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Dirigiste and Smart Growth approachesto urban sprawl: lessons from Scotlandand British ColumbiaTony Jackson a , Deepak Gopinath a & John Curry ba School of the Environment , Dundee University , Dundee ,Scotlandb School of Environmental Planning , University of Northern BritishColumbia , Prince George , CanadaPublished online: 09 Mar 2012.

To cite this article: Tony Jackson , Deepak Gopinath & John Curry (2012) Dirigiste and SmartGrowth approaches to urban sprawl: lessons from Scotland and British Columbia, Journal ofTransatlantic Studies, 10:1, 45-67, DOI: 10.1080/14794012.2012.651361

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Dirigiste and Smart Growth approaches to urban sprawl: lessons fromScotland and British Columbia

Tony Jacksona*, Deepak Gopinatha and John Curryb

aSchool of the Environment, Dundee University, Dundee, Scotland; bSchool of EnvironmentalPlanning, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, Canada

Two communities operating under diverse planning systems, St. Andrews inScotland and Prince George in British Columbia (BC), provide case studies forexamining how planning tools are used in these jurisdictions to address urbancontainment issues. The dirigiste planning powers available under Scottishplanning along with the institutional arrangements for funding Scottish localgovernment facilitate greater containment than the community-centred approachfavoured in BC, but at the expense of restricting local engagement in the process.BC’s application of Smart Growth concepts suffers from more limited enforce-ment powers but offers its municipalities greater involvement in shaping theircommunities.

Keywords: green belts; Smart Growth; St. Andrews Scotland; Prince GeorgeBritish Columbia; urban containment

1. Introduction

In this paper we draw on case studies from Scotland and British Columbia (BC) to

compare the effects of two planning tools designed for urban containment: green

belts (GBs) and Smart Growth (SG). This allows us to demonstrate the markedly

different approaches towards urban sprawl currently taken by transatlantic planning

jurisdictions that share common origins. The explanation for such differences can be

traced to two main variables: legislation determining how development rights may be

exercised, and funding systems for delivering local government services. These

factors explain why one approach adopted for urban containment is essentially

dirigiste (i.e. centrally-directed) while the other relies on shaping local land use

preferences.

The urban containment challenges facing our chosen communities, St. Andrews

in Fife, Scotland, and Prince George, in northern BC, are initially outlined in the

context of their own planning systems. An analytical section then considers

what impacts containment tools are likely to have on local property and housing

markets under each system. The findings of this section provide the basis for a review

of the implementation of urban containment measures in St. Andrews and Prince

George. The paper concludes by drawing some lessons from this comparative

analysis for policy-makers seeking effective and equitable ways of delivering urban

containment.

*Corresponding author. Email: a.a.jackson@dundee.ac.uk

Journal of Transatlantic Studies

Vol. 10, No. 1, March 2012, 45�67

ISSN 1479-4012 print/ISSN 1754-1018 online

# 2012 Board of Transatlantic Studies

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14794012.2012.651361

http://www.tandfonline.com

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2. Scottish and British Columbian case studies in urban containment

2.1. Green Belts and St. Andrews

The 1947 Town and Country Planning Act1 marks the point at which the UK’s

planning jurisdictions became dirigiste (centrally-directed). This legislation offered

landowners one-off compensation payments for the nationalisation of their

development rights, bringing every part of the country under a local planning

authority (LPA). The LPA, usually a local council, was given responsibility for

producing and maintaining a set of up-to-date statutory development plans through

which applications for planning permission involving change of land use would

henceforth be determined. Since 1947, central government has been able to shape the

country’s pattern of land use through guidance and advice issued to LPAs on the

broad strategies and specific policies that their development plans should contain.

Scotland operates its own planning jurisdiction within the UK. This reflects its

distinctive legal system and local government framework, reinforced by devolved

governance since 1998. Their statutory development plans allow Scottish LPAs to

manage the development process without recourse to compensation, land acquisition

or additional bye-laws and zoning regulations. Determination of any planning

application is made solely in relation to the policies and other material considera-

tions affecting land use contained within such plans. Scottish government guidance

indicates that these should:

guide the future use of land and the appearance of cities, towns and rural areas. Theyshould indicate where development, including regeneration, should happen and where itshould not. . . . Development plans should provide clear guidance on what will or willnot be permitted and where. This should be very clear from the proposals map. Onlypolicies that provide a clear indication of how a decision-maker will react to a proposalshould be included in the plan.2

Green belts are the best-known development management tool to emerge from this

dirigiste approach. An LPA can reinforce its existing land use policies for

undeveloped land by designating certain open areas as GB land for which a general

presumption against ‘inappropriate’ development will apply. Official guidance states

that permission for inappropriate development within a GB should be granted only

in ‘very special circumstances’. UK courts have deemed development within a GB to

be inappropriate if it entails any land use that is not associated with existing uses or

uses compatible with open spaces, such as recreation and outdoor sport.3 This

interpretation has effectively allowed LPAs to use GBs to steer urban expansion

away from such designations.

Scottish planning guidance on GBs has evolved over the years,4 but it has always

emphasised their primary role as a tool for shaping urban form, by providing access

to open space, directing the pattern of future settlement, or preserving the special

character of certain towns. Current Scottish planning policy on GBs identifies their

fundamental purpose as ‘managing the growth of a town or city in the long term’.5

Parallel guidance in England and Wales emphasises their containment function: ‘the

fundamental aim of green belt policy is to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land

permanently open; the most important attribute of green belts is their openness’.6

Green belts were extensively used to support post-war interventionist land use

policies for containing sprawl from existing settlements and promoting integrated

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new town settlements to relieve urban overcrowding.7 With changing planning

priorities, practitioners have increasingly expressed reservations about the flexibility

of this tool. GB policy guidance has been criticised for impeding more sustainable

forms of spatial planning, by ‘locking in’ land use decisions that reflect a particular

set of planning priorities at one point in time, and preventing the planning system

from adapting to new demands.8

Such concerns are still not widely shared outside the planning profession.

Amongst the Scottish (and British) public at large, many of its amenity groups and

most of its political parties, strong support remains for the concept, accompanied by

active resistance to changes in existing GB designations. From these perspectives,

GBs are seen as preserving local amenity and associated property values, and

protecting the countryside from unwanted development pressures.9 Allmendinger10

notes the increasing dichotomy between lay and professional views on the utility of

this tool, suggesting that this offers a revealing insight into the discourses

surrounding UK planning theory and practice.

Our Scottish case study exemplifies Allmendinger’s observation. St. Andrews is a

small town of 16,600 residents located on the coast of north-east Fife. Before

Scottish local government reorganisation, the Royal Burgh of St. Andrews served as

its own LPA. Between 1975 and 1996 it was part of the north-east Fife District LPA,

but following further local government reorganisation it now forms part of

Scotland’s third largest LPA, Fife Council, which serves a population of 350,000.

The town’s outstanding built and natural environment is subject to significant

development pressures. These emanate from ongoing expansion of its principal

economic drivers, an internationally renowned university and the famous publicly

owned golfing facilities, plus its appeal to amenity migrants.

The Reporter for the public inquiry held on the 1996 St. Andrews Local Plan11

recommended that no further major development of the town should take place

before a strategic study12 had been completed. This found the town to be operating

‘at its capacity’ and observed that ‘the landscape setting of St. Andrews is crucial to

its character and must be protected and enhanced’. It concluded that there was a

need ‘to contain the spread of the town and a Green Belt must be seriously

considered as a way of achieving this’. Armed with these findings, the town’s

Preservation Trust commissioned a report to identify the boundaries for a viable GB

from the consultancy that had just completed a detailed landscape character

assessment of the St. Andrews area for the LPA.13

The report triggered a local campaign to include a GB for the town in the 2002

Structure Plan proposals being drafted by the new LPA, Fife Council, which would

establish the parameters for subsequent revisions to its area-based local development

plans. In preparing this Plan, however, the LPA initially resisted demands for a

St. Andrews GB. It sought to retain flexibility to accommodate future growth of the

university and golfing interests and the related housing demand, arguing that its

existing policies on development in the countryside were sufficient to protect the

town’s landscape setting. The strength of local support for additional containment

measures revealed during the LPA’s public consultations on its Structure Plan

proposals saw a final version submitted to the Scottish government for approval

which contained proposals for a partial GB confined to certain parts of the town’s

urban fringe.14

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During the Scottish government’s own consultation process on the LPA’s

Structure Plan, it received further representations from St. Andrews, which were

sufficiently strong to persuade it to exercise its dirigiste powers and make crucial

amendments to the GB proposal for St. Andrews. The version of LPA’s StructurePlan finally given statutory approval stated that a designated GB should ‘encircle the

town’; ‘maintain the existing landscape settings including critical views to and from

the historic core’; and be based on ‘landscape assessment work’ which should be

given first priority. A general presumption against development within the

designated GB was added ‘where critical views to and from the historic core would

be interrupted by intrusive development proposals’.15

The effect of these Scottish government amendments to the 2002 Fife Structure

Plan has been to impose a provision to manage the development of St. Andrews thatthe LPA considers inappropriate. The ensuing stand-off between local community

and amenity groups supporting a GB to prevent further expansion, and the LPA and

local development interests seeking ways to allow further growth, provides a

practical illustration of Allmendinger’s dichotomy. Efforts to resolve the situation

form the basis of our critique of this approach to urban containment.

2.2. Smart Growth in Prince George

North America planning systems still have to contend with the retention of

development rights by landowners and the prospect of compensating owners for

any restrictions imposed on the exercise of these rights which may result in financial

loss.16 Their planning jurisdictions require specific legislation to exercise dirigiste

powers over urban development. The Province of Ontario in Canada recently passed

the Greenbelt and Places to Grow Acts17 designed to manage the growth of its major

conurbations and protect their rural hinterlands from sprawl.

Carter-Whitney18 suggests that BC’s 1973 Land Commission Act19 served as oneof the role models for the Ontario legislation. Under this Act, the Land Commission

was tasked with creating an Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) to offer farming

additional protection from urban encroachment.20 Working with local municipalities

and regional districts, in its initial years the Commission assembled an ALR equal to

5% (4.7m. hectares) of the land area of the province. The overall size of the ALR has

since been maintained but the quality of land within it has declined, as more

productive holdings in southern parts of the province have been released for

development in exchange for new but less productive holdings in the north.21

The original Act also made provision for the Land Commission to acquire land

for other purposes, such as parks and GBs, as well as the assembly of holdings for

urban and industrial uses. However, these measures were never brought into force,

and subsequent legislation confined the Commission’s powers to the ALR.22 The

Agricultural Land Commission Act23 decentralised the Commission into six regional

panels, which were charged with making their own decisions on land applications

affecting the ALR in their area. The Commission may now delegate its powers to

determine non-farm uses or subdivisions to a municipal council, regional districtboard or First Nations government, provided such a body has voluntarily agreed to

pursue land use policies within its jurisdiction that are consistent with the 2002 Act.24

In addition to the ALR, BC’s other major dirigiste planning element relates to its

colonial legacy of public land holdings. More than 90% of the provincial land base

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consists of Crown Lands that have yet to be alienated and remain vested in the

provincial government. These holdings are still managed on a totally dirigiste basis,

allowing provincial Ministries to exercise direct administrative control over their

various land uses, and empowering provincial Ministers to grant leases on their

resource rights to commercial undertakings. The lack of accountability to local

communities in the management of these holdings provided the trigger for a major

dispute about control of provincial resource rights in the 1970s and 1980s, which

became known as BC’s ‘war in the woods’. Use of consensual local stakeholder tables

permitted agreement during the 1990s on a set of strategic land use and resource

management plans for public holdings, but these arrangements have yet to be

integrated with other local planning regimes.25

The northern part of BC, which provides the setting for our case study of Prince

George, is sparsely populated, with a population of 300,000 in settlements

interspersed amongst Crown Lands and ALR holdings spread across an area twice

the size of the UK. The absence of an integrated planning system able to determine

land uses across all contiguous holdings complicates efforts to shape urban form and

promote urban containment.26 First Nations governments, incorporated municipa-

lities and unincorporated regional districts have authority to generate their own land

use plans, usually termed Official Community Plans (OCPs). Although these plans

may include approved Agricultural Area Plans that allow ALR and other farm

holdings to be brought into the community planning process,27 their remit does not

extend to surrounding Crown Lands, for which decisions on land use continue to be

made by provincial Ministries.

Despite efforts to improve lines of communication between the provincial

government’s dirigiste arrangements for Crown Lands and ALR holdings and the

OCPs of individual settlements, examples of breakdown in communications continue

to be recorded.28 Illsley et al.29 identify some of the ongoing difficulties communities

in northern BC and their professional planners currently encounter when seeking a

coherent planning structure for their settlements. Hanna et al.30 contend that

uncoordinated peri-urban developments and declining downtown areas in certain

rural BC communities demonstrate the limitations of the current provincial planning

structure.Although the fragmented structure of planning regimes in northern BC is

extreme, many North American communities have encountered similar problems in

applying decentralised or overlapping land use controls to address urban contain-

ment. Efforts to tackle such problems have generated planning initiatives collectively

termed New Urbanism31. The best known professional planning movement within

this framework uses the appellation SG. It advocates the use of planning approaches

that promote ‘urban revitalisation and rural preservation by containing urban areas,

channelling development into existing neighbourhoods and adopting integrated

planning and management approaches’.32

In 2003, BC launched its own SG initiative. Termed Smart Growth on the

Ground (SGOG), this non-government consortium is jointly managed by an

academic department (the Design Centre for Sustainability at the University of

British Columbia), a professional planners’ body (Smart Growth British Columbia),

and provincial development interests (the Real Estate Institute of BC). Its three

initial participatory planning exercises involved the communities of Maple Ridge,

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Squamish and Oliver, all located in the southern part of the province.33 In 2007,

Prince George became the fourth community to accept SGOG support.

A city of 70,981 (2006 Census) located at the confluence of the Fraser and

Nechako Rivers in central BC, Prince George is the key trading and service node for

northern BC. The city was incorporated in 1915 following the arrival of the Grand

Trunk Pacific Railway and laid out by surveyors for the rail operators according to

‘city beautiful’ design principles. Realisation of this original design has endowed

Prince George with a legacy downtown area of grid and crescent streets, axial

connections from the city hall to the railway station and rivers, off-set street

alignments, parks and a prominent boulevard to mark the civic area.

Although many still regard the city’s downtown layout as defining its character,

the manner in which recent development of the built environment has been handled

has done little to preserve or enhance this legacy. The community experienced rapid

economic expansion from the late 1960s to the early 1980s on the back of major

investments in pulp and paper mills processing the softwoods of the interior. In 1975

the provincial government mandated major extensions to the city boundaries,

absorbing areas previously under the jurisdiction of the Fraser-Fort George Regional

District. Faced with a greatly extended municipal area, traditional development

controls failed to preserve a compact settlement. The main road approaches to the

city have attracted an influx of strip malls, box stores and new residential

developments. The impact of this urban sprawl has significantly reduced the

economic vitality of the downtown area.

Revitalisation of Prince George’s downtown and prevention of further urban

sprawl are two of the central planning issues identified in public consultations over

the current OCP. The OCP identified the following eight points as major community

concerns:

� desire for a high ‘quality of life’ with emphasis on retention of the friendliness

and the opportunities that characterise the city

� need for significant improvement in air quality

� revitalisation of the downtown, which was considered very unattractive� job creation and economic vitality

� continued emphasis on parks and recreation

� avoidance of further proliferation of strip malls

� prevention of urban sprawl

� greater balance between the built environment and open space: maintenance

of closeness to nature and recognition that we are a community with distinct

seasons.34

The contribution of SGOG and related SG initiatives to these aims will be explored

as part of our critique of this approach to urban containment.

3. Analysing the effects of urban containment

3.1. The fiscal context for urban containment in Scotland and BC

In common with the rest of the UK, the Scottish government’s funding of local

government services parallels its dirigiste approach to planning. The fundamental

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aim is to ensure that local public services can be provided to the same standard at the

same net local cost to all users irrespective of their location.35 To this end, the

finances of local government have effectively been nationalised, with Scottish

government grants now providing around 80% of local government expenditure.Business rates (local property taxes on businesses) are pooled and redistributed back

to local authorities on a per capita basis, together with a series of grants that both

heavily subsidise their per capita local outlays and also supplement their local

revenues in areas where these are insufficient for local needs.36

The extent of this fiscal support relieves Scottish local authorities (SLAs) from

any need to restrict their activities to the servicing of properties subject to local

property taxes. Thus, even though agricultural land still remains largely de-rated for

the purposes of property taxation, the provision of local public services, includingland use planning, extends seamlessly to all parts of the country, both urban and

rural, delivered through a set of elected local authorities representing these areas. In

return for this massive fiscal transfer, the Scottish government sets standards and

targets for the provision of local public services in an attempt to ensure their efficient

delivery.37

Heavy dependence on Scottish government funding effectively insulates SLAs

from the financial implications of local economic fluctuations, but this also creates

unintended consequences for local development processes. Although planningapprovals and physical regeneration initiatives should generate additional local

jobs and prosperity, better local economic performance will reduce the needs element

of an SLA’s government grant. So SLAs face a ‘spending trap’, in which any success

in boosting local development is likely to result in little change to the funding of their

services.38

In Canada the delivery of local public services remains far more dependent on the

capacity of municipalities and unincorporated areas to generate their own funding.

Canadian municipalities raised 82% of their expenditure from their own resources in2000�2001, with 54% of funding coming from local property taxes.39 This forces

municipalities to become more attuned than SLAs to the vagaries of their local

property markets. The need to nurture a healthy local economy to fund the bulk of

their services provides a strong incentive to boost local revenue by approving

additional development and extending municipal boundaries.

In sparsely populated areas such as northern BC, funding arrangements for local

public services operate at two distinct levels. Municipal councils possessing consider-

able tax-raising powers operate alongside the unincorporated territories of regionaldistricts, whose boards have much more limited scope to generate their own resources.

Variations in the capacity of local communities to fund their public services

compound the barriers to integrated planning created by the dirigiste management

of the ALR and Crown Lands, further complicating attempts at urban containment.

Meligrana40 suggests that planners in rural BC face ‘a messy and uncoordinated

governance structure where unincorporated territories are concerned’ which leads to

‘the chaotic nature of development’ around municipal rural-urban fringe areas.

3.2. Analysing the effects of GBs on property markets

When measured alongside equivalent North American research on SG interven-

tions,41 the impact of the UK’s dirigiste approach to urban containment on property

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values remains relatively under-researched.42 The limited empirical evidence available

to UK policy-makers on the relationship between planning controls and property

values43 mirrors the differences in legislative context and institutional setting that

confront land use planners on either side of the North Atlantic. With the

nationalisation of development rights and central government funding of most of

their local council spending,44 UK planners are much less exercised than their North

American counterparts about the impact of urban containment on local propertyvalues and revenue sources. They are more concerned about its social consequences,

such as the squeeze this may put on the supply of affordable housing required to

fulfil development plan targets.45

Although Scottish professional planners may not consider their economic impact

to be a material planning consideration, using GBs as a tool for urban containment

is likely to redistribute property values in an arbitrary fashion, favouring those who

experience enhanced amenity values at the expense of others seeking increased

provision of housing or commercial property.46 The sums involved in modifying

property values in this way can be substantial, reflecting the benefits of obtaining

permission to develop land. In 2005, at the height of a speculative property boom,

the average value of mixed use agricultural land in England was just over £7000 per

hectare, compared with a value of £2.6 million per hectare for residential ‘bulk’

land.47

Without constraints on expansion, the standard economic model of urbangrowth depicts a land value gradient that falls steadily from the central business

district or ‘downtown’ area of a settlement towards its urban fringe. After any boost

to the settlement’s property prices, either because of greater prosperity or in-

migration or both, the land value gradient shifts upwards and outwards, boosting

values at all locations and extending the demand for development further into the

surrounding countryside. A possible variant to this simple model is the introduction

of new urban motorways or public transport systems that open up cheaper

commuting options, shifting the slope of the gradient, so that urban fringe values

rise relative to central core ones.

Urban containment policies will affect such a gradient, regardless of whether the

unconstrained profile is a simple or more complex one. Following the imposition of

some form of spatial restriction of growth, increasing demand for space now has to

be accommodated through more intensive use of existing urban locations, such as

new high-rise offices and the replacement of single plot accommodation with

multiplexes. Higher property values reflecting growing demand would have triggered

some of this process in any event, but without containment the expansion of theurban fringe would serve as a safety valve moderating the increase in property values.

If containment continues in the face of rising property prices, then eventually this will

prompt urban workers to ‘jump’ the GB and to commute from locations outside it,

or encourage footloose enterprises to relocate to other settlements.

There are two principal sets of losers from this process: workers on low wages

who cannot afford to commute and for whom affordable housing becomes

increasingly difficult to provide within the urban boundary; and traditional

enterprises who need a city-centre location but are squeezed out of their premises

by ever-higher rents that they can no longer meet. Urban workers with limited skills

and no equity in property face a two-way squeeze: increased scarcity both of low-cost

rented accommodation and of unskilled employment opportunities. Amongst the

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potential benefits from urban containment policies that boost property values are

more intensive and possibly more sustainable urban land use, with property owners

having greater incentives to redevelop brownfield sites and run-down inner city areas.

However, as many evaluations have confirmed, urban regeneration normally entails a

trade-off, between existing low wage residents and small enterprises who have taken

advantage of low rents, and property developers who need to find clients willing to

pay enhanced rents following re-development.48

Assessing the distributional impact of urban containment is crucial in evaluating

the costs and benefits of such planning tools and in accounting for spatial variations

in their popularity. Property owners adjacent to land that has been protected from

development can expect to reap capitalised amenity values in the form of enhanced

property prices, so the strength of political support for containment policies along

the rural-urban fringe will mirror the spatial pattern of settlement choices made by

each nation’s urban society. In Scotland, as in much of the rest of the UK, the

majority of owners of urban fringe properties benefiting from these containment

measures fall into the higher income category, whereas many of the inner city

dwellers who bear the resultant costs will be on lower incomes. Evans49 suggests that

the reason political support for GBs is lower in much of continental Europe is

because ‘the wealthy are more likely to live near the city centre than in Britain, and

the poor are more likely to be living near the periphery’.

3.3. Modelling the impact of SG policies on property markets

Aside from parcels of land located within the ALR or any applications to alienate

Crown Land, BC’s municipalities remain largely free to determine their own land use

policies. Municipalities are not given central direction on such matters or required to

submit their OCPs for final approval to the provincial government. For land holdings

within the municipal boundary that are not part of the ALR, zoning ordinances and

bye-laws are the main instruments for shaping urban form. These give effect to

various SG techniques for focusing development on preferred axes, such as urban

growth boundaries (UGBs) and specified lot sizes. In Figure 1, which summarises

Prince George’s current growth management plan, the former are termed urban

settlement areas and lot sizes are also specified for its rural settlement areas. Provided

applications for sub-division comply with these requirements, landowners in BC’s

municipalities are left to determine their own rate of conversion of developable land

holdings, subject to the requirement for a development permit in those areas where

design conditions have been set.

Operating within this planning context, many SG measures are not intended to

preserve undeveloped land permanently, but to mitigate urban sprawl by shaping and

containing the development that does occur. Indeed, it could be argued that whatever

the original aims of BC’s ALR, in practice the main effect of its application in the

southern part of the province has been to put a brake on peri-urban development

there.50 The use of UGBs offers a good illustration of the application of this planning

philosophy. Undeveloped land is left within the UGB as a honey pot to attract

developers in preference to alternative locations outside the UGB. The land beyond a

UGB has in consequence a ‘delay’ built into its conversion, normally of around two

decades, and revisions of the municipal OCP are intended to provide a rolling UGB

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that maintains this stock of developable land and reduces pressure beyond the

boundary.Theoretical analysis of the behaviour of property markets with retained

development rights provides ambiguous guidance on whether SG containment

measures do actually slow down the development of land along the urban fringe. The

behaviour of those directly affected by such policies has to be weighed against the

behaviour of others who are indirectly affected through changes in local property

Figure 1. Growth management plan for Prince George.91

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values consequent on containment. Certain SG tools might trigger rises in

anticipated sales values (reflecting capitalised increases in the value of amenity

externalities) sufficient to stimulate a higher rate of conversion by owners of

individual land parcels adjacent to new amenity areas. These adverse indirect effects

could offset any beneficial direct effects of containment, accelerating urban sprawl,

creating a net increase in adverse externalities and ultimately depressing amenity

values.

Equally, the absence of containment measures might ultimately have an

unintended beneficial net outcome, with its indirect effects serving as a deterrent

to development and depressing anticipated sales values because of the perceived

inability to realise enhanced amenity externalities. The detrimental direct effects of

no containment policies could be sufficiently offset in this way to reduce conversion

rates and lower pressure on the urban fringe, resulting in enhanced amenity values.

Research undertaken by Irwin and Bockstael51 addressed these issues by running

actual real estate data through a standard asset portfolio theory model, focusing on a

part of Maryland USA adjacent to Chesapeake Bay that has had SG techniques

applied to its urban fringe.

The researchers found the direct effects of SG containment policies to be

generally positive. Maryland’s planning system makes use of Priority Funding Areas,

where publicly-funded infrastructure for development is focused on preferred

development locations.52 Areas within the county designated for priority funding

of infrastructure for land development had a much higher rate of conversion,

whereas the location of a parcel at least partially in designated sensitive areas or the

local agricultural conservation programme significantly reduced its rate of conver-

sion. However, the direct impacts of other SG measures such as restrictions on lot

size were more ambiguous. Decreases in maximum allowable density reduced the rate

of conversion by depressing net returns, but they also brought the optimal timing of

development forward, since higher future densities could no longer be expected.53

Their model also tested the effects of indirect amenity externalities, attributable

to the preservation of open space, on land conversion rates in the county. At least one

approach, cluster development policy, could be shown to hasten the rate of

conversion. This SG planning policy requires developers to provide open space by

clustering housing lots on a portion of the converted parcel, maintaining the rest as

permanent areas of open space. For areas covered by this approach, there was ‘a

positive and significant effect on the hazard of development, suggesting that the

clustering policy will hasten neighbouring development and will do so up to within a

half-mile radius of the clustered development area’.54 Balancing these indirect effects

against the direct ones led the researchers to conclude that SG containment policies

when applied within a North American planning jurisdiction could be counter-

productive: ‘[p]olicies that seek to promote smart growth by preserving open space

may actually lead to more sprawled patterns of development’.55

4. Implementing containment measures in St. Andrews and Prince George

4.1. The St. Andrews GB

The strength of support for urban containment in St. Andrews was revealed in recent

academic research on local views about land use development issues.56 Four-fifths of

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respondents to a survey of town residents were in favour of a GB. The researchers

found that ‘the most striking congruence amongst reactions to all [development]

proposals is public concern about the landscape setting of the town’. They concluded

that their findings ‘suggest that St. Andrews could be characterised as a powerful

community’, which is ‘able to resist unwanted land uses and obtain a higher quality

local environment as a result’.57

This resistance has been demonstrated in respect of allocations of land for

housing development, which have consistently proved inadequate in meeting

requirements. The distributional impacts of effective containment policies that are

indicated by theory are clearly evident in practice in St. Andrews. A recent property

report ranked the town as providing Scotland’s most expensive accommodation for

any seaside resort, with local properties selling on average at £285,730, more than ten

times average local pay58. Local employers increasingly depend on workers

commuting into town to meet their labour requirements. Much of the town’s limited

supply of accommodation coming on to the market has been taken up by amenity

migrants and students, displacing local families with young children. The resulting

changes in the composition of the population of St. Andrews may strengthen local

support for the containment policies embodied in a GB, but they do little for the long

term viability of the local economy or the town’s social mix.

Offsetting the adverse distributional consequences of effective containment

measures are many tangible community benefits, which dirigiste planning ap-proaches are well-placed to realise. The St. Andrews local development plan contains

a set of land use policies intended to support its attractive built and natural

environment. A detailed design guide59 reinforces strong protection of the town’s

central conservation area. Strict application of a Scottish Planning Policy (SPP18)

sequential test favouring central retail outlets60 contributes to the capacity of its town

centre shops to bear Fife’s highest retail rating valuations. Countryside policies have

been adopted which prevent developments outside the tightly-drawn town envelope

except where these are regarded as appropriate for a rural setting.61 Even without a

GB, urban sprawl has been contained and St. Andrews remains a thriving town,

attracting large numbers of visitors to its well-preserved mediaeval core, attractive

central shopping and catering facilities, and world-class golfing provision.

Most of the development land identified in the 1996 St. Andrews local plan has

now been utilised, indicating the need for some further provision to ease current

housing shortages and provide capacity for the expansion of the town’s main

economic drivers. Given the limited supplies of land within the town available for re-

development, this implies that further expansion of the town envelope is required.However, pursuing the logic of this argument detracts from part of the original

justification for GB. The strategic study commissioned by the LPA in 1996 saw this

device not only as a means of protecting the town’s landscape setting but also as a

way of halting further expansion, based on the belief that St. Andrews was already

‘operating at its capacity’.62

The contested views on the contribution a St. Andrews GB can make in

reinforcing what already appear effective containment measures for the town have

their origins in alternative philosophies of local governance and the role of spatial

planning therein.63 As Clifford and Warren64 confirm, many local residents yearn to

return to a system of civic governance that would be regarded as normal in BC: one

which would allow St. Andrews to resume control of its own local affairs, including

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acting as its own LPA and mediating its own development plan priorities directly

with the Scottish government. Against this, some see dirigiste reform of civic

governance, which has made the town part of a strategic planning authority capable

of delivering Scottish planning priorities, as enhancing its capacity to cope with new

development demands and contribute towards these wider planning objectives. The

unfolding of this debate following the approval in 2001 by the Scottish Executive of

an all-encompassing GB demonstrates the working out of these opposing stances.

Current LPA policies for the urban fringe of St. Andrews offer a pragmatic

compromise. They envisage that the GB will be used to enhance the protection given

to its landscape setting without impairing necessary future growth. Designation of a

GB would not actually reinforce urban containment, but help instead to shape

expansion. The consultative draft of the newly adopted 2009 Fife Structure Plan

signalled this position, in stating that:

St. Andrews will be developed as a world class destination. St. Andrews has thepotential to build on the international profile which it has as a cultural, leisure, visitordestination, and centre of academic excellence. Medium scale growth in St. Andrews willensure the continued development of the University and the golf tourism sector, andhelp address the affordable housing shortage in the town.65

A year later the statement issued at the start of preparations for a new local

development plan for the town and its hinterland set out the land use policies

considered necessary to deliver this strategic objective:

Funding for additional house building and community infrastructure to meet identifiedcommunity needs, and to provide a mix of development including new sites foreconomic development, can be met by releasing development land in areas best able toabsorb the landscape and environmental impact. . . . St. Andrews needs to grow toprovide the scale of development that will help to contribute investment in new housingthat is affordable to more people in the local community, community facilities andservices, and employment opportunities, thereby helping to sustain the community.Public sector funding for new facilities serving St. Andrews and the wider area islimited, but private capital secured through planning gain can provide the scale ofinvestment necessary.66

Consultations over a new St. Andrews and East Fife Local Plan have been marked by

disputes between local amenity and community groups and developers over how to

shape the inner boundary of the new GB to deliver such aims (Figure 2). The LPA’s

own initial proposals67 were markedly at variance with the original Tyldesley GB

boundaries that were derived from a detailed landscape character assessment.68 The

LPA sought to exclude all the local golf courses, producing a ‘butterfly’ shape that

bore no relation to landscape values. Since these proposals excluded recreational

land uses compatible with such a designation, they were widely regarded as

untenable. Their rejection was hastened by strong opposition from the community-

owned St. Andrews Links Trust, which operates Europe’s largest golfing complex

and favours a GB that embraces golfing facilities.

Subsequent LPA proposals for the St. Andrews GB cover all rural activities but

also permit future developments compatible with current leisure and recreation land

uses.69 The GB boundaries now contained within the consultative version of the new

local plan70 leave room between the present town envelope and the proposed inner

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boundary of the GB for a major 108 hectare masterplan development for the town’s

western approaches. A local developer and the university are the main stakeholders

of what the local plan terms the St. Andrews West Development Framework, but the

local authority itself has an interest in some of its elements. Although part of the

proposed area lies in a sensitive location in terms of inter-visibility with the town’s

mediaeval core, and is thus potentially in conflict with the earlier Scottish

Executive71 guidance, its proponents claim that adoption of a masterplan approach,

applying the LPA’s own guidelines,72 would minimise any adverse visual impacts on

the landscape setting of the town.

4.2. SG in Prince George

Following a quadrupling of the land area in 1975, the city boundaries now contain a

mixture of urban and rural land uses, including ALR. Until recently, planning

policies for Prince George permitted ‘dispersed growth’, offering little in the way of

constraints to development other than those determined by basic servicing

requirements and safety concerns. As Figure 1 indicates, the 2001 OCP introduced

a more concentrated growth strategy, utilising a number of SG containment

measures:

Figure 2. Two alternatives proposed for St. Andrews green belt.92

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� an urban development boundary indicating limits to the urban settlement area

� a strong strategy for commercial areas to contain urban sprawl

� provision of suitable industrial sites

� provision of urban and rural land usage to accommodate different life styles� support for a more compact community by increasing city densities

� promotion of cost-effective land development tied into existing city infra-

structure

� support for greater variety of housing choices, including additional higher

quality multi-family housing

� efforts to build on the strengths of existing established neighbourhoods, by

protecting them from incompatible uses and enhancing their supply of

amenities, including open space, pedestrian trails, and local retail services.73

Rural development within the municipal boundaries but beyond this urban envelope

is controlled by the application of minimum lot sizes. In land identified as suitable for

low density residential development, clustering of lots is recommended as a method

of preserving open space.74 Development permit areas requiring appropriate siting

and design criteria have been identified for those parts of the city zoned for high-

density housing, and for commercial and industrial developments.

Efforts to revive the city centre remain a key element of these proposals but pose

particular difficulties. From technical reports it has commissioned in the past,75 the

city authorities are fully aware that it will be difficult to refocus activity towards the

downtown area without effective measures to contain and reverse the residential and

commercial urban sprawl witnessed over recent decades. The 53 hectare core includes

business voids and empty lots and shows clear signs of neglect. Crime, pollution,

construction costs and limited availability of high-quality office space are cited as

reasons for its rundown condition.76 Residential downtown population is very low

(the area contains less than 1% of the city’s housing), and during out-of-office hours

the whole area attracts little footfall.

The SGOG concept plan77 recently agreed for this area is the culmination of a

four day intensive charrette process, which brought stakeholder groups together with

a design team to work through the implications of design proposals drawn from SGprecepts. The proposals envisage a major makeover of the area, with concerted

efforts to improve the public realm through tree-planted streetscapes and a broader

green environment. The civic plaza would be expanded into a park, better access

would be given to the rivers through greenway connections, additional cultural and

civic facilities would be integrated with medium and high density mixed neighbour-

hoods, linked with ‘a network of bike-friendly, pedestrian-friendly, all-season,

animated green streets’.78 Additional design features include a focus on renewable

energy systems for district heating, more energy-efficient building designs including

some retro-fitting, and the promotion of better public transport facilities to reduce

current dependency on car-use in the area.

In terms of land use, the concept plan aims to attract downtown campus activities

from the university and community college, including student accommodation. This

would be combined with provision of affordable housing for low-income families.

Mixed uses would be promoted, with civic, retail, arts and cultural activities

combined with business, office and residential accommodation. Recreational and

social facilities would be targeted at a more inclusive and diverse spectrum of

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residents, with specific efforts made to design safer environments. A public

marketplace offering both indoor and outdoor facilities would replace the current

ad hoc weekend farmers-market sidewalk provisions.

Many of the proposals set out in the concept plan entail the outlay of publicfunds for civic amenities to enhance the downtown public realm, designed to a

standard that would leverage additional private sector investment in the area. The

features that differentiate the exercise from standard regeneration schemes include a

strong emphasis on sustainable energy provision, and an integrated streetscape

design intended to turn the central core of the community into an area that will

attract mixed use out-of-office hours activities, including better winter use facilities.

The overall plan includes a central park adjoining the existing civic area designed to

stimulate complementary private investment in tower apartments and street-orientedcommercial or town houses.

Such a revival of Prince George’s downtown is conditional on a number of

factors, including the effectiveness of its new urban containment measures and the

ability of its civic leaders to sell the concept of downtown regeneration to footloose

property investors. Following adoption of the concept plan, work is under way on an

implementation plan, which includes modification of the existing OCP bye-laws and

a review and amendment of the zoning bye-law to conform to the new design

concepts. In addition to specifying the civic amenity adjustments in terms of a newtransport plan and city engineering design standards, the city authorities will need to

negotiate development requirements and incentives with the development commu-

nity to establish incentives packages for investors. These will include development

cost charges, the permitting and review process, and possible introduction of SG

market-based mechanisms, such as Tax Increment Financing, which allow a

municipality to generate loans for infrastructure investments on the back of

anticipated future enhanced property tax revenues.

5. Lessons from urban containment practices in Scotland and BC

A comparison of the use of urban containment measures in St. Andrews and Prince

George offers lessons for both planning systems. Taking those presented by St.

Andrews first, it is readily apparent that Scotland’s dirigiste approach to land use

planning and local government finance is more conducive of urban containment.

The plan-led system allows not just the supply of land for development purposes to

be managed but also the timing of its release, since developers still require planningconsent to proceed even when their proposals have been included in the plan.

Accelerating the release of development land provides SLAs with negligible fiscal

benefit. In arguing that tax competition amongst municipalities is a major factor in

promoting urban sprawl, Razin79 also notes that fiscal nationalisation along UK

lines ‘leaves little incentive for local authorities in metropolitan areas to compete over

the development of business land uses, and can create problems of allocating

development amongst municipalities that are not eager to grow’.

Scottish Government planning policy guidance and advice also provide a strongsteer to LPAs on the adoption of land use strategies that accord precedence to town

centre facilities over peri-urban provision. In recent years this steer has been

reinforced by an increasing emphasis on planning for sustainable communities, with

LPAs now facing a statutory duty to demonstrate that their development plans

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contribute to sustainable development.80 St. Andrews demonstrates many of the

advantages of this approach to containment. The community has managed to retain

a vibrant, attractive town centre that fulfils many functions: a regional shopping

facility; a social meeting place with leisure, recreation and entertainment facilities; a

major seat of learning; a tourist attraction; and a world-class sporting venue. These

are not accidental outcomes, but the product of a long period of dirigiste planning,

supported by a multitude of voluntary local bodies, which has delivered a compactand liveable settlement pattern.

By contrast, the dilapidated condition of much of the downtown area of Prince

George, and of some of its adjacent low-income residential areas, provides evidence

of the relative ineffectiveness of its previous containment strategies. ‘Dispersed

growth’ land use policies have allowed the economic vitality of the city centre to

drain away into new urban neighbourhood areas. Those that were only incorporated

into the municipality after 1975 are serviced by box store and strip mall

developments strung along arterial highways well away from the city centre. Local

planners signally failed to persuade the university, the first established in the whole of

northern BC, to choose a downtown location for its construction in the early 1990s.

Instead, it is perched on a bluff along the western edge of the city’s urban settlement

area, adding to the dispersed nature of local activity.

Although median incomes in Prince George exceed the BC average, its rent levels

and housing costs remain well below the provincial mean.81 Under thesecircumstances, given the ample supplies of developable land located in its dispersed

urban neighbourhoods, which are sufficient to cater for a doubling of the city’s

population,82 and little evidence of a shortage of affordable accommodation, current

attempts to introduce containment policies are unlikely to boost property values

sufficiently in the foreseeable future to stimulate intensification and consolidation of

new development. Indeed, an implication of Irwin and Bockstael’s83 research is that

the indirect effects of some of the 2001 OCP SG containment tools, such as

clustering policies, might even promote more rapid forms of extensive development

along the urban fringe.

After observing that ‘[p]opulation forecasts indicate demand for an additional

1,800 residential units in the city by 2035’, the new concept plan for downtown

Prince George argues that ‘[l]ocating these units in the downtown will be critical to

revitalising this neighbourhood’.84 Realisation of this ambition requires a consider-

able leap of faith, but even if major downtown developments result, they will not be

able to transform the area into the equivalent of the St. Andrews town centre,

servicing most of the needs of the whole community. Thanks to a post-1960s legacyof dispersed growth, the city core can no longer realistically meet many of the

residential, shopping, leisure and entertainment needs of what has become a car-

dependent population living in separate urban neighbourhoods. For the downtown

area to survive as a viable entity it must instead seek out those who opt for a different

lifestyle, and provide the design concepts and planning policies that can deliver this.

In this respect, Prince George epitomises the planning challenges facing many

North American communities which the SG movement seeks to address. The

planning vision underpinning the SGOG concept plan for a revitalised downtown

points to an alternative, more sustainable, more pedestrian-friendly, less car-

dependent lifestyle. It remains to be seen whether Prince George’s planning policies

succeed in translating this vision into actual developments capable of attracting

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sufficiently large numbers of new residents and visitors to justify the substantial

levels of investment in the public and private realms proposed in the concept plan.

Turning to the containment lessons Prince George presents, the community

stakeholder charrette on which its downtown concept plan was based suggests an

alternative way of resolving local disputes about the expansion of communities such

as St. Andrews. The new Scottish Planning Act85 is intended to facilitate quicker

planning decisions. The previous Scottish administration sought to placate criticisms

that this would further distance the Scottish planning system from local people by

indicating its support for greater community engagement. Following consultations

which revealed a deep division between the views held by community groups and by

planning professionals on how effective the current process was in this respect, a new

Planning Advice Note on community engagement was issued.86

Regardless of any advice issued to LPAs on the need for greater community

engagement, Scotland’s dirigiste planning system remains remarkably paternalistic in

approach. Land use policies continue to be formulated in a top-down fashion from

the Scottish Built Environment Directorate at the behest of Scottish Ministers.

Adoption of a strong version of the European Union strategic environmental

assessment directive87 has given local communities and individuals more capacity to

make their views on such policies felt, and forced policy-makers to take such views

into account when finalising their proposals, but current community engagement

with the planning process remains essentially reactive, responding to initiatives

imposed from above.

The saga of the St. Andrews GB demonstrates how sudden switches in dirigiste

planning priorities can set local stakeholder groups against each other, despite clear

evidence of successful past containment and the need to accommodate moderate

future expansion needs. By comparison, BC’s planning system combines dirigiste

controls over ALR and Crown Land holdings with considerable autonomy for

individual municipalities, including the use of local referenda for certain changes in

municipal land use.88 The SGOG initiative driving the downtown concept plan for

Prince George is a good example of a non-dirigiste planning process. Although

making some use of public funds, it derives from the desire of a group of professional

and academic stakeholders in BC’s development process to promote a better

planning system through active involvement of local community groups.

The four-day charrette which provided the highlight of the Prince George SGOG

exercise, together with preparations for it and subsequent follow-up, offers an

alternative form of community engagement with the planning system to the

traditional Scottish top-down consultative approach. Some recent Scottish initiatives

along the same lines indicate how the Scottish planning system might relax its

dirigiste controls and encourage greater hands-on involvement from its communities

at the outset of the development process.89 Charrette techniques supervised by non-

dirigiste parties could bring St. Andrews’ very active community and amenity groups

together with local developers to explore the capacity of masterplanning to generate

new urban fringe developments that assist in protecting the town’s landscape setting

and complement the application of a GB. Offering stakeholders a means of

engagement on the ground with the issues of containment is an attractive alternative

to a drawn-out confrontation through formal planning inquiries and subsequent

appeals, as recent Scottish government initiatives appear to recognize.90

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Acknowledgements

Funding assistance from the Government of Canada Faculty Research Program is gratefullyacknowledged.

Notes

1. J. B. Cullingworth and V. Nadin, Town and Country Planning in Britain (London:Routledge, 13th ed. 2000).

2. Scottish Government, Scottish Planning Policy (Edinburgh: Scottish Government Plan-ning Directorate, 2008), paras. 11 and 13.

3. M. Aves, ‘The green belt: Aspects of development control’, Journal of Planning Law 2(2009): 146�60.

4. M. G. Lloyd and D. Peel, ‘Green belts in Scotland: Towards the modernisation of atraditional concept?’, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 50, no. 5 (2007):639�56.

5. Scottish Executive Development Department, Scottish Planning Policy 21: Green Belts(Edinburgh: Scottish Executive, 2006).

6. Department of Communities and Local Government, Planning Policy Guidance 2: GreenBelts (London: DCLG, 2001), para.1.4.

7. See P. Hall, H. Thomas, R. Gracey, and R. Drewett, The Containment of Urban England(London: Allen & Unwin, 1973); and M. J. Elson, Green Belts: Conflict Mediation in theUrban Fringe (London: Heinemann, 1986).

8. See Royal Town Planning Institute, Modernising Green Belts: A Discussion Paper(London: RTPI, 2002); Town and Country Planning Association, Policy Statement:Green Belts (London: TCPA, 2002); M. J. Elson, ‘Modernising green belts � Some recentcontributions’, Town and Country Planning 6, (2002): 266�7; A. Prior and J. Raemakers,‘Is green belt fit for purpose in a post-Fordist landscape?’, Planning Practice and Research22, no. 4 (2007): 579�99; N. Gallent and D. Shaw, ‘Spatial planning, area action plans andthe rural-urban fringe’, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 50, no. 5(2007): 617�38.

9. See Campaign to Protect Rural England, Green Belts: Fifty Years On (London: CPRE,2005); T. Jackson, ‘Tightening the belt? Scotland gets a community-based green beltalliance’, Scottish Planner 103 (2005): 8; J. Hecimovich, ‘Greenbelts or Green Wedges?’,Journal of the American Planning Association 74, no. 3 (2008): 40�3.

10. P. Allmendinger, Planning Theory (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002).11. Fife Council Planning and Building Control Service, St. Andrews Local Plan (Glenrothes:

Fife Council, 1996).12. Fife Council Planning and Building Control Service, A Future St. Andrews: St. Andrews

Strategic Study (Glenrothes: Fife Council, 1998).13. David Tyldesley & Associates, A Green Belt for St. Andrews: A Report on the Justification

for and Potential Boundaries of a Green Belt for the Royal Burgh of St. Andrew, Fife (St.Andrews, Fife: St. Andrews Preservation Trust, 1997).

14. T. Jackson, Old Codgers and New Golf Courses: EIA in St. Andrews (Auckland, NZ:Department of Planning University of Auckland Impact Assessment Research UnitOccasional Report Series, 2003).

15. Scottish Executive, Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997 Replacement FifeStructure Plan Annex A: Fife Structure Plan January 2001 Modifications (Edinburgh:Scottish Executive, 2001).

16. R. P. Malloy, ed., Private Property, Community Development, and Eminent Domain(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008).

17. Government of Ontario, Greenbelt Act and Places to Grow Act (Ottawa: Ministry ofMunicipal Affairs and Housing; Government of Ontario, 2005).

18. M. Carter-Whitney, Ontario’s Greenbelt in an International Context: ComparingOntario’s Greenbelt to its Counterparts in Europe and North America (Toronto:Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy, 2008).

Journal of Transatlantic Studies 63

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19. Government of British Columbia, Agricultural Land Commission Act (Victoria, BC:Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, 1973).

20. C. Campbell, Forever Farmland: Reshaping the Agricultural Land Reserve for theTwenty-First Century (Vancouver: David Suzuki Foundation, 2006).

21. D. Curran, Protecting the Working Landscape of Agriculture: A Smart Growth Directionfor Municipalities in British Columbia (Vancouver: West Coast Environmental LawResearch Foundation, 2005).

22. P. Krueger and G. Maguire, ‘Protecting speciality cropland from urban development: Thecase of the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia’, Geoforum 16, no. 3 (1985): 287�96.

23. Government of British Columbia, Agricultural Land Commission Act (Victoria, BC:Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, 2002).

24. Campbell, Forever Farmland.25. T. Jackson and J. Curry, ‘Peace in the woods: Sustainability and the democratisation of

land use planning and resource management on Crown Lands in British Columbia’,International Planning Studies 9, no. 1 (2004): 27�42.

26. T. Jackson, B. M. Illsley, J. Curry, and E. Rapaport, ‘Amenity migration and sustainabledevelopment in remote resource-based communities: Lessons from northern BritishColumbia’, International Journal of Society Systems Science 1, no. 1 (2008): 26�48.

27. Curran, Protecting the Working Landscape of Agriculture.28. See, for example, G. Halseth, ‘Community and land-use planning debate: An example

from rural British Columbia’, Environment and Planning A 28 (1996): 1279�98; S. Markey,G. Halseth, and D. Manson, ‘Contradictions in hinterland development: Challenging thelocal development ideal in North British Columbia’, Community Development Journal 44,no. 2 (2009): 209�29.

29. B. M. Illsley, T. Jackson, J. Curry, and E. Rapaport, ‘Community innovation in the softspaces of planning’, International Planning Studies 14, no. 4 (2010): 303�19.

30. K. S. Hanna, A. Dale, and C. Ling, ‘Social capital and quality of place: Reflections ongrowth and change in a small town’, Local Environment 14, no. 1 (2009): 31�44.

31. See, for example, R. Boyle and R. Mohamed, ‘State growth management, smart growthand urban containment: A review of the US and a study of the heartland’, Journal ofEnvironmental Planning and Management 50, no. 5 (2007): 677�97; J. W. Scott, ‘Smartgrowth as urban reform: A pragmatic recoding of the new regionalism’, Urban Studies 44,no. 1 (2007): 15�35; W. A. Kellog, ‘Ohio’s balanced growth program: A case study ofcollaboration for planning and policy design’, Journal of Environmental Planning andManagement 52, no. 4 (2009): 549�70; T. Van Dijk, ‘Who is in charge of the urban fringe?Neoliberalism, open space preservation and growth control’, Planning Practice andResearch 24, no. 3 (2009): 343�61.

32. Curran, Protecting the Working Landscape of Agriculture, 1033. Social Planning and Research Council of BC, Evaluation of Smart Growth on the Ground

(Vancouver: SPARCBC, 2007).34. City of Prince George (CPG), Official Community Plan (Prince George, BC: CPG,

2001), 4.35. T. Jackson, ‘The Scottish Client Group approach: Indicators of need or discretionary

variations in expenditure?’, Journal of Public Policy and Administration 4, no. 2 (1989):35�47.

36. M. Lyons, Inquiry into Local Government: Place-shaping, a Shared Ambition for theFuture of Local Government (London: The Stationery Office, 2007).

37. T. Jackson, ‘The diagnosis and treatment of disparities in United Kingdom regionaleconomic performance: A critique’, International Journal of Sustainable Society 1, no. 3(2009): 270�91.

38. T. Allen, ‘Controls over the use and abuse of eminent domain in England: A comparativeview’, in Private Property, Community Development, and Eminent Domain, ed. R. P.Malloy (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 75�100.

39. H. Kitchen and E. Slack, ‘Providing public services in remote areas’, in Perspectives inFiscal Federalism, ed. R. M. Bird (Herndon, VA: World Bank, 2006), 123�40, 131.

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40. J. F. Meligrana, ‘Developing a planning strategy and vision for rural-urban fringe areas: Acase study of British Columbia’, Canadian Journal of Urban Research 12, no. 1 (2003):119�41, 119.

41. See, for example, A. C. Nelson, ‘Demand, segmentation, and timing effects of an urbancontainment program on urban ring land values’, Urban Studies 22, no. 5 (1985): 439�43;A. C. Nelson, ‘An empirical note of how regional urban containment policy influences aninteraction between greenbelt and ex-urban land markets’, Land Economics 54 (1988): 78�184; R. Pendall, J. Martin, and W. Fulton, Holding the Line: Urban Containment in theUnited States (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 2002); E. G. Irwin, K. Bell,and J. Geoghegan, ‘Modelling and managing urban growth at the rural-urban fringe: Aparcel-level model of residential land use change’, Agricultural and Resource EconomicsReview 32, no. 1 (2003): 83�102; E. G. Irwin and N. E. Bockstael, ‘Land use externalities,open space restrictions, and urban sprawl’, Regional Science and Urban Economics 34, no.6 (2004): 705�25; R. Mohamed, ‘The economics of conservation sub-division: Pricepremiums, improvement costs, and absorption rates’, Urban Affairs Review 41, no. 3(2006): 376�99.

42. See, for example, M. J. Elson, S. Walker, and R. Macdonald, The Effectiveness of GreenBelts (London: Department of the Environment Planning Research Programme, 1992); G.Bramley, C. Hague, K. Kirk, A. Prior, J. Raemakers, and S. Smith with A. Robinson andR. Bushnell, Review of Green Belt Policy in Scotland (Edinburgh: Scottish Executive SocialResearch, 2004).

43. Recent key publications include K. Barker, Barker Review of Land Use Planning: FinalReport. (London: H.M.Treasury, 2006); P. C. Cheshire and C. A. L. Hilber, ‘Office spacesupply restrictions in Britain: The political economy of market revenge’, Economic Journal118 (2008): F185�F211; P. Cheshire, Urban Containment, Housing Affordability and PriceStability � Irreconcilable Goals (London: London School of Economics SpatialEconomics Research Centre Policy Paper 4, 2009).

44. See Lyons, Inquiry into Local Government; and Allen, ‘Controls over the use and abuse’.45. As discussed by M. J. Elson, C. Steenberg, and N. Mendham, Green Belts and Affordable

Housing: Can We Have Both? (Bristol: Policy Press, 1996); and A. C. Nelson, R. Pendall,C. J. Dawkins, and G. J. Knapp, The Link Between Growth Management and HousingAffordability: The Academic Evidence. (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution,2002).

46. A. W. Evans, Economics and Land Use Planning (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004).47. Allen, ‘Controls over the use and abuse’, 95.48. See, for example, A. Hull, ‘Evaluation in area-based regeneration: Programme evaluation

challenges’, in New Principles in Planning Evaluation, ed. A. Khakee, A. Hull, D. Miller,and J. Woltjer (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 185�200.

49. Evans, Economics and Land Use Planning, 64.50. Curran, Protecting the Working Landscape of Agriculture.51. Irwin and Bockstael, ‘Land use externalities’.52. R. Lewis, G.-J. Knaap, and J. Sohn, ‘Managing growth with priority funding areas: A

good idea whose time has come’, Journal of the American Planning Association 75, no. 4(2009): 457�78.

53. Irwin and Bockstael, ‘Land use externalities’.54. Ibid., 721.55. Ibid., 724.56. B. P. Clifford and C. R. Warren, ‘Development and the environment: Perception and

opinion in St. Andrews, Scotland’, Scottish Geographical Journal 121, no. 4 (2005): 355�84.

57. Ibid.58. J. Ross, ‘Home of golf host to most expensive seaside houses’, The Scotsman (2009): 11.59. Fife Council Development Services, St. Andrews Design Guidelines for Buildings, Streets

and Shop Fronts in St. Andrews Conservation Area and on the Main Approaches(Glenrothes: Fife Council, 2008).

60. Fife Council Development Services, Finalised St. Andrews and East Fife Local Plan 2009:Plan Statement (Glenrothes: Fife Council, 2009), Policy R1.

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61. Ibid., Policy E1.62. Fife Council Planning and Building Control Service, A Future St. Andrews.63. D. Gopinath and T. Jackson, ‘A pragmatist lens on local planning practices: The case of

the St. Andrews community-driven green belt’, Planning, Practice and Research 25, no. 2(2010): 183�201.

64. Clifford and Warren, ‘Development and the environment’.65. Fife Council Development Services, Fife Structure Plan Consultative Draft: Fife

Matters � A Land Use Framework for the Next Twenty Years (Glenrothes: Fife Council,2004), para.1.14.

66. Fife Council Development Services, St. Andrews and East Fife Draft Local Plan: PlanStatement (Glenrothes: Fife Council, 2005), para.1.8.

67. Fife Council Development Services, Fife Structure Plan Consultative Draft, para.1.14.68. David Tyldesley & Associates, A Green Belt for St. Andrews.69. Fife Council Development Services, Finalised St. Andrews and East Fife Local Plan 2009:

Plan Statement (Glenrothes: Fife Council, 2009), Policy E17.70. Ibid., 108�10.71. Scottish Executive, Town and Country Planning.72. Gillespies, Fife Masterplans Handbook Final Report (Glenrothes: Fife Council, 2007).73. City of Prince George, Official Community Plan, 16.74. Ibid., 41.75. See, for example, A. E. LePage, G. D. Hamilton & Associates Ltd., D. Parker & City of

Prince George Planning Department, Central Business District Study: Vol.1 Goals andIssues (Prince George, BC: City of Prince George, 1980).

76. Smart Growth on the Ground, Downtown Prince George Concept Plan (Prince George,BC: The City of Prince George: 2009), 4.

77. Ibid.78. Ibid., v.79. E. Razin, ‘Policies to control urban sprawl: Planning regulations or changes in the rules of

the game?’ Urban Studies 35, no. 2 (1998): 321�40, 330.80. Scottish Government, Scottish Planning Policy, para.12.81. Smart Growth on the Ground, Downtown Prince George Concept Plan, 3.82. City of Prince George, Official Community Plan.83. Irwin and Bockstael, ‘Land use externalities’.84. Smart Growth on the Ground, Downtown Prince George Concept Plan, 2.85. Scottish Parliament, Planning etc. (Scotland) Act 2006 (asp 17) (Edinburgh: Scottish

Parliament, 2006).86. Scottish Executive Development Division, Community Engagement: Planning with

People � Planning Advice Note 81 (Edinburgh: Scottish Executive, 2007).87. T. Jackson and B. M. Illsley, ‘An analysis of the theoretical rationale for using strategic

environmental assessment to deliver environmental justice in the light of the ScottishEnvironmental Assessment Act’, Environmental Impact Assessment Review 27, no. 7(2007): 607�23.

88. Jackson et al., ‘Amenity migration and sustainable development.89. D. Peel and G. Lloyd, ‘A new town for the Highlands’, Town and Country Planning 10,

(2007): 411�4.90. Scottish Government, Scottish Sustainable Communities Initiative: Charrette Main-

streaming Programme (Edinburgh, Scottish Government, 2011).91. City of Prince George, Official Community Plan.92. Gopinath and Jackson, ‘A pragmatist lens on local planning practices’.

Notes on contributors

Tony Jackson is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Dundee. An economist, heworked in agricultural development in Africa before holding academic posts in theUniversities of St. Andrews and Dundee, the latter in Town and Regional Planning. Heundertakes collaborative research with researchers in Canada, Australia and New Zealand aswell as with a wide range of colleagues in the United Kingdom, focusing on environmental

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assessment, project appraisal and sustainable development, and addressing issues such asclimate change and urban sprawl.

Dr. Deepak Gopinath is Lecturer in Town and Regional Planning at the University of Dundee.He graduated with a degree in architecture and has since then been pursuing a career in townplanning initially in practice and later in academia with his joining the Department of Townand Regional Planning at the University of Dundee firstly as a Teaching Fellow in 2008 andlater as Lecturer in 2009. His research interests fall within three inter-related, yet distinctstrands: (1) governance; (2) sustainable communities; (3) planning education and research.

John Curry is an Associate Professor and Past Chair of the School of Environmental Planningat the University of Northern British Columbia. He has extensive Canada-wide experienceworking with small, and medium, size communities in the areas of economic, social, andecological planning and development. His current research focuses on: examining barriers tochange towards sustainability; climate change processes of adaptation at a community andregional level; and new venture and entrepreneurial development in First Nations and non-First Nations communities.

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