Ruth Potts
Biographic Data
| ID | 3720207 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ruth Potts |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ruth |
| FAMILY NAME | Potts |
| SIGNATURE | POTTS R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Cardiff University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8681-4309 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 11 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 18 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Are planners ready for a digital transformation? An exploration of digital planning tools and urban planners’ confidence using ICTs
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) present planning professionals with increasing capacity to communicate, analyse, and collaborate. Although there is a plethora of ICTs available to planners, the planning literature has repeatedly asserted that planners are slow to adopt new ICTs. Despite this, little is known about planners’ actual usage of ICTs in practice, perceptions of ICTs, and confidence using different practice-relevant IC…
Professional planners’ preparedness for digital transformation
COVID-19 lockdowns led to significant shifts in how professional planners operate. The introduction of advanced digital technologies enabled home working and virtual planning processes. An important line of academic inquiry concerns planners’ preparedness in adopting and adapting to digital transformation. Focusing on Northern Ireland, we offer a nuanced analysis of planners’ experiences of digital technologies by drilling into the demographics a…
A culture of digital planning? An international comparison of culture, planning and technology
Urban planning has become an increasingly digital practice in the last three decades and was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Discussions around the digitization of planning processes have focused on the platforms planners use, and the barriers to their use. Such literature does not adequately explain the variability in the use of planning-specific technologies among planning authorities with the same resources and time. We explore the degre…
Inimby? The potential of automated social media bots to create echo chambers in the online participatory planning discourse
Online participatory planning processes are cheaper, easier, and may reach a broader audience than in-person techniques. However, they are also vulnerable to disruption from automated social bots. This research introduces a bespoke planning-oriented social bot, Urbanist Uma, to explore if and how social bots contribute to echo chambers that may influence planning processes. After four years on Twitter, Urbanist Uma had almost 250 followers and he…
UK-Ireland Planning Research Conference, 4–6 September 2023
This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0
Automatic for the people? Problematising the potential of digital planning
This article contributes to the small but growing corpus of literature which analyses the increasing use of digital technologies as part of spatial planning activities. Much of that existing literature focuses on the opportunities such technology brings or explores the use of specific technology. Instead, the article seeks to problematise digital planning, explicitly questioning some of the optimistic claims made on its behalf. To do so, it makes…
The online conversion framework
Digital technology is reshaping participatory planning, including conflict and antagonism in the planning process. Yet planning theory has largely failed to engage with emerging digital mechanisms that could stimulate antagonism in online environments. This paper seeks to explore different ways of framing conflict and antagonism in planning and the degree to which they reflect an increasingly digital approach to public participation. We introduce…
The role of bots in U.S. Real estate development online communication
Age-Unfriendly by Design
Problem, research strategy, and findings The world’s population is aging at a rapid rate, yet many local built and social environments are not well suited to support older adults. Australia exemplifies the demographic–environmental disconnect because it is one of the world’s most suburban nations and has one of the proportionally largest baby boom generations. In this research we examined the relationship between built and social environments wit…
Digital planning practices
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have become an integral component of urban planning practice in the last 30 years. The applications, utility and fit of specific technologies within planning practice have been widely discussed, however the use of ICTs by planning practitioners beyond individual case studies is unknown. This paper explores the results of an online survey of Australian and UK planners and comparatively benchmarks t…
Barriers to employing e-participation in the Iranian planning system
Emerging anti-poverty infrastructural gaps in suburbia
Suburbs are subject to numerous stereotypes, including that they lack density, diversity and inclusivity. While these stereotypes have largely been dispelled, the deficit around anti-poverty infrastructure remains understudied. The focus of this paper is to systematically investigate the ostensible mismatch between (a) the emerging suburbanization of poverty, and (b) the potential lack of anti-poverty infrastructure to serve it, with a focus on s…
Is a New ‘Planning 3.0’ Paradigm Emerging? Exploring the Relationship between Digital Technologies and Planning Theory and Practice
In recent decades cities and urban planning have become increasingly digitised, complex and data rich. Despite this, the planning theory literature has largely ignored the role and impact of information and communication technologies in shaping planning’s ontologies, epistemologies, and methodologies. This article explores empirical studies and three major planning paradigms, to explore the changing role and influence of information and communica…
Environmental Sustainability
For a generation, governments around the world have been committed to sustainable development as a policy goal. This has been supported by an array of new policies ranging from international agreements, to national strategies, environmental laws at many levels of government, regional programs, and local plans. Despite these efforts, decades of scientific monitoring indicate that the world is no closer to environmental sustainability and in many r…
Evaluating Governance Arrangements and Decision Making for Natural Resource Management Planning
Governance continues to be a challenge in the management and conservation of natural resources. It is difficult to strategically address governance challenges without understanding the dynamics, capacities, and knowledge application of institutions within such governance systems. This article examines the use of Governance Systems Analysis (GSA) to compare, evaluate, and benchmark governance arrangements for regional natural resource management (…
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-su…
Exploring the usefulness of structural–functional approaches to analyse governance of planning systems
Existing planning theories tend to be limited in their analytical scope and often fail to account for the impact of many interactions between the multitudes of stakeholders involved in strategic planning processes. Although many theorists rejected structural–functional approaches from the 1970s, this article argues that many of structural–functional concepts remain relevant and useful to planning practitioners. In fact, structural–functional appr…
A method for risk analysis across governance systems
Healthy governance systems are key to delivering sound environmental management outcomes from global to local scales. There are, however, surprisingly few risk assessment methods that can pinpoint those domains and sub-domains within governance systems that are most likely to influence good environmental outcomes at any particular scale, or those if absent or dysfunctional, most likely to prevent effective environmental management. This paper pro…
Barriers to employing e-participation in the Iranian planning system
Evaluating Governance Arrangements and Decision Making for Natural Resource Management Planning
Governance continues to be a challenge in the management and conservation of natural resources. It is difficult to strategically address governance challenges without understanding the dynamics, capacities, and knowledge application of institutions within such governance systems. This article examines the use of Governance Systems Analysis (GSA) to compare, evaluate, and benchmark governance arrangements for regional natural resource management (…
Exploring the usefulness of structural–functional approaches to analyse governance of planning systems
Existing planning theories tend to be limited in their analytical scope and often fail to account for the impact of many interactions between the multitudes of stakeholders involved in strategic planning processes. Although many theorists rejected structural–functional approaches from the 1970s, this article argues that many of structural–functional concepts remain relevant and useful to planning practitioners. In fact, structural–functional appr…
Automatic for the people? Problematising the potential of digital planning
This article contributes to the small but growing corpus of literature which analyses the increasing use of digital technologies as part of spatial planning activities. Much of that existing literature focuses on the opportunities such technology brings or explores the use of specific technology. Instead, the article seeks to problematise digital planning, explicitly questioning some of the optimistic claims made on its behalf. To do so, it makes…
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-su…
A method for risk analysis across governance systems
Healthy governance systems are key to delivering sound environmental management outcomes from global to local scales. There are, however, surprisingly few risk assessment methods that can pinpoint those domains and sub-domains within governance systems that are most likely to influence good environmental outcomes at any particular scale, or those if absent or dysfunctional, most likely to prevent effective environmental management. This paper pro…
Exploring the usefulness of structural–functional approaches to analyse governance of planning systems
Existing planning theories tend to be limited in their analytical scope and often fail to account for the impact of many interactions between the multitudes of stakeholders involved in strategic planning processes. Although many theorists rejected structural–functional approaches from the 1970s, this article argues that many of structural–functional concepts remain relevant and useful to planning practitioners. In fact, structural–functional appr…
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-su…
Evaluating Governance Arrangements and Decision Making for Natural Resource Management Planning
Governance continues to be a challenge in the management and conservation of natural resources. It is difficult to strategically address governance challenges without understanding the dynamics, capacities, and knowledge application of institutions within such governance systems. This article examines the use of Governance Systems Analysis (GSA) to compare, evaluate, and benchmark governance arrangements for regional natural resource management (…
Environmental Sustainability
For a generation, governments around the world have been committed to sustainable development as a policy goal. This has been supported by an array of new policies ranging from international agreements, to national strategies, environmental laws at many levels of government, regional programs, and local plans. Despite these efforts, decades of scientific monitoring indicate that the world is no closer to environmental sustainability and in many r…
Is a New ‘Planning 3.0’ Paradigm Emerging? Exploring the Relationship between Digital Technologies and Planning Theory and Practice
In recent decades cities and urban planning have become increasingly digitised, complex and data rich. Despite this, the planning theory literature has largely ignored the role and impact of information and communication technologies in shaping planning’s ontologies, epistemologies, and methodologies. This article explores empirical studies and three major planning paradigms, to explore the changing role and influence of information and communica…
Barriers to employing e-participation in the Iranian planning system
Emerging anti-poverty infrastructural gaps in suburbia
Suburbs are subject to numerous stereotypes, including that they lack density, diversity and inclusivity. While these stereotypes have largely been dispelled, the deficit around anti-poverty infrastructure remains understudied. The focus of this paper is to systematically investigate the ostensible mismatch between (a) the emerging suburbanization of poverty, and (b) the potential lack of anti-poverty infrastructure to serve it, with a focus on s…
The role of bots in U.S. Real estate development online communication
Age-Unfriendly by Design
Problem, research strategy, and findings The world’s population is aging at a rapid rate, yet many local built and social environments are not well suited to support older adults. Australia exemplifies the demographic–environmental disconnect because it is one of the world’s most suburban nations and has one of the proportionally largest baby boom generations. In this research we examined the relationship between built and social environments wit…
Digital planning practices
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have become an integral component of urban planning practice in the last 30 years. The applications, utility and fit of specific technologies within planning practice have been widely discussed, however the use of ICTs by planning practitioners beyond individual case studies is unknown. This paper explores the results of an online survey of Australian and UK planners and comparatively benchmarks t…
A culture of digital planning? An international comparison of culture, planning and technology
Urban planning has become an increasingly digital practice in the last three decades and was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Discussions around the digitization of planning processes have focused on the platforms planners use, and the barriers to their use. Such literature does not adequately explain the variability in the use of planning-specific technologies among planning authorities with the same resources and time. We explore the degre…
Inimby? The potential of automated social media bots to create echo chambers in the online participatory planning discourse
Online participatory planning processes are cheaper, easier, and may reach a broader audience than in-person techniques. However, they are also vulnerable to disruption from automated social bots. This research introduces a bespoke planning-oriented social bot, Urbanist Uma, to explore if and how social bots contribute to echo chambers that may influence planning processes. After four years on Twitter, Urbanist Uma had almost 250 followers and he…
UK-Ireland Planning Research Conference, 4–6 September 2023
This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0
Automatic for the people? Problematising the potential of digital planning
This article contributes to the small but growing corpus of literature which analyses the increasing use of digital technologies as part of spatial planning activities. Much of that existing literature focuses on the opportunities such technology brings or explores the use of specific technology. Instead, the article seeks to problematise digital planning, explicitly questioning some of the optimistic claims made on its behalf. To do so, it makes…
The online conversion framework
Digital technology is reshaping participatory planning, including conflict and antagonism in the planning process. Yet planning theory has largely failed to engage with emerging digital mechanisms that could stimulate antagonism in online environments. This paper seeks to explore different ways of framing conflict and antagonism in planning and the degree to which they reflect an increasingly digital approach to public participation. We introduce…
Are planners ready for a digital transformation? An exploration of digital planning tools and urban planners’ confidence using ICTs
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) present planning professionals with increasing capacity to communicate, analyse, and collaborate. Although there is a plethora of ICTs available to planners, the planning literature has repeatedly asserted that planners are slow to adopt new ICTs. Despite this, little is known about planners’ actual usage of ICTs in practice, perceptions of ICTs, and confidence using different practice-relevant IC…
Professional planners’ preparedness for digital transformation
COVID-19 lockdowns led to significant shifts in how professional planners operate. The introduction of advanced digital technologies enabled home working and virtual planning processes. An important line of academic inquiry concerns planners’ preparedness in adopting and adapting to digital transformation. Focusing on Northern Ireland, we offer a nuanced analysis of planners’ experiences of digital technologies by drilling into the demographics a…
Political science (13 works) · Business (12 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Geography (9 works) · Smart Cities and Technologies (9 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Environmental planning (8 works) · Economics (7 works) · Engineering (7 works) · Knowledge management (7 works)