This year, 16 articles were nominated by journal editors for the AESOP Best Published Paper Award. From these, the Committee shortlisted the following four articles:
- Allmendinger, P. & Haughton, G. (2019). Opening up Planning? Planning Reform in an Era of ‘Open Government’ Planning Practice and Research 34(4) 438-453, https://doi.org/10.1080/02697459.2019.1630973
- Frediani, A.A & Cociña, C. (2019). ‘Participation as Planning’: Strategies from the South to Challenge the Limits of Planning. Built Environment 45(2) 143-161, https://doi.org/10.2148/benv.45.2.143
- Waldron, R (2019). Financialization, urban governance and the planning system: Utilizing ‘development viability’ as a policy narrative for the liberalization of Ireland’s post-crash planning system. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 43(4) 685-704, https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12789
- Zanotto, J.M. (2019). Detachment in Planning Practice. Planning Theory and Practice 20(1) 37-52, https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2018.1560491
The committee is pleased to announce that this year’s Best Published Paper Award goes to:
Richard Waldron
for his paper entitled
Financialization, urban governance and the planning system: Utilizing ‘development viability’ as a policy narrative for the liberalization of Ireland’s post-crash planning system
published in
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
Richard Waldron’s paper presents a highly detailed and insightful account of the interaction between the property development industry, the financial sector and urban planning in Ireland. It highlights how a highly organised and influential lobby exerts sustained and significant influence on planning policy-making. The Award Committee considers this paper to be a carefully-researched and well-written contribution to planning literature, providing fascinating new insights into how and why planning policy rules, practices and narratives have been subject to frequent modification over recent years. The article is distinctive in its application of the financialisation literature to the urban planning arena, an area of investigation which has not been extensively covered to date. Resting on a solid research design, the article analyses the issues of financialisation of planning policy in an extensive, compelling and accessible way. It draws insightful recommendations for both planning practice and research. In sum, Waldron’s article makes a valuable contribution to planning theory and practice. The committee is very pleased that this year’s AESOP prize for the best published paper is being awarded to an early-career scholar.
AESOP Best Published Paper Committee
Dominic Stead, Chair (Delft University of Technology, Netherlands), Lauren Andres (University College London, UK), Francesco Chiodelli (Politecnico di Torino, Italy), Anna Hersperger (Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Switzerland), Mohamed Saleh, YAN Representative (University of Groningen, Netherlands), and Mark Scott (University College Dublin, Ireland).
