Introduction to rural planning: economies, communities and landscapes. 2nd ed.

Introduction to Rural Planning provides a critical analysis of the key challenges facing rural places and the various ways that public policy and community action can shape outcomes, structured around three major themes: economies, communities and landscapes. Its thematic chapters examine key ideas influencing various forms of intervention before considering ‘rural planning’ processes and outcomes in Britain. The second edition of this student text book has been extensively re-written to provide far greater coverage of key policy areas and questions. New features include:
• A re-examination of the mixed nature of rural planning, concluding that it is an amalgam of public land-use planning, spatial or territorial planning, community action, countryside management and the projects and programmes of national and supra-national agencies and organisations. Together, these components of ‘composite’ rural planning have a transformative influence on rural places;
• A broader analysis of entrepreneurial social action as a shaper of outcomes, particularly in the fields of rural development, service provision, transport and housing. A far greater emphasis is placed on planning at a community scale, with particular coverage of the localism agenda and Neighbourhood Planning in England;
• A focus on accessibility and rural transport provision, examining the governance arrangements needed to deliver integrated solutions spanning urban and rural places. Accessibility is re-presented as a major dilemma facing the countryside, leading to questions of rural sustainability and critical challenges around service access and delivery;
• An examination of the ecosystem approach to environmental planning, linking the procurement of ecosystem services to the global challenges of habitat degradation and loss, climate change and resource scarcity and management. Important links are made between this approach and the re-emergence of food security questions; and
• An evaluation of the currency of the ‘rural’ label in the context of global urbanisation, concluding that rural spaces are relational spaces characterised by critical production and consumption tensions.
This book aims to make sense of current rural challenges and planning approaches. It will be a valuable resource for students on planning, rural development and rural geography courses.
Nick Gallent is Professor of Housing and Planning and Head of the Bartlett School of Planning at UCL. Iqbal Hamiduddin is Lecturer in Transport and Housing at the Bartlett. Meri Juntti is Senior Lecturer in Environmental Governance and Rural Development in the Department of Law and Politics at Middlesex University. Sue Kidd and Dave Shaw are both in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Liverpool, where Sue is a Senior Lecturer and Head of Planning and Dave is a Professor of Planning.