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The development of public art in French New Towns in the 1970s and 1980s was one of the most spectacular forms of state intervention in urban policy. Along with the new architecture programmes, the hundreds of works of art that adorn the public realm of the French New Towns help to differentiate them from the grands ensembles. This public art, which was highly publicised at the time, represents a heritage intrinsically linked to the urban history of New Towns but also to the history of French cultural policies at the end of the twentieth century. Artistic and town planning innovations underlie many public art projects. Artists and town planners participated, on a city scale, in the cultural developments that sought to respond to the expectations of the May 1968 crisis. In New Towns, the role of art was not simply to provide a backdrop to beautify the city but also to contribute to the success of new urban neighbourhoods. This involved placing visual landmarks in the urban space, confronting the residents with living art (painted walls, sculpted staircases, light paths, etc.).

The appropriation of these works of art by the public and councils was far from unanimous. It was only at the beginning of the twenty-first century that a heritage reflection emerged and led to a list of works of art being drawn up, with a view to protecting them. With the disappearance of state supervision over certain New Towns (1998–2002), damaged works has become a stigma in the public realm. A policy of restoration is being therefore introduced in certain New Towns, with public art participating in the identity of councils that do not hesitate to present themselves as ‘contemporary towns’ and take on the restoration or achievement of certain works that they now consider to be their heritage.

It has long been recognised that the top-down approach is prevailing over bottom-up approach in landuse planning in African countries. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and identify the facilitators and limitations to have effective public participation (PP), and suggest how the practices can be improved in Nigeria.

Using Nigeria as a case study, this paper involves interviews of various stakeholders, including government staff, representatives of interest groups, general public, members of the planning board and planning commission. Information is analysed by narrative techniques of reporting.

There is a general judgment that PP is vital to landuse policy. Early public consultation was preferred, as many respondents pointed out that this would help shape the final policy. Yet, their opinion varied on whether relevant information was provided to the public, as well as their level of satisfaction with the whole process. While the process was fairly seen as giving opportunities for the public to make comments on public policy, the approach appeared not to be fruitful in many cases: (a) when the scope was broad; (b) lack of representativeness and abstruse information; (c) insufficient feedback to the participants; and (d) corruption and shortage of resources to complete the process promptly.

Understanding the facilitators and limitations that impact the success of PP can help provide guidance to improve the decision-making processes of public policies.

This paper fills the knowledge gap by providing the Nigerian experience on stakeholders' perspectives of PP in developing countries.

The purpose of paper is to investigate the institutional features of the leasehold system of Hong Kong, which is predicated on the freedom of contract as an institutional arrangement for land management and planning that promotes sustainable development.

The approach is analytical, using concepts of property rights informed by Coasian neo‐institutional economics and the ideas of Yu et al. on the Schumpeterian process in innovation.

It was demonstrated that the post‐contractual imposition of statutory planning control on the leasehold land management system in Hong Kong has adversely affected and adaptability of the leasehold system in achieving sustainability.

This paper encourages a reinterpretation of statutory zoning in areas with a leasehold system and the reception of the land lease as a basis for innovations that help promote sustainable development.

This paper warns against legislative activism in planning controls as that can destroy or erode the basis for innovations that help promote sustainable development.

Using the idea of innovations of Yu et al. and Lai and Lorne, this paper further develops Lai theory of “planning by contract” as an alternative to “planning by edict”.

This case study draws on interviews conducted with officials from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM), City of Woonsocket and Town of North Smithfield. Additionally, it pulls from relevant legal documents, recordings and minutes from meetings of the Woonsocket City Council and North Smithfield Town Council, City Council resolutions, state legislation and local press coverage.

From 2012–2017, the communities of Woonsocket and North Smithfield engaged in a protracted dispute concerning wastewater disposal. For 30 years, the two jurisdictions had maintained a signed service agreement. Following its expiration; however, Woonsocket imposed a new host fee on North Smithfield. Woonsocket needed to upgrade the facility to comply with mandates from the RI DEM. Over the next five years, leaders from both jurisdictions vociferously fought over the new fee. At the same time, leaders within communities experienced their own divisions. This case study highlights the challenges that decision-makers faced in both communities.

This case is appropriate for graduate and executive level courses in environmental policy, communication and leadership.

An in-depth literature review was undertaken to uncover (1) what are described as the desired outcomes for 20 minute neighbourhoods (20MNs) – the normatively based ends which planners, architects and decision-makers want 20MNs to achieve; (2) the means (the mechanisms, levers, triggers and causal factors) that have to be correctly assembled and lined up for 20MNs to operate as intended and (3), in order to avoid naive environmental determinism, the behavioural changes required to support the operation of 20MNs even where the required configuration of means can be achieved. The content analysis was conducted following guidelines offered by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) criteria.

Growing interest in the urban design concept of the “20MNs” has been greatly accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been presented as a way of increasing the quality of local environments by enabling people to meet their daily needs through access to safe walking and cycling routes or by public transport. Internationally, it has captured the imagination of political decision-makers, built-environment practitioners and communities alike, as a life-affirming post-pandemic vision, held up as achieving environmental, health and economic improvements as well as reducing inequalities experienced by many. This paper's overall purpose is to separate the ends pursued in 20MNs from means available for achieving them.

The paper concludes that the ambition to see the 20MNs widely woven into existing urban, suburban and rural neighbourhoods will require significant effort to ensure all that all the component parts of, and key players in, planning's place-delivery systems are aligned and mutually supportive. Even where this can be achieved, further guidance will be needed on (1) how to operationalise the practical implementation of 20MNs and (2) how their success can be measured.

The originality of the paper lies in its efforts to discriminate between ends and means – between desired outcomes of 20MNs and the means available for achieving them. The significance of the paper lies here in this attempt to initiate a discussion on possible causal relationships between what is wanted and what would need to be done to achieve it. Without clarity about these relationships, misunderstanding, confusion and barriers to communication may arise across the many different organizations, stakeholder groups and actors involved. This lack of clarity could undermine trust and confidence, potentially undermining both the process and to its outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on partnerships of public and private sectors working on the implementation of urban revitalization projects. The paper aims to discuss the platforms for co‐operation, identify its partners against the backdrop of EU guildelines and point out possible conflicts that may emerge.

The paper elaborates on the work conducted by Skalski and it proceeds from the description of the entities engaged in revitalization projects through possible platforms of participation to some conclusions describing the current Polish scene of revitalization projects.

Results show that revitalization projects call for a close co‐operation between the citizens and authorities. Insufficient information and involvement of citizens may lead to reactions impeding the projects.

This paper provides important insights as to the sustainability of revitalization projects in Poland especially valuable for the practitioners not fully familiar with the Polish context.

Reports results from research collaboration between university and industry from the last six years (1985‐91) intensive work on the development of the radically new production concepts in use today in Volvo Car Corporation′s Uddevalla plant. Important breakthroughs in knowledge have been realized, including a product description adapted to assembly, new material supply systems and layouts for final assembly. This product description allowed performance to be determined for alternative production concepts. It is also a basic precondition for maintaining a logic in how the material is displayed and assembly work described, and is therefore formalized, principally through material supply systems, information systems and final assembly layouts. Emphasizes that efficient long cycle assembly work and flexible manufacturing assume both completely new preconditions on the shopfloor and a new management form. Makes clear, however, that these pre‐conditions demand a basically untraditional way of reasoning.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the information-seeking behaviour of Malaysian Town Planners (MTPs) in fulfilling their specific work task, which is to prepare the Development Proposal Report (DPR) that incorporates flood risk reduction aspects for planning permission purposes. The researcher investigated MTPs’ involvement in the DPR preparation, types of information sought from five town planning reference instruments, the uses of five town planning reference instruments and additional information sources and the problem faced when seeking for and using of the information from five town planning reference instruments for the DPR preparation.

This study was based on quantitative research using the postal survey method. Data were collected from 60 MTPs using questionnaires, with a response rate of 81.7 per cent.

The study showed that limited professional knowledge is the main factor influencing information-seeking behaviour of MTPs in the DPR preparation. The study revealed that MTPs seek information which are mainly related to the incorporation of flood risk reduction aspects in site planning, detailed information on existing conditions for all planning sectors especially for planning sectors that influence flood risks, detailed information on how development controls that influence the risks of flooding should be considered and detailed information on site planning aspects that influence flood risks from five town planning reference instruments. The MTPs gave various answers for the seven factors influencing their choice of use for each town planning reference instruments. Familiarity and prior success and trustworthiness factors got the most absolutely very important answers; followed by the quality factor with the most important answers; the timeliness factor with the most moderately important answers; accessibility factor with the most somewhat important answers; the cost factor with the most not so important answers; and the packaging factor with the most not important at all answers. The MTPs used additional sources such as the local planning authority, other agencies, colleagues, internet, clients, books, journals, seminar or conference papers and magazines to get useful information for the DPR preparation besides the five town planning reference instruments. The study found that the top three problems encountered by the MTPs during their information seeking for and using of information were the related information on incorporation of flood risk reduction aspects in site planning in all five town planning reference instruments were not sufficient, not in detail and not complete.

Only 60 MTPs, whose DPRs for lowland development areas with planning permission from the Selayang Municipal Council, Selangor, Malaysia, from the year 2012 to 2014 were chosen as samples in this study. Besides that, only site planning aspects in five town planning reference instruments were taken into account in this study.

This paper provides useful understanding of the information-seeking behaviour of MTPs in fulfilling one of their professional tasks, which is preparing the DPR that incorporates flood risk reduction aspects for planning permission purposes.

Being the first study on information-seeking behaviour of MTPs, it contributes to the very limited research literature on the topic for this profession in the world generally and Malaysia specifically.

This chapter explores how knowledge of landscape has been produced by different groups of interests in the Mark 3 partnership New Town of Warrington, UK, referring specifically to a neighbourhood called Birchwood. I introduce my on-going research project Days of the New Town and present findings as a point of encounter between knowledge of landscape as professional expertise and as socially lived experience. I place this encounter within the theoretical context of Lefebvre’s writings on social space. Specifically, I use his spatial triad, three overlapping concepts on how space is produced as lived, conceived and perceived (see The Production of Space 1973 translated into English in 1991). Having grown up in Birchwood, I carry with me a knowledge of this space in terms of lived experience. Whilst I do not call upon personal experience in this chapter, the aim of bringing about a greater awareness of the New Town as a space of lived experience has been a motivational factor in researching and writing about the ways we formulate our knowledge of New Towns: knowledge which can co-exist with the official archives of New Town Development Corporations.

Reviews the development of town and country planning and administration in Nigeria from the colonial period to the present. The British colonial administration, with its religious and missionary zeal, created the cultural, social and ideological premisses of modern town and country planning and administration in Nigeria. Different land uses were established without proper planning. These primary initiatives saw the emergence and formalization of physical planning and planning legislation. Planning in the country is still redundant and unable to cope with urban and regional development problems. Inadequate social accounts, local planning theories, models, and professional planning education, and a lack of financial resources and statutory legitimacy are the major planning problems. Conclusions, suggestions and recommendations are made encouraging planners to be more proactive.