The embedded developer: using project ecologies to analyse local property development networks

摘要

Institutional approaches to planning and development portray planners as members of networks of actors that constitute local property markets. Their market position affords planners the potential proactively to mould the capabilities of local development milieus. Theoretical frameworks have been developed to deal with the complexity of local development sectors. However, they lack sufficient detail to support in-depth research and analysis on a consistent basis or to allow close comparison of cases. A theoretical framework - project ecologies - is proposed to address this problem. It is consistent with extant institutional perspectives and can accommodate the heterogeneity of developers and development. It is applied to a detailed case study of an urban regeneration project. The paper considers the efficacy of the theoretical framework and the scope that it reveals for planners to influence developers' activities in their locales.