Complexity and spatial policy

I'm going to the Regional Studies Association conference in Leuven soon, so thought I'd post briefly on the topic I'm presenting on (with Prof. Cecilia Wong from the University of Manchester). It's all about the complexity of spatial policies and the difficulties of monitoring them. So, a very quick example.

The two images below show migration and commuting raster surfaces for the South East of England. The first shows migration, where red is lots of out migration and blue means in migration. The second shows commuting, where red means lot of in commuters and blue means lots of out commuters. The black lines are regional boundaries. So, lots of complex spatial processes operating at inter and intra regional levels. This is just one quick example of how monitoring what's happening in one place is linked to lots of other places and to lots of other issues.

Spatial Planning - The New Rock and Roll?

Okay, the title is totally tongue in cheek because spatial planning is not exactly everyone's cup of tea (in fact, it's not a cup of tea at all). However, it is important even though most people haven't heard of it and many others who have don't know what it's all about. Over the past couple of years I've been involved in two projects relating to spatial planning, both of which were sponsored by the RTPI. One of them was recently published in full and in executive summary format - they can be accessed here. Believe it or not, this kind of work does have an influence and can help us better understand spatial processes and how they might impact on all kinds of areas and a variety of different activities. A couple of thumbnails showing the cover pages of the reports resulting from this work...

















July has been a busy month with conference, writing and visiting different places so hopefully there will be more activity here in August.