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 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

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

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

An Agenda for a Reformed Cohesion Policy A place-based approach to meeting European Union challenges and expectations

EU regional policy is an investment policy. It supports job creation, competitiveness, economic growth, improved quality of life and sustainable development. These investments support the delivery of the Europe 2020 strategy. The present paper analysis two strategically different options of EU regional policy: place-neutral versus place-based policies for economic development. Our results suggest that in many EU regions the place-neutral policies may no be the best policy response to facing new challenges posed by deeper economic integration and globalisation.Place-based; development; policy; institutions; globalisation; economic geography.

Place peripheral : place-based development in rural, island, and remote regions

Place Peripheral offers, a compelling overview of rural, island, and remote regional practices the world over, though with a clear focus on the North Atlantic. In this grand sweep, we have sought to effectively counter the dominant paradigm and discourses of development with a re-articulation of place, location, leadership, and identity. We o(er these as key assets or resources, and as the bases for timely strategies that reconceptualize the future of these places, and perhaps in this way assure them of a future. In unabashedly championing place-based development, Place Peripheral offers an opportune counterpoint to the narratives of marginalization, inferiority, victimization, and dependency that often dominate the study of rural and small island development in Canada, the North Atlantic, and beyond. There are other stories to be told.peer-reviewe

Wilkins Hill and the art of hermeneutical uncertainty

This article discusses the Neo-Conceptual Installation Art of Wendy Wilkins and Wes Hill, Brisbane-based artists currently residing in Berlin. The article discusses their conceptual development and their place within the art-world context

People, Land, Arts, Culture and Engagement: Taking Stock of the Place Initiative

This report serves as a point of entry into creative placemaking as defined and supported by the Tucson Pima Arts Council's PLACE Initiative. To assess how and to what degree the PLACE projects were helping to transform communities, TPAC was asked by the Kresge Foundation to undertake a comprehensive evaluation. This involved discussion with stakeholders about support mechanisms, professional development, investment, and impact of the PLACE Initiative in Tucson, Arizona, and the Southwest regionally and the gathering of qualitative and quantitative data to develop indicators and method for evaluating the social impact of the arts in TPAC's grantmaking. The report documents one year of observations and research by the PLACE research team, outside researchers and reviewers, local and regional working groups, TPAC staff, and TPAC constituency. It considers data from the first four years of PLACE Initiative funding, including learning exchanges, focus groups, individual interviews, grantmaking, and all reporting. It is also informed by evaluation and assessment that occurred in the development of the PLACE Initiative, in particular, Maribel Alvarez's Two-Way Mirror: Ethnography as a Way to Assess Civic Impact of Arts-Based Engagement in Tucson, Arizona (2009), and Mark Stern and Susan Seifert's Documenting Civic Engagement: A Plan for the Tucson Pima Arts Council (2009). Both of these publications were supported by Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts, that promotes arts and culture as potent contributors to community, civic, and social change. Both publications describe how TPAC approaches evaluation strategies associated with social impact of the arts in Tucson and Pima County. This report outlines the local context and historical antecedents of the PLACE Initiative in the region with an emphasis on the concept of "belonging" as a primary characteristic of PLACE projects and policy. It describes PLACE projects as well as the role of TPAC in creating and facilitating the Initiative. Based on the collective understanding of the research team, impacts of the PLACE Initiative are organized into three main realms -- institutions, artists, and communities. These realms are further addressed in case studies from select grantees, whose narratives offer rich, detailed perspectives about PLACE projects in context, with all their successes, rewards, and challenges for artists, communities, and institutions. Lastly, the report offers preliminary research findings on PLACE by TPAC in collaboration with Dr. James Roebuck, codirector of the University of Arizona's ERAD (Evaluation Research and Development) Program

Culture and place-based development: a socio-economic analysis

Cultural factors are often absent from analyses of economic change and development, divorcing the nature of social places from the economic spaces within which they are situated. In response to this, the paper seeks to both conceptualise and operationalise a framework of place-based culture. It develops a framework capturing the economic culture and community culture of places, and examines the relationship between the two, as a means of developing a broader understanding of the notion of culture than is usually considered by the extant literature. Empirically, the paper utilises Wales as a reference region, with its culture compared to other regions of the UK, along with an analysis of cultural differences found across its localities. Overall, considerable variability is found in the cultural characteristics across both regions and across localities, with the type of community culture embedded in places often found to be associated with the prevailing economic culture in these places, suggesting a strong symbiotic association

Optimal experience and personal growth. Flow and the consolidation of place identity

This study examined the relationship between flow experience and place identity, based on eudaimonistic identity theory (EIT) which prioritizes self-defining activities as important for an individual's identification of his/her goals, values, beliefs, and interests corresponding to one's own identity development or enhancement. This study focuses on place identity, the identity's features relating to a person's relation with her/his place. The study is also based on flow theory, according to which some salient features of an activity experience are important for happiness and well-being. Questionnaire surveys on Italian and Greek residents focused on their perceived flow and place identity in relation to their own specific local place experiences. The overall findings revealed that flow experience occurring in one's own preferred place is widely reported as resulting from a range of self-defining activities, irrespective of gender or age, and it is positively and significantly associated with one's own place identity. Such findings provide the first quantitative evidence about the link between flow experienced during meaningfully located self-defining activities and identity experienced at the place level, similarly to the corresponding personal and social levels that had been previously already empirically tested. Results are also discussed in terms of their implications for EIT's understanding and enrichment, especially by its generalization from the traditional, personal identity level up to that of place identity. More generally, this study has implications for maintaining or enhancing one's own place identity, and therefore people place relations, by means of facilitating a person's flow experience within psychologically meaningful place