Introduction to Rural Planning: Economies, Communities and Landscapes provides a critical analysis of the key challenges facing rural places and the ways that public policy and community action shape rural spaces. The second edition provides an examination of the composite nature of ‘rural planning’, which combines land-use and spatial planning elements with community action, countryside management and the projects and programmes of national and supra-national agencies and organisations. It also offers a broad analysis of entrepreneurial social action as a shaper of rural outcomes, with particular coverage of the localism agenda and Neighbourhood Planning in England. With a focus on accessibility and rural transport provision, this book examines the governance arrangements needed to deliver integrated solutions spanning urban and rural places. Through an examination of the ecosystem approach to environmental planning, it links the procurement of ecosystem services to the global challenges of habitat degradation and loss, climate change and resource scarcity and management. A valuable resource for students of planning, rural development and rural geography, Introduction to Rural Planning aims to make sense of current rural challenges and planning approaches, evaluating the currency of the ‘rural’ label in the context of global urbanisation, arguing that rural spaces are relational spaces characterised by critical production and consumption tensions.

This book provides an international perspective on rural planning, focused on developing countries. It examines conventional development planning and innovative local planning approaches, drawing together lessons from recent experience of rural planning and land use. The authors examine past and current practice and ways that land use planning and management of natural resources can underpin sustainable local livelihoods. They draw on case studies from Africa, Asia and Latin America to present findings relevant throughout the developing world.

This Book Not Only Discusses The Problems Of Communication And Coordination Of The Gram Panchayat Organisation But Also Investigates Management Problems As Perceived By The Elected Functionaries In Planning, Financing, Organising, Directing And Controlling The Work Of Rural Development.

Land represents an important resource for the economic life of a majority of people in the world. The way people handle and use land resources impacts their social and economic well-being as well as the sustained quality of land resources. Land use planning is also integral to water resources development and management for agriculture, industry, dr

The Routledge Companion to Rural Planning provides a critical account and state of the art review of rural planning in the early years of the twenty-first century. Looking across different international experiences – from Europe, North America and Australasia to the transition and emerging economies, including BRIC and former communist states – it aims to develop new conceptual propositions and theoretical insights, supported by detailed case studies and reviews of available data. The Companion gives coverage to emerging topics in the field and seeks to position rural planning in the broader context of global challenges: climate change, the loss of biodiversity, food and energy security, and low carbon futures. It also looks at old, established questions in new ways: at social and spatial justice, place shaping, economic development, and environmental and landscape management. Planning in the twenty-first century must grapple not only with the challenges presented by cities and urban concentration, but also grasp the opportunities – and understand the risks – arising from rural change and restructuring. Rural areas are diverse and dynamic. This Companion attempts to capture and analyse at least some of this diversity, fostering a dialogue on likely and possible rural futures between a global community of rural planning researchers. Primarily intended for scholars and graduate students across a range of disciplines, such as planning, rural geography, rural sociology, agricultural studies, development studies, environmental studies and countryside management, this book will prove to be an invaluable and up-to-date resource.

Policy-relevant and up-to-date, Rural Development deals systematically with all aspects of socioeconomic rural development, using India as a case study. The Second Edition includes an integrated treatment of the principles, policies and management of rural development; new research and statistical data; illustrations and examples from current situations; the latest measures of rural development; and a new methodology for project monitoring and evaluation.

As the first book in the Restructuring Rural Areas series, "Constructing the countryside" presents a new methodological approach to the analysis of rural change. The authors seek to link wider developments in the global political economy to the behaviour of local actors and, in so doing, they place research into rural studies much more firmly than hitherto in the mainstream of social science enquiry. The outcome is a book that promotes a truly interdisciplinary approach through which the constant "reconstruction" of the countryside can be properly understood. This holistic perspective, sustained by an historical analysis of rural change, has been made possible by the extensive research experience of the authors.; The book is a product of the work done at the London Countryside Research Centre, which was set up in 1989 by the Economic and Social Research Council. The Centre's research has focused upon the social and political forces for change in rural areas and how these relate to rapid alterations in national economic circumstances and to public policies affecting the countryside for example, the Common Agricultural Policy of the EC .; On the one hand, the book provides a set of insights into the trends that will guide rural change in advanced economies into the next century; on the other, it offers a challenging account of how they can be investigated.; "Constructing the countryside" will appeal to both students and staff in a wide range of social science disciplines, including agricultural economics, environmental management, planning, land economy, geography and rural sociology, and to all those concerned with the future development of rural areas.; This book is intended for students and researchers in rural planning and environmental/geographical studies, whether within a geographical or a sociological milieu.

This book brings together several systems-level approaches to the consideration of the interaction of livelihood choices, natural resource management and participatory action research on sustainable development. By focusing on these approaches to community change, the volume hopes to encourage readers to consider how they might adopt methods such as Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA), Community Capitals Framework (CCF) and Participatory Action Research (PAR) in their own research, practice and teaching. Thus, this volume will engage readers in reflection about the importance of systems-level approaches that address poverty from the perspective of the poor, natural resource management that maintains the resource for future generations, and the engagement of local people in designing and implementing, and thus owning, strategies that address equity as well as economic security and the environment. This book was originally published as a special issue of Community Development.

Rural development is inherently viewed as a positive thing; it is seen as something that brings together groups of individuals with automatic positive implications and outcomes. Policy rhetoric frequently uses popular terms such as involvement, participation and power sharing to describe rural development activities. However, the reality of experience on the ground does not necessarily concur with these ideals. It is not always clear who ultimately benefits from rural development: the State, the community or rural development practitioners. This book critically analyses key concepts associated with rural development policy and practice, and using the concepts of power and micro-politics to analyze rhetoric and reality, reveals the intricacies of rural development. Challenging popular ideals associated with rural development, this book presents the notion of rural development less as a spontaneous, all-inclusive affair and more as a limited, controlled and exclusive process. Ultimately it contends that within structures of rural governance, a regeneration power elite predominates development and regeneration activities.

Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is an approach that offers multiple related benefits: securing rural livelihoods; ensuring careful conservation and management of biodiversity and other resources; and empowering communities to manage these resources sustainably. Recently, however, the CBNRM concept has attracted criticism for failing in its promise of delivering significant local improvements and conserving biodiversity in some contexts. This book identifies the flaws in its application, which often have been swept under the carpet by those involved in the initiatives. The authors analyse them, and propose remedies for specific circumstances based on the lessons learned from CBNRM experience in southern Africa over more than a decade. The result is essential reading for all researchers, observers and practitioners who have focused on CBNRM in sustainable development programmes as a means to overcome poverty and conserve ecosystems in various parts of the globe. It is a vital tool in improving their methods and performance. In addition, academics, students and policy-makers in natural resource management, resource economics, resource governance and rural development will find it a very valuable and instructive resource.