Sites, jobs and portfolios: economic development discourses in the planning system

Analyzing Planning and Design Discourses

The term ‘discourse’ is used to describe the entangled and contested transactions through which real-world planning and policy issues are addressed. Studies of discourses have become an important way of understanding how power is mediated in planning, but the methods through which discourses are identified and evaluated is as yet unclear in the literature. Here, we describe our attempt—with still only limited success—to map discourses using a method that extends the work of Toulmin and Gasper and George. Our method consists of a tabular representation of argument structure to depict the content and structure of a discourse, and a graphical index to the discourse table to reveal higher order patterns in the discourse. Using discourse pertaining to a real-life design-review case, we demonstrate how our approach allows us to understand the internal structure of that discourse better. We conclude with suggestions for how the method might be further improved.

Regional Planning Tensions: Planning for Economic Growth and Sustainable Development in Two Contrasting English Regions

The new regional governance arrangements for England are raising profound challenges for the integration of planning, sustainable-development, and economic-development strategies. The authors examine how tensions are emerging in respect of efforts to provide employment sites for large-scale inward investments, using the contrasting experiences of the South East and North East of England during the period 1997–2001. Some major ideological faultlines between national control over plan making and regional aspirations to devise distinctive approaches to planning for regional development are revealed.