Smart Growth and the Scalar Politics of Land Management in the Greater Boston Region, Usa

Bibliographic Data

ID4142121
AuthorsStephen M Mccauley (George Perkins Marsh Institute, Clark University, 950 Main Street, Worcester, MA 01610, USA), Stephen Mccauley (Clark University, corresponding author), James T Murphy (0000-0002-0502-5771, Clark University, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume45
Issue12
Pages2852-2867
Publication date2013-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning A Economy and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0308-518X • E-ISSN: 1472-3409
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1068/a45307
OpenAlexW2104242854
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited42

Recent decades have witnessed a significant transformation in strategies of urban environmental governance as authority has shifted from statist command-and-control systems to more horizontal, networked forms of governance-beyond-the-state. In the USA the changing nature of state authority over urban-regional planning processes has been particularly dramatic in metropolitan regions promoting 'smart-growth' agendas. Smart-growth strategies address regional planning and land-development concerns through market-based incentive programs aimed at increasing development densities and coordinating other land-management priorities. This paper explores the scalar politics through which smart-growth policies in the Greater Boston region of Massachusetts (USA) are being constructed and contested. In this region the state of Massachusetts has used incentive programs, new forms of regulation, and public-private coalitions to implement a smart-growth agenda that seeks to ameliorate the region's housing crisis and sustain its pool of knowledge-economy workers, but these programs also challenge the traditional authority of local communities in governing land-use decisions. Crucial to this assertion of land-management authority at the state scale has been the legacies of past forms of authority and land management, the ability of the state to exploit the positionalities of key actors associated with the smart-growth agenda, and the role of crises (in housing, congestion) in making increased state control more palatable

Business · Corporate governance · Economics · Geography · Growth management · Incentive · Land use · Mandate · Market economy · Metropolitan area · Political science · Politics · Smart growth · Engineering · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Public Administration · Urban Planning and Governance · Urbanization and City Planning · Finance

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