Rationales for Place-based Approaches in Scotland

The aim of this paper is to remove the confusion surrounding what place-based approaches are, the rationales behind their use, the development of this approach to public service reform in Scotland and the future challenges presented by austerity and welfare reform. Key arguments presented in this paper: The rationales driving the emergence of new place-based approaches at the neighbourhood level include: o The Civic – in the need for higher quality, more responsive services and for communities to deliver more services for themselves o The Joined-up - in the need for improved coordination and more integrated services o The Political – in the pressure to devolve more power over resources to front-line staff and the public o The Economic – in the idea that innovation through place-based approaches can lead to new preventive measures and improved performance As the pressure on CPPs to deliver outcomes increases, place-based approaches are becoming a catchall for a wide range of policy objectives with the risk of overload. Place-based approaches are currently being tested by Community Planning Partnerships as a vehicle for cost cutting, prevention and asset-based community development. These new features of place-based approaches are aspirational, rather than approaches that have been fully developed and embedded. They remain a key area of innovation. The complexity of place-based approaches means that there is a risk that local practitioners and policy makers become distracted away from the challenges of austerity and welfare reform. In low-income neighbourhoods, there is a need for the expansion of welfare services to support mental health, realistic assessments of capacity within communities, and the basic provision of neighbourhood services to enable community development

Place-based policy and regional development in Europe

The past two decades have seen a shift in the paradigm of regional policy in Europe. This article reviews the trends in regional policy design and delivery at national and European Union scales, and considers the degree to which the principles of place-based policy operate in practice, highlighting the issues and challenges that have arisen

The Ecological Impact of Place-Based Economic Policies

Does economic development have an unavoidable ecological cost? We examine the ecological impacts of one of India’s signature place-based economic policies involving massive tax benefits for new industrial and infrastructure development following the creation of the new state of Uttarakhand. The policy, which had an explicit pro-environment mandate, resulted in no meaningful change in local forest cover. Our results suggest that even in settings with low levels of enforcement, place-based economic policies with pro-environment mandates can achieve sizeable economic expansion without major ecological costs

Place-based approaches to child and family services

This paper synthesizes the conceptual and empirical literature on place-based approaches to meeting the needs of young children and their families. A specific focus of the paper is on the potential contribution of place-based approaches to service reconfiguration and coordination. Outline The paper begins by outlining the sweeping social changes that have occurred in developed nations over the past few decades and their impact on children, families and communities. It explores the ‘joined up’ problems faced by families and communities in the contemporary world, and highlights the need to reconfigure services to support families more effectively. The paper then focuses on ‘joined up’ solutions, on what we know about how to meet the challenges posed by the complex problems that characterise our society. Next, the paper explores what a place-based approach involves, and what role it can play in supporting families with young children. The rationale underpinning place-based approaches is outlined and the evidence for the effectiveness of the approach is summarised. The paper then looks at what can be learned from efforts to implement place-based initiatives in Australia and overseas, and explores the issues that need to be addressed in implementing this strategy. The ways in which the early childhood service system might be reconfigured are also considered, and the paper ends with a consideration of the policy and implementation implications.&nbsp

Commonwealth place-based service delivery initiatives: key learnings project

Overview: Place-based initiatives are programs designed and delivered with the intention of targeting a specific geographical location and particular population group in order to respond to complex social problems. Typically, they focus on areas and communities with entrenched disadvantage or deprivation. This report investigates the key factors and characteristics associated with successful outcomes with such programs, drawing on the international literature and evaluation studies of Australian government and overseas programs. Key messages: Many Commonwealth place-based initiatives reviewed had features that accord with those of international place-based initiatives, including common program elements such as design, delivery, implementation and evaluation. Evaluation of all these common elements is rarely done by either international or Commonwealth place-based initiatives. In particular, evaluations of Commonwealth place-based initiatives lacked sufficient evidence to establish the causal effects of initiatives, their cost-effectiveness and an understanding of how these initiatives work to achieve their goals. This was more pronounced among the evaluation of Commonwealth initiatives than in international evaluations

Place-based Coastal Tourism Impacts and Residents’ Quality of Life: A Case of Mirissa Coast, Sri Lanka

Tourism, particularly coastal tourism is conceived as instrumental in transforming the society economy and the environment of a locality. Beyond the research on environmental dimension, only a limited number of empirical work could be noted on its impact on the social dimension-Quality of Life (QOL) of a community. Further, the available studies are mostly descriptive and explored residents\u27 perceptions of the impacts and resultant attitudes on QOL, and thus, of limited use for planning purposes. Therefore, this research examines the impacts of coastal tourism on quality of life of residents and its spatial variations as observed in Mirissa, a popular tourist destination in Sri Lanka. Both descriptive statistics and spatial interpolation methods are used to measure the impact of tourism on quality of life. The data was obtained from a questionnaire survey, interviews and observations. The research finds that coastal tourism impacts positively on the quality of life of the residents at the beginning stage of tourism development. There is a spatial variation of perceived quality of life in different parts of the tourism development area, experiencing more dispersed pattern towards the country side

Building Community Capacity for Participation in Evaluation: Why It Matters and What Works

This briefing shares five principles for engaging community stakeholders in evaluation planning, data collection and the interpretation and use of findings as part of place-based initiatives. These insights emerged from the shared experiences of grantmakers and evaluation practitioners during the first year of GEO's "Embrace Complexity" Community of Practice -- a group focused on the evaluation of place-based grantmaking

How to stay a smart city? Inspiration from a place-based spatial policy in Ghent: working together with local, smart citizens

Spatial planning in Europe and in Flanders is changing fundamentally. In the Europe 2020 strategy (2010-2020) Europe introduced the idea of a ‘place-based approach’ as an alternative or addition to traditional spatial planning. It refers to the context-dependent nature of efficiency and equity problems that the policy deals with, and to the fact that design of integrated interventions must be tailored to places, as it largely depends on the knowledge and preferences of the people living in it. Nevertheless, little research has examined the use of the place-based approach in Flanders. In this paper the place-based approach, also called area development, is referred to as a proactive planning approach, characterized by an intensive coordination of initiators, plans and projects in one specific area, in order to implement the plans and projects in the field. Participating with citizens in planning processes is not new. In general, we can distinguish three generations in citizen participation: from consultation by the authorities, to co-creation initiated by the authorities, and recently to citizen initiatives which are only supported and stimulated by the authorities. This paper reports results from a case-study in Ghent, Flanders. Within the neighbourhood around the main railway-station inhabitants and the local government are working together to create a new concept for the area, and are co-realising these new ideas in the field. We found earlier that authorities have been experimenting with place-based planning in Flanders for several years, but that results, actors and instruments differ. The new insight from the local, urban case in Ghent can be used to develop future place-based planning, programs and projects in Flanders and in cities within Flanders

The case for regional development intervention: Place-based versus place-neutral approaches

The paper examines the debates regarding place-neutral versus place-based policies for economic development. The analysis is set in the context of how development policy thinking on the part of both scholars and international organizations has evolved over several decades. Many of the previously accepted arguments have been called into question by the impacts of globalization and a new response to these issues has emerged, a response both to these global changes and also to non-spatial development approaches. The debates are highlighted in the context of a series of major reports recently published on the topic. The cases of the developing world and of the European Union are used as examples of how in this changing context development intervention should increasingly focus on efficiency and social inclusion at the expense of an emphasis on territorial convergence and how strategies should consider economic, social, political and institutional diversity in order to maximize both the local and the aggregate potential for economic development.place-based; development; policy; institutions; globalization; economic geography

Outdoor education: Opportunities provided by a place based approach

This paper calls for educators to consider the role that ‘place’ has in outdoor education experiences. It is suggested that greater emphasis and acknowledgment be given to ‘place(s)’ and how they may help students make sense of both their personal and communal identity. The paper is interwoven with a narrative from the author’s experiences of working with Pākehā and Māori students on a course that consciously utilised a ‘place-based’ approach to teaching and learning. The paper challenges the conception that outdoor education requires ‘high-impact’ adventurous activities, instead suggesting that we seek to develop a modest pedagogy which acknowledges our relationships with place(s) as a way to understand who we are , how we connect to others and how we both give and take meanings from the places in which we live and learn. These issues have potential implications for educators and programme designers