Focusing on recent regional policy and important planning debates across the English regions, this book analyzes the issues, disputes and tensions that have arisen in regional planning in the new millennium. With a range of local case studies to ground the argument in local as well as regional planning, the authors here build on a range of theoretical insights including state theory and governance, political ecology, governmentality and collaborative planning. Drawing particularly on a discourse approach, the empirical sections examine a range of major controversies from the past five years of regional planning, including:

• the socio-political resistance to new housing on Greenfield sites
• alternative approaches to promoting sustainable urban development and policies for urban renaissance
• policies on redirecting or constraining economic expansion in high-pressure growth areas
• the social and political bases of new planning technologies for protecting the environment, including sustainability appraisals.