Resources

This page hosts a range of relevant resources and be updated over the duration of the project. The resources will include links to organisations, those participating in the research, books papers and other outputs. This will be added to as the project rolls forward.

Project Outputs

WP1a Theoretical Framework

This report, issued as a working paper, covers the basis upon which the project rests in theoretical terms and is linked to Work Package 1 of the project ( Literature review). The coverage set out here stems from the Just Neighbourhoods? project first research objective; which is to explore understandings of social and environmental justice amongst communities in underrepresented areas. Therefore, the aim of this document is to establish the theoretical foundations of the research and thereby inform the methodology and subsequent analysis of the empirical findings. It is not intended as a theoretical contribution to the academic literature but we are hopeful that such a contribution will be possible towards the end of the project. As such, this paper focuses on the following questions:
− How has planning theory engaged with issues of justice, and what forms of justice are we talking about? (e.g. spatial, environmental, social, procedural, outcomes based)
− What is the relationship between justice and participation? (i.e. in terms of inclusion, exclusion, scope, depth and learning/knowledge development)
− How do issues of justice (and injustice) relate to issues of power? (i.e. asking how power shapes injustice)
− How do issues of justice/injustice relate to issues of ethics? (i.e. how things are done and with what purpose)
− How have theories of justice engaged with the concept of scale? And how can ‘just’ policies be achieved at the local/neighbourhood scale?

WP1b Literature review

This document outlines the structured review of relevant literature published since 2010. The purpose of the review is to provide grounding for the later stages of the research and feed into the theoretical framework (WP1a). This ensures that key findings from the wider – particularly international – community-led planning (CLP) literature combines with the existing material from the team, which has centred more on the English experience. Each identified theme is synthesised to key points for the research project to consider.

Organisations

Here are the  logos of interesting and  useful organisations which are involved with communities and  planning – they might be worth you looking up – just  click on the  icons.

Logo               
Pre-application planning advice - Gloucestershire County Council   Planning Aid for London 
 Planning Aid Wales               

Book: Neighbourhood Planning in Practice

This is a book written in 2019 by some of the  team considering Neighbourhood Planning (NP), introduced by the Localism Act of 2011 in England. NP involves rights for communities to produce a  statutory Plan and  shape the future of the places where they live and work. The book examines the experience of neighbourhood planners, analysing what communities have achieved, how they have done so and what went well or badly. Comparing NP with other forms of community planning and highlighting the main lessons learned so far, it acts as a navigation tool for people already involved in neighbourhood planning, as well as those contemplating participation.

Research: Spaces of Hope: People’s Plans

A recently completed ‘sister’ project ‘Spaces of Hope: People’s Plans’ has produced the first sustained history of community-led planning in the UK, documenting the diverse and often hidden ways in which people have come together to care for the future of their local environments since the 1960s.

Existing academic work has tended to focus on how citizens have influenced official processes of public participation in planning. Alongside this formal system, however, runs a rich history of informal community organising around planning and urban change which has not been subject to much research. Given the contemporary significance of community action around urban and environmental issues this gap limits our understood of the roles citizen activism has played in planning and place-making. For more, see:

PeoplesPlans.org – Exploring the Hidden Histories of Community-led Planning in the UK

Website: Just Neighbourhoods. Socio-spatial Justice in Urban Neighbourhoods

Community protest, Bayview-Hunters Point 

Similar project title. Different scope!… This website shares details of research carried out by US and UK universities looking at a case in San Francisco, US. Completed in 2021, this work explored the extent which redevelopment projects at the neighbourhood scale contribute to achieving socially just and fair environments, and who benefits from them. The main objectives of the research included:

  • developing a framework for evaluating different dimensions of injustice in urban redevelopment projects
  • carrying out intensive fieldwork in the Bayview-Hunters Point area, including site observation, participant observation, interview, and archival research
  • studying conflict between the community and the city
  • producing a documentary film that narrates reproduction of urban injustice in BVHP.

See:

Just Neighbourhoods: Socio-Spatial Justice in Urban Neighbourhoods at Oxford Brookes University