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Spatial Planning

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Spatial Planning Research focuses on the operation and practice of planning within the institutional contexts of planning systems, policies and processes in the UK, Europe and beyond.

Key areas of interest address the inter-relations between planning and other allied policy agendas, and the analysis of central and local government functions and quality and performance management.

The Bartlett School of Planning has played, and continues to play, a major role in critiquing British town and country planning and inspiring the emergence of 'spatial planning' across the UK. Recent projects have been developed around issues related to turning the theory of spatial planning into international discourse and practice, and the levers (policy, fiscal, managerial, or otherwise) available to planners to meet agendas.

Particular work has been developed on place shaping and planning for growth, planning gain, the representation of planning in the media, the relationship between planning and governance forms, and the links between land use planning and societal and lifestyle pressures, such as home ownership.

Research Projects

Planning After Devolution: Convergence, Divergence and Policy Transfer
Ben Clifford, Janice Morphet

Contrasting Approaches to Infrastructure and Delivery Planning
Janice Morphet (UCL), Nick Gallent (UCL), Marco Bianconi (UCL), Ben Clifford (UCL); Mark Baker (Manchester), Stephen Hincks (Manchester), Vivien Hale (Manchester)

Transboundary territorial cooperation, policy learning and the Europeanisation of urban and spatial planning policies in the Mediterranean area
Claire Colomb

An Anatomy of Sprawl: Planning and Politics in South Hampshire
Nick Phelps

Land Use Futures
Mark Tewdwr-Jones

Spatial Dimensions of Rural Policy
Nick Gallent, Richard Oades, Marco Bianconi and Ian Greatbatch

Measuring Quality - Best Value in Planning and Urban Design
Matthew Carmona and Louise Sieh

Planning Reform - The Development of Spatial Planning
Mark Tewdwr-Jones and Janice Morphet with Philip Allmendinger

Planning and Politics of Edge City Retrofit
Nick Phelps

Global Suburbanisms
Nick Phelps