Geographical Dimensions of Environmental Restructuring in New Zealand*

During the 1980s, New Zealand underwent a period of dramatic economic, social, and administrative restructuring. The reform extended to the administrative arrangements for environmental management. A geographic restructuring model is used in this paper to establish the context in which the reforms were carried out. A combination of economic, environmental, and social influences operating at different geographic scales can be identified. These influences are subsequently illustrated through reference to three aspects of the restructuring that have distinct geographical dimensions: the definition of human-environment relations, the spatial definition of planning regions, and the implications of spatial differentiation for resource management policy and practice.     

Coastal marinas in South Australia: environmental issues and strategic planning

Coastal marina proposals have recently been the subject of significant environmental controversy in South Australia. In response, the South Australian government formed a Marina Assessment Advisory Committee to produce guidelines for the planning and development of coastal marinas, examine the level of demand for marina berths and recommend suitable sites. This article outlines the characteristics of coastal marina developments in South Australia and examines some of the results of the marina committee's work in light of the planning problems associated with marina development.     

Urban Growth Management in Christchurch

This article provides a critique of urban planning in the Christchurch metropolitan region. It is argued that pressure from land owners and developers in the urban fringe, self interest of constituent territorial local authorities, and inadequate national policy direction based on limited interpretation of the planning scope of the Resource Management Act 1991 have constrained a strategic approach to urban growth management in Christchurch. This situation stands in contrast to the apparent success of the Regional Growth Forum in Auckland.     

A Study of Governance Arrangements for Land Use and Natural Resource Management Planning in Cape York Peninsula

Complex intersecting social, economic and environmental dilemmas in Australia's Cape York Peninsula present a number of challenges for planners seeking to develop and implement land use and natural resource management (NRM) plans. There have been five different attempts at land use and NRM planning in Cape York Peninsula over the last 20 years. These processes have (to greater or lesser extents) failed to deliver community-owned and government-supported plans to guide development and/or the management of the region's natural resources. The region is remote, sparsely populated, and home to a significant Indigenous population. Much of the contestation within the region surrounds the access, use and ownership of the region's internationally valuable natural resources. This paper reviews, from the literature, the relevancy and applicability of criteria for best practice planning and governance. A range of identified best practice governance and planning principles are applied to assess the governance arrangements for planning in the Peninsula. The paper finds that decision-making arrangements for land use and NRM planning in the Peninsula are still in their infancy and are inadequate to support effective outcomes. The paper concludes that broader attention to best practice principles in governance for planning is needed to improve planning outcomes.     

Selling a natural community: Exploring the role of representations in promoting a new urban development

We explore the rhetoric and symbolism deployed in the course of selling residential properties at Hobsonville Point, a new development in Auckland. Specifically, we ask what understanding of community is promoted in this development, and how this understanding is represented in promotional material. Our study is informed by analysis of newspaper articles, promotional material and planning/legal documents as well as field observation (2011–2012). We conclude that appealing to a contemporary yearning for nature and social cohesion at an urban coastal location has generated a situation in which community is being ‘sold’ at Hobsonville Point, yet paradoxically is yet to be found.     

经济地理学与空间治理

经济地理学是一门研究真实世界的学科,在社会实践中发挥着重要作用。满足国家和社会的需求,是这个学科发展的生命力所在。针对当前全面深化改革的新形势以及“未来地球”计划的提出,本文倡导开展面向空间治理的经济地理学研究,提高该学科服务于国家战略决策的能力。之后本文阐述了中国空间治理的政治文化基础;分析了中国空间治理的主要手段,包括规划体制、土地制度、户籍制度和财税体制。本文认为,只有客观、全面地观察中国的空间治理体系,并将其理论知识化,才能使经济地理学研究具有更大的科学价值和实践意义,也才能为国家提高空间治理能力提供科学支撑。     

Local‐government data sharing: Evaluating the foundations of spatial data infrastructures

This paper presents a typology of local‐government data sharing arrangements in the US at a time when spatial data infrastructures (SDI) are moving into a second generation. In the first generation, the US National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) theoretically involved a pyramid of data integration resting on local‐government data sharing. Availability of local‐government data is the foundation for all SDI‐related data sharing in this model. However, first‐generation SDI data‐sharing activities and principles have gained only a tenuous hold in local governments. Some formalized data sharing occurs, but only infrequently in response to SDI programmes and policies. Previous research suggests that local‐government data sharing aligns with immediate organizational and practical concerns rather than state or national policies and programmes. We present research findings echoing extending these findings to show that local‐government data sharing is largely informal in nature and is undertaken to support existing governmental activities. NSDI principles remain simply irrelevant for the majority of surveyed local governments. The typology we present distinguishes four distinct types of local‐government data sharing arrangements that reflect institutional, political, and economic factors. The effectiveness of second generation, client‐service‐based SDI will be seriously constrained if the problems of local government take‐up fail to be addressed.     

Can New Zealand's Covenanting Agencies Meet the Challenge of the Biodiversity Strategy?

In February 2000 the New Zealand Government released its national Biodiversity Strategy with significant emphasis on the role of central and local government, communities and private landowners in achieving biodiversity conservation on public and private land. New Zealand has had provisions in legislation for the protection of biodiversity on private land for more than 70 years. There are now a wide range of of purposes and management flexibility within the nine types of covenants administered by the Department of Conservation (DoC) and the Queen Elizabeth National Trust's (QE II National Trust) Open Space covenants. In addition a small number of territorial local authorities (TLAs) manage private covenanting schemes, the most notable being the Auckland Region by Rodney and Franklin District Councils. Funding appears to be the critical issue for covenanting agencies being able to meet the objectives of the NZ Biodiversity Strategy affecting the ability of agencies to fund survey, administration, fencing, pest management and landowner advice. Unless funding is addressed landowners will be left shouldering most of the burden of conservation management, planning and funding for these areas and the tide may not have turned for biodiversity protection and enhancement on private land.     

Spatial dimensions of New Zealand's environmental management

New Zealand's regional council boundaries drawn as part of the 1989 local government reforms privilege integrated catchment management. This privilege is now challenged by calls to both fragment and amalgamate councils and centralise decision‐making but with little analytic assessment of the spatial differentiation to support them. The spatial underpinnings of these calls were explored using a case study that assessed the spatial dimensions of environment management. Analysis of the Land Environments and River Environment Classification databases and councils' planning documents highlights challenges local governments face in applying integrated natural resource management within single purpose jurisdictions and implications for wider sustainable development policy.     

Planning for source water protection in Ontario

Ontario began developing a drinking water source protection planning process in 2000, after a rural community's water supply was contaminated by pathogens from agricultural runoff. An expert committee report has recommended legislating a new source protection “sphere of jurisdiction” for municipalities; however, no specific new municipal tools or authorities have been proposed as yet. This paper reports findings from an evaluation of the extent to which existing institutional arrangements for land use planning and water management facilitate or constrain source protection by municipalities. A case study of the Regional Municipality of Waterloo suggests there is the potential to link land use planning more strongly to water management through creative use of existing tools, forgoing the need for major institutional changes.     

Havana: From local experiment to national reform

In April 2011 the Cuban government announced a suite of national reforms with deeper socioeconomic ramifications than the limited liberalizations it permitted in the 1990s. Although unprecedented in revolutionary Cuba, the proposed changes draw on previous efforts to manage decentralization, employment and the informal sector. The paper examines two case studies of prior experimentation with liberalization since 2000 in the municipality of Old Havana and the neighbouring district, Barrio Chino (Chinatown). We argue that the 2011 reforms are informed by specific lessons and insights from these two experiences and also by general development principles advocated by China.     

Mudslides Developed on Waitemata Group Rocks, Tawharanui Peninsula, North Auckland

On Tawharanui Peninsula mudslides occur in soils developed on Waitemata Group flysch similar to that underlying much of the Auckland metropolitan area. Mudslides are shallow soil failures with a bowlshaped source area, an elongated track, and an accumulation zone. Movement may continue for decades to centuries. Modelling suggests that failure of saturated soils occurs along a basal surface defined by the regolith / bedrock contact; rates of movement and time of initiation have not been established. Reactivation or increased mobility of mudslides due to climatic change represents an increased hazard for infrastructure in Auckland City.     

Auckland and the creative industries: the spatial distribution of the design subsector

Auckland is New Zealand’s largest city with the largest concentration of creative sector employment and businesses in the country. This paper examines the spatial distribution of firms in the design creative subsector across the Auckland Region and in inner Auckland and ascertains the key determinants of firm location. The macrolevel findings indicate that the architectural and specialized design firms have similar spatial distribution patterns across the Auckland Region, while the advertising subsector demonstrates an extreme tendency toward spatial concentration only in inner Auckland. All three subsectors have a strong propensity to clustering within inner Auckland; however, one CBD (Central Business District) fringe area, Parnell outperforms the rest. The microlevel findings reveal hybridized creative clusters of uneven density. Parnell’s unique brand and place-specific characteristics were the key determinants of firm location which led to the spontaneous collocation of firms. These location decisions had the unintended consequence of creating agglomeration economies.     

An evaluation of the Wellington Regional Genuine Progress Index

There is widespread discontent with the gross domestic product (GDP) as a measure of progress for society. Alternative measures have been proposed, including the genuine progress indicator (GPI). This paper examines the changing institutional arrangements and attitudinal context in the recently developed Wellington region (New Zealand) GPI. We found an alignment between the GPI framework and the Local Government Act. Despite this fit, we identified challenges, including the need to revitalise public participation through deliberative techniques. It remains too early to judge whether the GPI initiative will launch a viable alternative to the GDP for the Wellington region.     

Planning Beijing: socialist city,transitional city,and global city

Cities are centers of economic, social, and political change, and urban planning is a process responding to and guiding urban change and development. In the Maoist era and under the influence of socialist ideology, China limited urbanization while promoting industrialization, and urban planning served as an instrument for socialist construction. Since the reform of the late 1970s, Chinese cities have experienced unprecedented growth and restructuring. However, the gradualist, exploratory reform—exemplified by Deng Xiaoping’s slogan “crossing the river by feeling the stones”—makes Chinese cities constantly change without clear directions for future development. This paper uses Beijing as a case study to analyze changing institutional and global contexts underlying the transformation of Chinese cities, and planners’ responses and dilemmas in making plans and implementing them. We found that market reforms, rapid growth, and dramatic change make urban master plans quickly out of date, forcing Chinese planners to frequently revise these master plans. We also found that the content of urban master planning in China has broadened from physical planning, and Chinese planning has adapted to market reform through utilizing concepts of visioning, flexibility, and governance. Increasingly what we call a “hybrid” form of planning is arising in which global concepts and Chinese ideas interweave in order to direct the shape and form of the Chinese metropolis.     

Realistic Sustainability? Urban Transport Planning in Wellington,New Zealand

Urban transport systems have key roles in supporting environmental sustainability. New Zealand's transport planning arrangements are promoted as a model by agencies such as the World Bank. This paper explores the New Zealand transport planning framework using a case study of the Wellington region's strategic balancing of transport modes and projects. The paper argues that despite some positive rhetoric, concerns about the sustainability of transport planning in Wellington remain. The paper concludes by discussing the need to reassess New Zealand's national framework, and identifies some directions for reform.     

Seafarer's gaze: Queen Street business and Auckland's archipelago, 1908

Abstract:  In 1908 Auckland City was the commercial hub for a small and remote provincial economy and cannot have supported more than modest, locally orientated enterprises. This paper argues that such a view is conditioned by a 'landlubber's gaze'. By envisaging a seafarer alighting on the City's wharves from a 1908 steamship to encounter the city's commercial heart, it demonstrates that Queen Street opened to a maritime world where Auckland enterprises enjoyed extensive networks and markets. Indeed, Auckland's 'floating world' rivalled its 'residential world'. Such an approach may force us to recast Auckland Province in archipelago and network terms.     

Zone Fever,Project Fever: Development Policy,Economic Transition,and Urban Expansion in China

With the pursuit for global competitiveness and economic growth, Chinese cities have recorded massive urban land expansion. This article examines the effects of development policies and economic restructuring on urban land expansion in China through a case study of Nanjing, representing the rapidly growing and globalizing coastal cities in China. Wei investigate the development process and changing contents of government policies, and analyze development zones and key projects as privileged, trait making, and even path‐breaking elements of the development process. We highlight the transition and paradox of the Chinese state in the urban development process, and the broad contexts underlying urban land expansion in Chinese cities. We see urban expansion in China as a process largely responding to top‐down policy change and economic transition initiated by the central government. We hold that the role of the state has to be analyzed to understand urban transformation and land expansion, moving beyond local factors of accessibility and feasibility. Development‐zone and project fevers, and lagging administrative reforms, however, have made Chinese cities heavy with debt and led to wasteful development, corruption, and social unrest in China.     

The Dramas of the Marine Extractive Reserve Managers in Brazil: Navigating through Multiple Institutions

Abstract

In this paper, we describe and analyze the co-management institutional framework at 21 Brazilian Marine Extractive Reserves (MERs) and present the dramas of its implementation from the local manager’s perspective. We categorized the governance instruments of MERs into (i) instruments for land/sea tenure and beneficiaries’ recognition, (ii) territorial use planning, (iii) institutional arenas for discussion and deliberation, as well as (iv) public policies. Although the legal arrangements of these protected areas address fundamental dimensions of governance, we present the challenges of its implementation based on the voice of local managers. The managers are the bridge between the central government and communities, dealing with the implementation of the institutional framework in a reality of multi-level and multi-scale drama: from local to national dilemmas, from organizational to structural ones. We explore these dramas and highlight the institutional dilemmas based on the paradoxes between legalism and social emancipation.     

生态系统服务对国土空间规划体系的理论与实践支撑

空间规划体系改革是推进生态文明建设的重大举措。面向新的国土空间规划体系,如何整合不同空间尺度下的政策,如何协调人类活动并保护生态格局和自然资源,是空间规划的核心问题,亟需吸纳多学科视角和知识加以回答。生态系统服务关联生态系统与人类福祉,是优化国土空间、推动规划决策更加符合生态文明理念的重要工具。本文立足于国土空间规划体系的构建需求,通过文献梳理和理论分析,从多个维度探讨了生态系统服务对空间规划体系构建的支撑作用。首先,对生态系统服务与空间规划价值目标的关联进行了基本判断,明确了生态系统服务不仅是空间规划进行自然资源价值塑造的载体,也是空间规划面向公共福祉的政府选择。其次,针对国家、省级以及市县和乡镇各纵向层级总体规划的功能定位和内容重点,分别剖析了生态系统服务对实现规划的战略性和政策性、协调性和操作性的支撑作用,并从尺度效应视角探讨了其对构建规划协同机制的促进作用。最后,面向“多规合一”的横向衔接需求,提出生态系统服务在培育部门共同价值,协同多元主体利益及改进空间规划技术三方面的重要作用。研究为指导空间规划体系改革提供理论支持和可行路径,丰富深化了生态系统服务在政策制定中的应用。