the mechanisms and challenges of policy integration in practice. We show that a combination of path dependence and recent reforms has inevitably created two distinctly separate planning systems: an established Development Planning System and a newly instituted Spatial Planning System. Under the established notion of the ‘spatial’ being distinctively separate from the ‘socio-economic’ in planning, these two systems deploy separate institutional and legal arrangements as well as policy instruments to accomplish the task of planning. Within this context, mechanisms to ensure effective policy integration were found to be weak and ineffective. Moreover, the absence of a tradition of strategic regional planning and a culture of strategic partnerships among local authorities, the lack of appropriate institutional arrangements and sustainable sources of finance and duplicitous institutional functions were the key barriers to effective integration within the new concept of hierarchical spatial planning. We argue that a new paradigm of integrated planning under a unified planning system is urgently needed as a pre-condition for effective multi-level policy integration. We suggest that some forms of institutional restructuring would be necessary to establish a tradition of integrated planning. Finally, we recommend the use of legally binding mechanisms to institutionalize and enforce a culture of strategic alliance among local governments in cross-cutting matters.     

Participatory Planning of Social and Spatial Organization in Agrarian Reform Policy in Brazil： An Assessment of the Implementation Challenges

The social endeavors for Agrarian Reform in Brazil have a history of at least sixty years. Throughout this time, distinct political regimes, increased land concentration, disordered urbanization and the development of a dynamic agribusiness sector inserted in global economy led to both the aggravation of social conflicts over land in Northern and Southern Brazil as well as new inquiries on the features necessary for an efficient Agrarian Reform Plan in the authors＇ country. Focused on the agrarian reform projects in the Brazilian Amazon, this work discusses on the political and methodological perspectives drawn in II PNRA （second National Plan of Agrarian Reform）. The authors frame their account mostly along the theoretical scaffolding provided by the Bloomington School of Institutional Analysis. The authors analyze the multiple challenges facing the organization and the maintenance of the institutional structure designed to facilitate participatory planning and governance of collective resources in periurban settlements. The authors portrait these settlements as highly complex socio-ecological systems wherein socioeconomic asymmetries, cultural diversity and poor social capital and education promote political and ideological disputes that jeopardize safeguarding global commons.     

Between Tangibility and Intangibility——A Review on Conservation Planning and Its Implementation in the Historical City of NanJing

The conservation plan for the famous historical and cultural city of Nanjing was prepared since several yearsago.The plan,being an integral component to enrich comprehensive planning of the city,has been workingeffectively through the planning structure to direct the development of Nanjing.However,upon further analysis,au-thors of this article feel that this plan still has its own deficiences and drawbacks in exploring indepth the city'scultural origin,in selecting the essentials while discarding the dross and in blazing new trails based on the rich legacyof the past.These aspects need to be further investigated and to illustrate these points,two scenic belts are proposedto be included into the conservation plan.     

City Planning and SocioEconomic Development——Also on the Further Implementation of the Master Plan for Beijing Development

At present,many people believe that wehave to strengthen the research on socioeconomic development when making citydevelopment plans,but problems remain asto what to research on,how to carry out theresearch and how to closely relate     

“Between a Rock and a Hard Place”: Planning Reform,Localism and the Role of the Planning Inspectorate in England

Like many European countries, England saw the establishment in the late 1990s and early twenty-first century of regional-scale spatial planning. Radical reform of English planning following the Localism Act 2011 however saw the whole intermediate tier of regional planning stripped out of the national planning system along with detailed guidance and top-down targets for house-building at a local level. This had a major impact on the Planning Inspectorate, the agency responsible on behalf of government for approving local development plans. Reform left the Inspectorate fully exposed to the tensions and contradictions between top-down policy and local autonomy inherent under the new planning framework. Focussing on future levels of housing development, a key responsibility of local councils under the new framework, we examine the implications of reform for the Planning Inspectorate in practice. We draw on approaches to localism and planning theory, in particular the idea of ‘conditional localism’, in order to situate and understand these changes. The study was based on interviews with elite respondents in or close to the Planning Inspectorate together with documentary sources. Lack of previous work on the Inspectorate, coupled with their key role in the national planning system, reinforced by recent reforms, emphasises the significance of the study. The importance of such ‘land-use tribunals’ internationally, points to the study’s wider relevance. It provides, as well, a study of planning reform with relevance in a wider European context and suggests how recent contributions to the localism debate can help make sense of these changes.     

Is Planning ‘Secular’? Rethinking Religion,Secularism, and Planning

ABSTRACT

Responding to the call for a deeper understanding of the religious phenomenon in planning – advanced, among others, by Leonie Sandercock and June Thomas in this journal – this paper argues that understanding religion in planning entails understanding religion’s constitutive other: secularism. This position draws on the burgeoning field of secular studies as well as examples of entanglement of religion, secularism, and planning in the United States and France. It problematizes a long-held assumption that good planning is based upon the notion of ‘religious indifference,’ for the assumption is conceptually anachronistic and practically untenable. This paper offers a set of methodological considerations as to how planners can radically rethink this assumption while effectively attending to the religious subjectivities of their constituencies and actively working through the structures of the modern state. The paper concludes by exploring the implications of this analysis for planning practice against the backdrop of recent improvements fostered by the American Planning Association as well as the relevance of this analysis across international contexts.     

Planning law,power, and practice: Haussmann in Paris (1853–1870)

The transformation of Paris by Haussmann (1853–1870) is presented as a classic case of state-led modernization. What most accounts do not take into consideration is that Haussmann faced formidable opposition from property owners in his attempts to realize the emperor's ambitions for Paris, an opposition that centred on competing interpretations and uses of planning law. Based on heretofore unstudied archival material, this paper traces Haussmann's attempts to establish his (at times) creative use of planning law as legitimate in a context where planning was firmly in the hands of property owners. Haussmann's strategic use of the law, or planning practice, was able to lay bare the fact that planning law has no legitimacy in itself – only particular uses of the law can gain or lose legitimacy. Planning power can thus be defined as the possession of legitimacy in the use of planning law; and since the legal framework is a site of contest rather than a source of legitimacy, planning power depends on external legitimation. In the Haussmann case it is clear that state backing was central, even though (implicit) early support from the Parisian population cannot be ruled out until more research has been conducted.     

Responsibility for Sustainable Development in Europe: What Does It Mean for Planning Theory and Practice?

Responsibility in planning for sustainable development (SD) is little conceptualised in the planning literature. This paper sets up a theoretical framework to extend its understanding by drawing on ethics and political constructions of responsibility at their intersection with planning studies and SD debates. This is then applied to explore responsibility outlooks in planning practice in Sweden and England. It is argued that planning theory needs to further engage with the ethics of responsibility in planning but also with its politics, while the variety of responsibility landscapes in planning practice calls for a re-examination of responsibilities in planning for SD.     

Public Cities,Public Scholars? Questioning Urban Policy and Research in Australia

This review examines relationships and tensions between urban research and policy impact, drawing on the inaugural Public Cities Lecture at the State of Australian Cities Conference 2015 in honour of the late Paul Mees. It examines the different ways Australian urban researchers are questioning, engaging with and contributing to public policy—and the relative influence of this work in relation to the range of other sources of information now seeming to dominate public debate. Despite a desolate funding environment and a hollowing of demand from government and political leaders for independent research, the varied forms of public scholarship canvassed in this review do suggest an evolution rather than atrophy of urban research in Australia. The question is how we advance, and equally importantly, critically evaluate our changing roles and contributions beyond the usual metrics of academic citations, to help inform, and reform, the parameters of policy debate and action.     

Records and Reviews:The Recent Development of Foreign Planning and Design Officeas in Mainland China

I. Changes in the existing markets of the overseas planning anddesign officesThe planning and architecture offices of developed countriesunexceptionally follow a same pattern of development. From 1960s,expansion towards markets outside the country or even the continentwhere the office located has commenced. The growth rate ofprojects in domestic country or continent has been slowing downsince 1980s, showing a decrease of the proportion in its totalbusiness volume. Meanwhile the projects in t…     

Between ‘Market’ and ‘Welfare’: Rent Restructuring Policy in the Housing Association Sector,England

This paper empirically evaluates the market and welfare impacts of rent restructuring policy in the housing association (RSL) sector. The focus is on the financial viability of housing associations in the north of England, the affordability problems of tenants in the south, and the changes of turnover rates of RSL tenancies that have resulted. Using data from the Regulatory and Statistical Returns and the CORE (COntinuous REcording) from 2001/02 to 2005/06, the analysis shows that the ‘market’ component of the rent formula plays a more substantial role in affecting the RSL rent levels despite the ‘welfare’ measures in the policy—the greater emphasis on local earnings, the restriction of annual rent increase and the imposition of rent ceilings. Given that social housing in England is essentially a residual mode of provision, it is argued that a more flexible approach in balancing these two conflicting principles in rent setting is needed.     

Planning Rural-Urban Landscapes: Railways and Countryside Urbanisation in South-West Flanders,Belgium (1830–1930)

In the international literature on today’s urban condition, Flanders is presented as prime example of urban sprawl, generally described as unplanned incremental development induced by the quantum leap of private car ownership. The research on rural-urban landscapes in south-west Flanders qualifies and substantiates this assertion by analysing pre-war keystone processes of infrastructure planning in relation to land-use patterns and landscape transformations. The research reveals that not only the development of rural-urban landscapes reaches back far beyond the welfare state, fuelled by railways prior to highways, but also shows that the supposedly chaotic hybrid landscape has its roots in drawn-out landscape ideologies inscribed in public works policy. The analysis—which crosses the divides between disciplines (landscape and infrastructure planning), concepts (rural-urban, modern-traditional), and geographical scales (national, regional, local)—reveals consistently planned mechanisms of public works policy and landscape change underlying both the diffuse regional urbanisation patterns and local landscape transformations, which are generally perceived as spontaneous or vernacular developments. Infrastructure planning facilitated a spatial organisation that attributed centrality to the transport network rather than the metropolis, and that conceived a resilient infrastructure framework rather than a stylistic spatial constellation in order to steer and geographically root heterogeneous modernisation processes within the landscape.     

Accommodating New Housing Development in Rural Areas? Representations of Landscape,Land and Rurality in Ireland

Abstract

Housing development in rural localities represents one of the most visible and contested indicators of landscape change, as many European rural landscapes that are regulated by weak planning regimes are transformed by incremental suburbanisation. However, scant attention has been given to understanding stakeholder perceptions and interpretations of the physical processes of landscape change and preferences towards accommodating new housing development in rural areas among stakeholder groups. We address this deficit by drawing on a series of stakeholder focus groups undertaken in Ireland addressing: 1) stakeholder perceptions of landscape change and 2) attitudes towards future change scenarios based on digitally manipulated images of landscape change. The focus group analysis suggests a nuanced interpretation among rural residents of the impact of accommodating housing development, particularly in balancing local demand for rural housing with preferences for maintaining a sense of ‘rural character’; however, there were variations across rural space dependant on the extent of development experienced in recent years.     

The Mega-Cities in China: Development, Problems and Prospect

The existence of large and very large cities is a worldwide phenomenon. and has beena subject of much research and concern, The potentiai difficulty in tackling the issue isnow well understood. The number of large and very large cities is the greatest in China: there aretwenty-eight cities of 50,000 to one million population, and thirty of over one million, thelatter being regarded as meg-citics. There are nine of over two million population,amongst which Beijing has 10.4 million(1990)and Shanghai has 12.8 million(1990).Planning and research of the mega-cities tend to be locally specific and what is lackingseems to be an overview of the common and general issues in their development.     

The City''''s Functions,Development Impetus and Realistic Options in Urbanization

Like other products of industrializationand modernization,urbanization has manyfacets:an inevitable phenomenon in the so-cial development process,conflict with tra-dition,emergence of new problems,and theneed to choose between new options.Urbanization has frequently been des-     

Policy mix of renewable portfolio standards,feed-in tariffs,and auctions in South Korea: Are three better than one?

This study examines the effects of policy mix supporting electricity from renewable energy sources (RES-E) in South Korea. South Korea relies on a renewable portfolio standard as the main support scheme along with a feed-in tariff and long-term supply contract auctions as complementary schemes to support RES-E. This study investigates whether there is synergy among RES-E support policies. It also investigates how the policy mix affects RES-E markets. Although this study only focuses on a particular case of Korea, a policy mix generally can be an effective way to overcome the drawbacks of a single policy instrument in supporting RES-E.     

“Reclaiming Northbridge”: Urban (Dis)Order and Territorial Stigmatisation in Perth’s Night Time Economy precinct

Cutting across three waves of Night-Time Economy (NTE) research, this paper is concerned with (i) the entrepreneurial shift in urban governance from which the strategic planning and development of NTEs arose; (ii) the stigma that came to surround some NTE precincts as these deregulated spaces became characterised as violent and disorderly; and (iii) the processes of securitisation and gentrification that are reterritorialising NTE spaces. The paper draws on the concept of territorial stigmatisation in presenting a case study of Northbridge – the largest nightlife precinct in the West Australian capital of Perth – exploring the media-circulated discursive utterances of a range of actors with symbolic power (politicians, business people, the police, bureaucrats, reporters, etc.), the stigmatised image of Northbridge (re)produced and reified by these utterances, and the suite of interventions these images have legitimated. These interventions, it is argued, constitute a process of reterritorialisation that is reordering and redefining who and what is (un)desirable and included/excluded. In doing so, they erode the counter spaces of the NTE – spaces where counter-hegemony and difference can take place, and which constitute the liberating potential of nightlife.     

Comparative risk assessment of residential radon exposures in two radon-prone areas, ?tei (Romania) and Torrelodones (Spain)

Radon and radon progeny are present indoors, in houses and others dwellings, representing the most important contribution to dose from natural sources of radiation. Most studies have demonstrated an increased risk of lung cancer at high concentration of radon for both smokers and nonsmokers. The work presents a comparative analysis of the radon exposure data in the two radon-prone areas, ?tei, Transylvania, (Romania), in the near of old Romanian uranium mines and in the granitic area of Torrelodones town, Sierra de Guadarrama (Spain). Measurements of indoor radon were performed in 280 dwellings (Romania) and 91 dwellings (Spain) by using nuclear track detectors, CR 39. The highest value measured in ?tei area was 2650 Bq m^− 3 and 366 Bq m^− 3 in the Spanish region. The results are computed with the BEIR VI report estimates using the age-duration model at an exposure rate below 2650 Bq m^− 3. We used the EC Radon Software to calculate the lifetime lung cancer death risks for individuals groups in function of attained age, radon exposures and tobacco consumption. A total of 233 lung cancer deaths were observed in the ?tei area for a period of 13 years (1994-2006), which is 116.82% higher than expected from the national statistics. In addition, the number of deaths estimated for the year 2005 is 28, which is worth more than 2.21 times the amount expected by authorities. In comparison, for Torrelodones was rated a number of 276 deaths caused by lung cancer for a period of 13 years, which is 2.09 times higher than the number expected by authorities. For the year 2005 in the Spanish region were reported 32 deaths caused by pulmonary cancer, the number of deaths exceeding seen again with a factor of 2.10 statistical expectations. This represents a significantly evidence that elevated risk can strongly be associated with cumulated radon exposure.     

Housing and Urban Development in the People''''s Republic of China(A Selected Bibliography 1980—1987)

INTRODUCTIN:This bibliography is the companionvolume to an earlier bibliography preparedfor HUD by Laurence J.C.Ma.That compi-lation,Cities and City Planning in the Peo-ple's Republic of China:An Annotated Bib-liography(1980),covered sources in Englishup to and including part of 1980.The pres-ent work begins with sources from 1980 andcontinues through the end of 1987.Empha-sis is on sources concerning post-liberationChina;however,some sources do include in-formation on conditions prior to 1949.Thebiblography is divided into three main sec-tions:(1)Housing,(2)Urban Planning andDesign,and(3)Urban Economic Develop-ment Trends and Policies.Altogether it con-tains 340 items.In a number of ways,this is a very per-