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This thesis examines the application of spatial planning in the Auckland region, New Zealand. Auckland is New Zealand’s largest city‐region comprising over one third of the total national population and contributes an even greater proportion of GDP. On November 1, 2010, central government initiated wholesale governance reform in the region establishing a single unitary authority, a ‘super‐city’, with a mandate to undertake spatial planning in the hope that this would resolve many longstanding governance failures. Previously, central government had instigated a number of piecemeal neoliberal interventions in the region seeking a ‘joined‐up’ governance approach to resolve the ad‐hoc planning and decision‐making which was occurring affecting the regions development. By the second half of the 2000s, buoyed primarily by rising local dissent, central government had become frustrated with the negligible improvement these approaches were making to the governance and planning arrangements in Auckland. By this time it was widely reported that the region’s population was forecast to increase by an extra one million people in the following 30 years. Reform and the introduction of spatial planning ensued. The research uses a qualitative grounded theory methodology to examine the case of spatial planning under the new Auckland ‘super‐city’. The data were drawn from 66 indepth interviews with key stakeholders and experts involved with governance and planning in the region. The interpretive approach taken allowed for rich insights to be gleaned from a new and un‐researched case of spatial planning and governance reform. It was found that the inception of spatial planning coupled with institutional restructuring signified a remarkable neoliberal spatial governance experiment in New Zealand for only the second time in history. Underpinning this neoliberal experiment, a re‐territorialisation was occurring. It was an attempt to reconceptualise the role of government and state‐market relations in the region to bring about a new way of working. However, the process and outcome was and continues to be beset by contradictions, tensions, and conflict. As a result, spatial planning and the new institutional frameworks are unlikely to be as successful as first envisaged by their proponents. Unless the actors involved recognise the deficiencies and accept further change is required then the neoliberal project, with spatial planning at its core, will remain a job ‘half‐done’. Keywords: spatial planning, growth management, economic development, neoliberal spatial governance, regionalism, Auckland, New Zealand, grounded theory method. |
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