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The Green Belt is one of the most widely known and popular regional growth management policies having been adopted around the world. Drawing upon the regional spatial imaginary and historical institutionalist literature alongside a case study of the West Midlands, this paper conceptualizes the Green Belt as an enduring, regionalizing concept in the spatial vision of planners and professional campaigners. It underscores the continuing importance of planning history and critical junctures in 'framing' the perspectives and aspirations of practicing planners regarding strategic planning. The paper charts the emergence, embedding, and adaptability of the Green Belt as an institution before exploring how strategic vision has continued to be vitally important to planners and campaigners despite the abolition of statutory strategic planning in England in 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Green Belt in England is probably the most longstanding and internationally recognised Urban Growth Boundary (UBG). However, developers, think tanks and academics often accuse UGB's of being the leading cause of the housing affordability problems around the world and articulate an alternative vision of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD). This paper, based upon a regional case study of the West Midlands and 74 interviews with planners and planning stakeholders, argues that the debate around TOD in the Green Belt needs to be more cognisant of regional geographical variation in public transport provision. Moreover, drawing upon the views of planners who play a key a role in allocating land for development, the paper underlines that decisions regarding TOD need to made strategically as reflecting the policy's purpose as a regional growth management policy. Reflecting on the broader academic literature, it highlights the need for greater strategic integration of transport and land-use planning alongside reviving strategic planning to evaluate various spatial blueprints for urban growth management. The paper has broader relevance to international debates about the feasibility and potential of TOD, especially in addressing housing affordability problems around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates around the purpose of green belts arise regularly in England. The aim of this paper is to contribute to this debate by examining the way in which pressures to review green belt policy have mounted at the local level. The paper evaluates the way that planning policy in the Cambridge sub-region has shifted in emphasis to reflect changing national directives and in response to localized growth pressures. Focusing upon the University of Cambridge's proposed urban extension, the paper demonstrates the way that this key stakeholder's needs have taken precedence, outweighing green belt designation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The green belt idea is being questioned as an effective way of managing the protection and development of urban fringe areas, and a new concept—green infrastructure (GI)—is being proposed as a better way to plan and manage these spaces. GI is claimed to allow for more sophisticated and dynamic understandings of such spaces and to enable the identification and quantification of formerly under-appreciated assets of the urban fringe, including newly identified economic benefits. The rapid evolution in England of regional and sub-regional 'soft governance' bodies that prioritize economic development provides fertile territory for the claims for GI to be promoted. We track the progress of the new discourse around GI in two northern regions in relation to emerging strategies for spatial and economic development planning. We conclude that the policy purchase of the greenbelt is being challenged by the 'upstart' GI policy and we explore some implications of the evolving policy transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The successful establishment of the greenbelt around London during the 1930s acted as an inspiration for postwar planners in the United Kingdom and in other countries. The history of ideas that supported this establishment has been investigated, but no research has examined the implementation of the 1930s' greenbelt. The objective of this article is to investigate why the greenbelt was successfully established in the 1930s, despite the United Kingdom's weak planning system and the unprecedented urban growth at the time. In particular, the authors highlight the role of landowners and county council members in establishing the greenbelt. Finally, they discuss how the history of the greenbelt has to be reassessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the New Labour government took office in 1997 it has made a number of calls for the reform of the London green belt, culminating in the recent 'Barker Reviews' that propose to revise the green belt boundaries and make it more flexible. So far little research has examined how the green belt operates under the current planning system to question how practicable these green belt reform proposals are. Drawing on a survey and a series of interviews to show how the green belt reform proposals are viewed at the local level, this research seeks to show the areas in which the current green belt is both flexible and useful as a planning tool to reach consensus in the urban fringe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the contributing factors to the planned development of greenbelts around London, England that were originally established to contain urbanization. Adequacy of land supply in accessible locations; Regional price inflation and increased volatility of prices; Social exclusion issues; Distortion in construction, repair and maintenance investments.