Moving Towards Sustainable Development? Integrating Economic Development and the Environment in Local Authorities

The recent growth of interest in sustainable development has led to the incorporation of the concept into policy making at a variety of scales. In all cases particular emphasis is placed upon the local scale as the focus for the implementation of policy and initiatives and especially upon local authorities as the major contributor to this process. There has been little assessment, however, of the extent to which local authorities either can, or are, undertaking such initiatives. This paper examines: the potential role that local authorities can play in integrating economic development and the environment; the forms of response and initiatives that are currently in place, drawing upon survey evidence from urban local authorities in England and Wales; and some of the limits to local authority action.

[1]  Susan Owens,et al.  Land, limits and sustainability: a conceptual framework and some dilemmas for the planning system , 1994 .

[2]  Michael Clarke,et al.  The local authority and the new community governance , 1994 .

[3]  T. Bovaird.  Managing Urban Economic Development: Learning to Change or the Marketing of Failure? , 1994 .

[4]  Arthur P.J. Mol,et al.  Sociology, environment, and modernity: ecological modernization as a theory of social change. , 1992 .

[5]  Bob Evans,et al.  Local environmental policies and strategies , 1994 .

[6]  Chris Park,et al.  The Environment , 2010 .

[7]  Adam Tickell,et al.  Business Goes Local: Dissecting the ‘Business Agenda’ in Manchester* , 1995 .

[8]  John S. Dryzek,et al.  Ecology and discursive democracy: Beyond liberal capitalism and the administrative state∗ , 1992 .

[9]  Richard B. Norgaard,et al.  Sustainable development: A co-evolutionary view , 1988 .

[10]  P. Cheshire,et al.  Purpose Built for Failure? Local, Regional and National Government in Britain , 1992 .

[11]  Thomas J. Wilbanks,et al.  “Sustainable Development” in Geographic Perspective , 1994 .

[12]  P. Healey,et al.  Changing Meanings of 'Environment' in the British Planning System , 1994 .

[13]  Jmw Stewart.  Between Whitehall and Town Hall. The Realignment of Urban Regeneration Policy in England , 1994 .

[14]  R. Keil.  World cities in a world-system: The environmental problematic in world cities , 1995 .

[15]  T. Marsden.  Constructing The Countryside , 1993 .

[16]  A. Eisenschitz,et al.  The politics of local economic policy , 1993 .