Andy Inch
Biographic Data
| ID | 3457898 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Andy Inch |
| GIVEN NAMES | Andy |
| FAMILY NAME | Inch |
| SIGNATURE | INCH A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Sheffield |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3349-687X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 115 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 22 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Troubled Times
Ideology, statecraft and the ‘double shuffle’ of Conservative planning reform in England
This article explores the political implications of conflicts over new housebuilding for Conservative-led governments in England since 2010. Revisiting debates about the tensions between neoliberal and more collectivist traditions within the political ideology of the Conservative Party, we argue that rather than blocking change this internal conflict should be seen as a dynamic part of the politics of planning. This leads us to propose that Conse…
Community action, counter-professionals and radical planning in the UK
This paper reconsiders the roles of ‘counter-professionals’ (Goodman 1972) in urban social movements, focusing on the generation of students, activists and planners involved in the UK’s community action movement from the late-1960s. The paper therefore provides the first historical account of the ways community action stimulated the development of a distinctive counter-tradition of radical planning in the UK, inspiring experimentation with new, a…
Supporting Nature-Based Solutions via Nature-Based Thinking across European and Latin American cities
Nature-Based Solutions concepts and practices are being used worldwide as part of attempts to address societal challenges but have also been criticised for not dealing with deeper transformations needed to face urgent issues including biodiversity loss, climate change and inclusion. In this paper, we explore how an inclusive, integrated and long-sighted approach, emphasising a more radical integration of nature within cities, might support the tr…
Exploring desired urban futures
Amidst multiple crises and calls for transformative change, the demand to reassess human-nature relationships has increased. Rethinking the future of cities is vital in this process, yet positive urban visions prioritizing nature beyond human-centred perspectives are lacking. To address this gap, we propose a “nature-based desired futures” approach for envisaging and building collective discussion around transformative change. We explore four con…
An Archive of Political Possibilities
Serving the public interest? Towards a history of private sector planning expertise in England
Until recently there has been little critical consideration of the privatization of urban planning expertise. In this paper we draw on archival research in England to present an historical analysis of the role of private sector planners over the post-war period. In so doing, the paper provides one of the first considerations of changing historical perceptions of the roles of private sector professionals in the delivery of public planning, assessi…
We need to put what we do in my dad’s language, in pounds, shillings and pence’
This article furthers understanding of how commercial imperatives are reshaping dominant conceptions of planning practice in England, and by extension the production of the built environment more widely. We make an original contribution by tracing the emergence of the logic of commercialisation in England, demonstrating how the impacts of austerity and ‘market-led viability planning’ have entrenched the ‘delivery state’, a powerful disciplinary m…
Planning for the Future
Building infrastructures for inclusive regeneration
The object is to change the heart and soul’
In 2014 the UK government announced plans to reduce opposition to housing development by making a direct payment to households in England. 1 This was part of a wider experiment with behavioural economics and financial inducements in planning policy. In this paper, we explore this proposal, named ‘Development Benefits’, arguing it offers important insights into how the governing rationality of neoliberalism attempts to govern both planning and opp…
Narratives of power
This Special Issue starts from the premise that the concept of ideology holds significant analytical potential for planning but that this potential can only be realised if ideology is brought to the fore of analysis. By naming ideology and rendering it visible, we hope to bring it out from the shadows and into the open to examine its value and what it can tell us about the politics of contemporary planning. The articles in this Special Issue ther…
Exploring Planning as a Technology of Hope
Following Baum’s proposition that planning be understood as “the organization of hope,” there has been limited scholarly engagement with what might be involved in fostering hope through planning practices. Reflecting on three years of participatory action learning and research on a deprived housing estate in Sheffield in Northern England, we explore core challenges raised by appealing to hope as an objective of community-led planning. Overall, we…
Beyond techno-utopia and its discontents
Thinking conjuncturally about ideology, housing and English planning
This article explores the value of Stuart Hall’s approach to conjunctural analysis for examining the complex relations between ideology and planning. By ‘thinking conjuncturally’, we explore planning as a site where multiple social, economic and political forces coalesce; ideology is one of these forces whose role and influence must be tracked alongside others. To illustrate this, we draw on recent and ongoing planning reforms in England and thei…
Unsettling planning theory
Recent political developments in many parts of the world seem likely to exacerbate rather than ameliorate the planetary-scale challenges of social polarization, inequality and environmental change societies face. In this unconventional multi-authored essay, we therefore seek to explore some of the ways in which planning theory might respond to the deeply unsettling times we live in. Taking the multiple, suggestive possibilities of the theme of un…
Opening for business’? Neoliberalism and the cultural politics of modernising planning in Scotland
In this paper I explore how the culture of land-use planning in Scotland has been targeted as an object of modernising reform, exploring how ‘culture change’ initiatives played a prominent role in stabilising a new settlement around ‘open for business’ planning between 2006 and 2012, containing potential tensions between diverse goals to make planning more efficient, inclusive and integrative. This highlights the potentially significant role of g…
On Time and Planning
Planning seeks to shape sociospatial outcomes but is also, by nature, future oriented. Yet, planning theory and practice have paid relatively little attention to ongoing debates about changing social relations to time. Building on a wide range of disciplines, we review the multiple temporalities through which lives are lived, the modern imposition of clock time, postmodern acceleration phenomena in the Anthropocene, and their implications for pla…
Putting Localism in Place
Decentralization of power to local scales has been a central component of successive waves of state restructuring in recent decades, playing a key part in the reformulation of governance Discourses of 'localism' have been mobilized from across the political spectrum, promising greater economic efficiency and more effective administration. Most notably, however, they have been presented as a means of enhancing democracy -drawing a link between the…
Ordinary citizens and the political cultures of planning
What is required of the citizen to make planning more democratic? In this article, I argue this previously overlooked question illuminates key challenges for democratising planning in theory and practice. Distinguishing between deliberative and agonistic conceptions of communicative planning, I review the qualities these theories demand of citizens. Through examples from Scotland, I then contrast this with the roles citizens are currently invited…
Organising waste in the city
Waste governance is an area of public policy that is rooted in mundane and often unglamorous practices (the two bins beside my desk that were emptied for me this morning) but which opens up epochal
Culture Change as Identity Regulation
Attempts to reform planning systems often draw into question the attitudes and commitments of the planners charged with realising change. Since 2001 the English planning system has been subject to a complex series of reforms designed to modernise its workings. Central to this have been calls for a culture change, focusing on professional planners in the public sector. The discourse of culture change is rooted in the managerialist thinking that ha…
Beyond techno-utopia and its discontents
Ordinary citizens and the political cultures of planning
What is required of the citizen to make planning more democratic? In this article, I argue this previously overlooked question illuminates key challenges for democratising planning in theory and practice. Distinguishing between deliberative and agonistic conceptions of communicative planning, I review the qualities these theories demand of citizens. Through examples from Scotland, I then contrast this with the roles citizens are currently invited…
On Time and Planning
Planning seeks to shape sociospatial outcomes but is also, by nature, future oriented. Yet, planning theory and practice have paid relatively little attention to ongoing debates about changing social relations to time. Building on a wide range of disciplines, we review the multiple temporalities through which lives are lived, the modern imposition of clock time, postmodern acceleration phenomena in the Anthropocene, and their implications for pla…
Exploring desired urban futures
Amidst multiple crises and calls for transformative change, the demand to reassess human-nature relationships has increased. Rethinking the future of cities is vital in this process, yet positive urban visions prioritizing nature beyond human-centred perspectives are lacking. To address this gap, we propose a “nature-based desired futures” approach for envisaging and building collective discussion around transformative change. We explore four con…
Opening for business’? Neoliberalism and the cultural politics of modernising planning in Scotland
In this paper I explore how the culture of land-use planning in Scotland has been targeted as an object of modernising reform, exploring how ‘culture change’ initiatives played a prominent role in stabilising a new settlement around ‘open for business’ planning between 2006 and 2012, containing potential tensions between diverse goals to make planning more efficient, inclusive and integrative. This highlights the potentially significant role of g…
Supporting Nature-Based Solutions via Nature-Based Thinking across European and Latin American cities
Nature-Based Solutions concepts and practices are being used worldwide as part of attempts to address societal challenges but have also been criticised for not dealing with deeper transformations needed to face urgent issues including biodiversity loss, climate change and inclusion. In this paper, we explore how an inclusive, integrated and long-sighted approach, emphasising a more radical integration of nature within cities, might support the tr…
Thinking conjuncturally about ideology, housing and English planning
This article explores the value of Stuart Hall’s approach to conjunctural analysis for examining the complex relations between ideology and planning. By ‘thinking conjuncturally’, we explore planning as a site where multiple social, economic and political forces coalesce; ideology is one of these forces whose role and influence must be tracked alongside others. To illustrate this, we draw on recent and ongoing planning reforms in England and thei…
Narratives of power
This Special Issue starts from the premise that the concept of ideology holds significant analytical potential for planning but that this potential can only be realised if ideology is brought to the fore of analysis. By naming ideology and rendering it visible, we hope to bring it out from the shadows and into the open to examine its value and what it can tell us about the politics of contemporary planning. The articles in this Special Issue ther…
We need to put what we do in my dad’s language, in pounds, shillings and pence’
This article furthers understanding of how commercial imperatives are reshaping dominant conceptions of planning practice in England, and by extension the production of the built environment more widely. We make an original contribution by tracing the emergence of the logic of commercialisation in England, demonstrating how the impacts of austerity and ‘market-led viability planning’ have entrenched the ‘delivery state’, a powerful disciplinary m…
Unsettling planning theory
Recent political developments in many parts of the world seem likely to exacerbate rather than ameliorate the planetary-scale challenges of social polarization, inequality and environmental change societies face. In this unconventional multi-authored essay, we therefore seek to explore some of the ways in which planning theory might respond to the deeply unsettling times we live in. Taking the multiple, suggestive possibilities of the theme of un…
The object is to change the heart and soul’
In 2014 the UK government announced plans to reduce opposition to housing development by making a direct payment to households in England. 1 This was part of a wider experiment with behavioural economics and financial inducements in planning policy. In this paper, we explore this proposal, named ‘Development Benefits’, arguing it offers important insights into how the governing rationality of neoliberalism attempts to govern both planning and opp…
Community action, counter-professionals and radical planning in the UK
This paper reconsiders the roles of ‘counter-professionals’ (Goodman 1972) in urban social movements, focusing on the generation of students, activists and planners involved in the UK’s community action movement from the late-1960s. The paper therefore provides the first historical account of the ways community action stimulated the development of a distinctive counter-tradition of radical planning in the UK, inspiring experimentation with new, a…
Exploring Planning as a Technology of Hope
Following Baum’s proposition that planning be understood as “the organization of hope,” there has been limited scholarly engagement with what might be involved in fostering hope through planning practices. Reflecting on three years of participatory action learning and research on a deprived housing estate in Sheffield in Northern England, we explore core challenges raised by appealing to hope as an objective of community-led planning. Overall, we…
Culture Change as Identity Regulation
Attempts to reform planning systems often draw into question the attitudes and commitments of the planners charged with realising change. Since 2001 the English planning system has been subject to a complex series of reforms designed to modernise its workings. Central to this have been calls for a culture change, focusing on professional planners in the public sector. The discourse of culture change is rooted in the managerialist thinking that ha…
Organising waste in the city
Waste governance is an area of public policy that is rooted in mundane and often unglamorous practices (the two bins beside my desk that were emptied for me this morning) but which opens up epochal
Ordinary citizens and the political cultures of planning
What is required of the citizen to make planning more democratic? In this article, I argue this previously overlooked question illuminates key challenges for democratising planning in theory and practice. Distinguishing between deliberative and agonistic conceptions of communicative planning, I review the qualities these theories demand of citizens. Through examples from Scotland, I then contrast this with the roles citizens are currently invited…
Putting Localism in Place
Decentralization of power to local scales has been a central component of successive waves of state restructuring in recent decades, playing a key part in the reformulation of governance Discourses of 'localism' have been mobilized from across the political spectrum, promising greater economic efficiency and more effective administration. Most notably, however, they have been presented as a means of enhancing democracy -drawing a link between the…
Unsettling planning theory
Recent political developments in many parts of the world seem likely to exacerbate rather than ameliorate the planetary-scale challenges of social polarization, inequality and environmental change societies face. In this unconventional multi-authored essay, we therefore seek to explore some of the ways in which planning theory might respond to the deeply unsettling times we live in. Taking the multiple, suggestive possibilities of the theme of un…
Opening for business’? Neoliberalism and the cultural politics of modernising planning in Scotland
In this paper I explore how the culture of land-use planning in Scotland has been targeted as an object of modernising reform, exploring how ‘culture change’ initiatives played a prominent role in stabilising a new settlement around ‘open for business’ planning between 2006 and 2012, containing potential tensions between diverse goals to make planning more efficient, inclusive and integrative. This highlights the potentially significant role of g…
On Time and Planning
Planning seeks to shape sociospatial outcomes but is also, by nature, future oriented. Yet, planning theory and practice have paid relatively little attention to ongoing debates about changing social relations to time. Building on a wide range of disciplines, we review the multiple temporalities through which lives are lived, the modern imposition of clock time, postmodern acceleration phenomena in the Anthropocene, and their implications for pla…
Thinking conjuncturally about ideology, housing and English planning
This article explores the value of Stuart Hall’s approach to conjunctural analysis for examining the complex relations between ideology and planning. By ‘thinking conjuncturally’, we explore planning as a site where multiple social, economic and political forces coalesce; ideology is one of these forces whose role and influence must be tracked alongside others. To illustrate this, we draw on recent and ongoing planning reforms in England and thei…
The object is to change the heart and soul’
In 2014 the UK government announced plans to reduce opposition to housing development by making a direct payment to households in England. 1 This was part of a wider experiment with behavioural economics and financial inducements in planning policy. In this paper, we explore this proposal, named ‘Development Benefits’, arguing it offers important insights into how the governing rationality of neoliberalism attempts to govern both planning and opp…
Narratives of power
This Special Issue starts from the premise that the concept of ideology holds significant analytical potential for planning but that this potential can only be realised if ideology is brought to the fore of analysis. By naming ideology and rendering it visible, we hope to bring it out from the shadows and into the open to examine its value and what it can tell us about the politics of contemporary planning. The articles in this Special Issue ther…
Exploring Planning as a Technology of Hope
Following Baum’s proposition that planning be understood as “the organization of hope,” there has been limited scholarly engagement with what might be involved in fostering hope through planning practices. Reflecting on three years of participatory action learning and research on a deprived housing estate in Sheffield in Northern England, we explore core challenges raised by appealing to hope as an objective of community-led planning. Overall, we…
Beyond techno-utopia and its discontents
Planning for the Future
Building infrastructures for inclusive regeneration
We need to put what we do in my dad’s language, in pounds, shillings and pence’
This article furthers understanding of how commercial imperatives are reshaping dominant conceptions of planning practice in England, and by extension the production of the built environment more widely. We make an original contribution by tracing the emergence of the logic of commercialisation in England, demonstrating how the impacts of austerity and ‘market-led viability planning’ have entrenched the ‘delivery state’, a powerful disciplinary m…
An Archive of Political Possibilities
Serving the public interest? Towards a history of private sector planning expertise in England
Until recently there has been little critical consideration of the privatization of urban planning expertise. In this paper we draw on archival research in England to present an historical analysis of the role of private sector planners over the post-war period. In so doing, the paper provides one of the first considerations of changing historical perceptions of the roles of private sector professionals in the delivery of public planning, assessi…
Ideology, statecraft and the ‘double shuffle’ of Conservative planning reform in England
This article explores the political implications of conflicts over new housebuilding for Conservative-led governments in England since 2010. Revisiting debates about the tensions between neoliberal and more collectivist traditions within the political ideology of the Conservative Party, we argue that rather than blocking change this internal conflict should be seen as a dynamic part of the politics of planning. This leads us to propose that Conse…
Community action, counter-professionals and radical planning in the UK
This paper reconsiders the roles of ‘counter-professionals’ (Goodman 1972) in urban social movements, focusing on the generation of students, activists and planners involved in the UK’s community action movement from the late-1960s. The paper therefore provides the first historical account of the ways community action stimulated the development of a distinctive counter-tradition of radical planning in the UK, inspiring experimentation with new, a…
Supporting Nature-Based Solutions via Nature-Based Thinking across European and Latin American cities
Nature-Based Solutions concepts and practices are being used worldwide as part of attempts to address societal challenges but have also been criticised for not dealing with deeper transformations needed to face urgent issues including biodiversity loss, climate change and inclusion. In this paper, we explore how an inclusive, integrated and long-sighted approach, emphasising a more radical integration of nature within cities, might support the tr…
Exploring desired urban futures
Amidst multiple crises and calls for transformative change, the demand to reassess human-nature relationships has increased. Rethinking the future of cities is vital in this process, yet positive urban visions prioritizing nature beyond human-centred perspectives are lacking. To address this gap, we propose a “nature-based desired futures” approach for envisaging and building collective discussion around transformative change. We explore four con…
Troubled Times
Political science (18 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Law (15 works) · Urban Planning and Governance (15 works) · Politics (12 works) · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism (10 works) · Law (10 works) · Economics (8 works) · Political and Economic history of UK and US (8 works) · Public Administration (8 works)