This book is about the practice of rural development in contemporary China. It evolves the concept of 'neo-exogenous development' to explain how the power of the state links to community action via local party structures, in pursuit of both state-building and rural revitalisation.Through case studies, the book examines how central government investments are channelled through area-based programmes, which are then locally implemented by party-state and community actors. It illustrat...

Rural Planning Futures charts the critical societal challenges that are reshaping rural places across the UK and Ireland. The book evaluates current planning processes and explores the prospects for an enhanced, cross-sectoral and holistic future practice that mediates rural change towards more resilient and sustainable outcomes. Rural places and planning have, for too long, been viewed as marginal to both the theory and practice of planning. However, rural places are central to a...

Rural Places and Planning provides a compact analysis for students and early-career practitioners of the critical connections between place capitals and the broader ideas and practices of planning, seeded within rural communities. It looks across twelve international cases, examining the values that guide the pursuit of the ‘good countryside’.The book presents rural planning – rooted in imagination and reflecting key values – as being embedded in the life of particular places, deal...

Second homes are once again a source of political and social contention in rural areas. The British government's decision to reduce Council Tax discounts on second homes in England in April 2004 has caused wide debate in local communities, local authorities, and the media. The debate has not only focused on the vexed Council Tax issue, but on wider rural housing concerns. Questions have been raised as to whether second homes are a major cause of housing affordability problems in rural area...

This title was first published in 2000: Improved communication links between urban and rural areas and an increase in property prices in urban regions have made commuting an attractive option for European town and city dwellers eager to 'escape' urban living. This has lead to a proliferation of second homes in certain remote or deep rural areas, and this trend is compounding problems that are already affecting the indigenous populations in these areas - such as socio-economic decline, agr...

In recent years many nations have asked why not enough housing is being built or, when it is built, why it isn't of the highest quality or in the best, most sustainable, locations. Politics, Planning and Housing Supply in Australia, England and Hong Kong examines the politics and planning of new homes in three very different settings, but with shared political traditions: in Australia, in England and in Hong Kong. It investigates the power-relationships and politics that ...

At the root of the housing crisis is the problematic relationship that individuals and economies share with residential property. Housing’s social purpose, as home, is too often relegated behind its economic function, as asset, able to offer a hedge against weakening pensions or source of investment and equity release for individuals, or guarantee rising public revenues, sustain consumer confidence and provide evidence of ‘growth’ for economies. The refunctioning of housing in the twentiet...

The Routledge Companion to Rural Planning provides a critical account and state of the art review of rural planning in the early years of the twenty-first century.Looking across different international experiences – from Europe, North America and Australasia to the transition and emerging economies, including BRIC and former communist states – it aims to develop new conceptual propositions and theoretical insights, supported by detailed case studies and reviews of availabl...

With trust in top-down government faltering, community-based groups around the world are displaying an ever-greater appetite to take control of their own lives and neighbourhoods. Government, for its part, is keen to embrace the projects and the planning undertaken at this level, attempting to regularise it and use it as a means of reconnecting to citizens and localising democracy.This unique book analyses the contexts, drivers and outcomes of community action and planning in a sel...

Introduction to Rural Planning: Economies, Communities and Landscapes provides a critical analysis of the key challenges facing rural places and the ways that public policy and community action shape rural spaces.The second edition provides an examination of the composite nature of ‘rural planning’, which combines land-use and spatial planning elements with community action, countryside management and the projects and programmes of national and supra-national agencies and ...

This book examines the flow of investment into rural land assets in Europe, particularly farmland, woodland and wineries, but extending also to leisure uses such as golf courses and theme parks. It explores the characteristics of investors in rural land and their motivations before undertaking an analysis of the place impacts of investment, viewing ‘new money’ as a potential development opportunity, delivering a variety of outcomes for local landscapes and communities. After providing intr...

This book analyses the key forces affecting the affordability of rural homes in Britain and the changing shape of housing markets. It takes as its starting point, demographic trends impacting upon rural communities and upon market dynamics. From this point, it explores consequent patterns of housing affordability, examining changing opportunities in the rental and sale markets, at different spatial scales. The book also focuses on how markets are analysed, and how data are selectively used...