Collaboration and Culture: Organizational Culture and the Dynamics of Collaborative Policy Networks

This paper presents a theory of the role of culture in collaborative policy networks. It builds on the literature that analyzes the factors related to the formation, maintenance, and dissolution of collaborative arrangements by demonstrating the importance of hitherto undertheorized cultural factors. Cultural theory indicates that actors with different cultural viewpoints have distinct and predictable biases in terms of their expectations of collaboration and their preferences concerning how collaborative policy networks are structured. These biases, in turn, shape how collaborative partners are chosen and how collaborative relationships are maintained over time. The theory is illustrated with a case study of the rise and dissolution of a coalition within a housing policy network in Los Angeles. The case illustrates that cultural differences can impede collaboration even when organizations share similar policy goals.     

Going Bush: the Implications of Urban‐Rural Migration

Traditionally, migration away from urban centres by those seeking lifestyle changes has been towards beach environments. More recently though, there have been small movements of people to rural environments seeking similar lifestyle changes. These movements to rural locales have been popularly referred to as treechange. Previous research on exurban migration has primarily focused on quantifying the migration process and attributes of the migrators. In contrast, this paper presents some preliminary findings on the impact of urban‐rural migration on a small, semi‐rural receiving area north of Melbourne. More specifically, it explores the impact that exurban migration has on local housing markets such as increases in house prices, decreases in affordability and declines in rental stock. The research also illustrates the divisions that appear in local communities between traditional residents and ‘newcomers’ over amenity issues and economic development.     

Mapping an invisible population: the uneven geography of second-home tourism

Second-home tourism is a very popular form of tourism in many countries, particularly in the Nordic countries. More than half of the Swedish population have access to second homes. Previous studies have revealed that there is great variation between different second homes. Examples range from rustic Australian shacks, lonely cabins in the Norwegian mountains, spacious Swedish archipelago villas and palatial Russian dachas. Still, second homes are often seen and analysed as a unitary category – a perspective that obscures the considerable heterogeneity within the category as well as spatial differences in the impact of second-home tourism. Using a second-home typology from previous research and data on about 660,000 second homes, we analyse the heterogeneity of second homes by mapping the composition of the Swedish second-home stock. Results show the uneven geography of second-home tourism, revealing significant and sometimes steep differences between peripheral areas and urban hinterlands, tourism hot-spots, and areas in decline. Based on these results, we assert that there is good cause to move away from using second homes as a unitary category. Instead, we argue for viewing second homes as an umbrella concept with dwelling use in focus. This enables a greater sensibility to place and more accurate analyses of the uneven impacts of second-home tourism. The results also give greater insights into the impact of the ‘invisible population’ of second-home owners from a public planning perspective.     

Privatising the suburbs: examining the trends and implications of 20 years of private residential development in Sydney,Australia

Master planned estates have been the subject of considerable academic interest since the publication of Blakely and Snyder's ( 1997 ) typology. The growing provision of private assets, facilities, and infrastructure in such estates has been documented and discussed. However, the extent of this form of residential estate in Australia has yet to be systematically documented. This paper seeks to contribute to knowledge in this field by reference to findings from an investigation in Sydney, Australia, using data from 300 private residential estates constructed under the New South Wales Community Land Development Act, 1989 (community title) over a 20‐year period. The aim is to understand the broad trends emerging in relation to the nature and extent of these types of developments and to consider some of their potential implications. This research suggests that there has been a quiet revolution in residential development and postulates that the extent of privatisation of essential neighbourhood infrastructure has been considerable. The study finds that master planned residential estate development has proliferated, particularly in the outer suburbs and in areas of relative disadvantage, and resulted in enclaves of comparative affluence disconnected from surrounding areas. In addition, the restrictive covenants usually applied in these estates are often designed to prevent change, including future densification or environmental adaptation. To this extent, the privatised nature of these estates puts them beyond the reach of broader urban planning goals.     

On the Transformative Potential of Community Land Trusts in the United States

Growing interest in non‐capitalist ownership models raises empirical questions about the political implications of such models. In this paper we ask: are non‐capitalist property ownership models inherently politically transformative? A study of community land trusts (CLTs) based in Minnesota illustrates that alternative property models do not necessarily produce transformative political outcomes. Interviews of those involved in CLTs revealed that they most often engage in affirmative politics, rather than challenging structural problems. Seeds of transformation were evident in these CLTs as well, however, and we explore these moments through four lenses of transformation in order to see the potential building blocks toward other worlds. To this end, we highlight changes in participant subjectivities, collective relationship building, the cultivation of community control, and the subversion of power hierarchies. While these moments offer pathways toward greater transformation, this study reveals the necessity of intentionally transformative practice in alternative ownership models.     

Housing Squats as “Educational Sites of Resistance”: The Process of Movement Social Base Formation in the Struggle for the House

This paper aims to contribute to the scholarly work on the internal dynamics of contemporary housing movements. In particular, it explores the spatial strategies through which squat inhabitants change the configuration of the squat to turn an abandoned building into a house for multiple families. The main argument is that these strategies, requiring horizontal participation and solidarity, catalyse the transformation of a sum of people dispossessed of the house into a collective, political subject. Therefore, the author proposes to analyse housing squats as “educational sites of resistance”. The findings come from the author's participant observation of Rome's housing movement organisation Coordinamento Cittadino di Lotta per la casa. In addition to providing empirical knowledge, the paper aims to offer inputs for investigating to what extent the process of politicisation is shaped by the space and what constitute the peculiarities of a so‐recomposed collective subject.     

Daily urban systems explained from the household perspective: an exploratory research on how the spatial interactions of the individual households shape the structure of daily urban systems

The concept of the Daily Urban System (DUS) has gained relevance over the past decades as the entity to examine and explain the functionality of the urban landscape. Daily Urban Systems are usually defined and measured by the strength of commuter or shopper flows between the nodes of the system. It is important to realize that these Daily Urban Systems are the accumulated pattern of individuals making frequent, recurring trips to other localities than their own. Understanding the microeconomic decisions behind these spatial interactions will help in assessing the functional and spatial structure of DUS. In this paper is explored how, based on Dutch empirical data, the individual household’s spatial interactions shape the daily urban system and how the destination of these interactions correlates with personal and spatial variables and motives for interaction. The results show that the occurrence of non-local spatial interactions can be explained by the size-based Christallerian hierarchy of the localities of residence, but that it is the regional population – or market potential – that explains and moderates the sorting of households and the intensity and direction of their spatial interactions in the DUS, matching agglomeration theory.     

Investigating the partnership approach in the EU Urban Agenda from the perspective of soft planning

At the European level, several strategic documents concerned with spatial and urban development have been published during the last decades. While these documents are essential to communicate European ideas and objectives, they are often regarded least influential in practice due to their abstract nature, legally non-binding status and lack of allocated resources. Though these limitations apply to the EU Urban Agenda, this recently published policy paper introduces partnerships as a new implementation tool. The partnerships can be regarded as innovative in two respects: On the one hand, they involve new actors, most importantly cities, in European policy debates. On the other hand, they ensure the anchorage of the Urban Agenda with a broad range of actors at various spatial scales without challenging its legally non-binding status. The Urban Agenda can thus be understood as another example of the move towards soft European spatial planning and urban development. This article investigates the notion of partnership as a soft planning and governance tool within the Urban Agenda. Moreover, based on expert interviews, it presents early opinions and expectations of actors involved in the development of the Urban Agenda and the partnerships on affordable housing.     

From the School Yard to the Conservation Area: Impact Investment across the Nature/Social Divide

In the face of planetary crises, from inequality to biodiversity loss, “impact investing” has emerged as a vision for a new, “moral” financial system where investor dollars fund socio-environmental repair while simultaneously generating financial returns. In support of this system elite actors have formed a consensus that financial investments can have beneficial, more-than-financial outcomes aimed at solving social and environmental crises. Yet critical geographers have largely studied “green” and “social” finance separately. We propose, instead, a holistic geography of impact investing that highlights the common methods used in attempts to offset destructive investments with purportedly reparative ones. This involves interrogating how elite-led ideas of social and environmental progress are reflected in investments, as well as deconstructing the “objects” of impact investments. As examples, we use insights from both “green” and “social” literatures to analyse the social values embedded in projects of financialisation in schooling and affordable housing in the US.