Planning at the neighbourhood scale: localism, dialogic politics, and the modulation of community action

Abstract

This paper builds upon literature examining the foreclosing of community interventions to show how a resident-led anti-road-noise campaign in South East England has been framed, managed, and modulated by authorities. We situate the case within wider debates considering dialogical politics. For advocates, this offers the potential for empowerment through nontraditional forums. Others view such trends, most recently expressed as part of the localism agenda, with suspicion. The paper brings together these literatures to analyse the points at which modulation occurs in the community planning process. We describe the types of countertactics residents deployed to deflect the modulation of their demands, and the events that led to the outcome. We find that community planning offers a space—albeit one that is tightly circumscribed—within which (select) groups can effect change. The paper argues that the detail of neighbourhood-scale actions warrant further attention, especially as governmental enthusiasm for dialogical modes of politics shows no sign of abating.