Dear All,

 

Please see the Call for Papers from the Regional Studies Association,
whose winter conference this year is highly relevant to UTSG members.

 

Hope to see some of you there.

 

With best wishes,

 

Jon.

 

 

 

Regional Studies Association Winter Conference

TRANSPORT, MOBILITY AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

 

Friday 23rd November 2007

 

London Voluntary Sector Resource Centre,

356 Holloway Road, London, N7 6PA

 

 

Transport is becoming increasingly important in creating cohesive,
functioning regions. With the regional policy agenda's concern with the
cross-cutting themes of regional competitiveness; social inclusion and
environmental sustainability, developing innovative strategies that will
enhance transport efficiency and social mobility are of paramount
importance. Against the backdrop of an integrated world economy,
developing effective transport infrastructure is the key to connecting
regions to broader economic, social and political networks. At the same
time, with climate change rising up the political agenda, the need to
develop sustainable transport policies that can contribute to reducing
pollution and CO2 emissions is posing important dilemmas for regional
actors. 

 

Transport policies also have the potential to contribute, both
positively and negatively, to ongoing problems of uneven development and
spatial disparities between regions. Competition between cities and
regions within national political spaces for valuable transport
investment is intensifying, with outcomes reflecting differential power
relations operating across and between political scales. For rapidly
growing regions, problems of congestion and other spatial constraints to
growth necessitate new transport solutions, alongside other policy
initiatives (e.g. housing; property development) in connecting
populations to jobs. Growing travel to work distances in many booming
cities reflect problems of affordability in the context of rising
housing prices and a shortage of public housing. Demands for new
transport infrastructures that can also deliver on sustainability goals
are consequently growing. 

 

Economically lagging and peripheral regions face different, yet still
critical, issues around transport policy. In particular, the problems of
spatial connectivity are paramount. Growing competition between more
peripheral regions to become hubs within broader European and global
economic networks is leading to new transport initiatives around air,
rail and road infrastructures. Issues of affordability, spatial
effectiveness and opportunity cost inevitably arise from market-based
approaches, prompting questions about the need for more integrated and
planned initiatives at national and European levels. 

 

Transport issues therefore pose governance dilemmas - for new sets of
relations between regional, national and international scales in
creating integrated transport networks that allow more efficient
economic and social interaction, yet also contribute to combating
climate change. 

 

 


Papers are invited on the following themes:


 

*                     Regional development and trans-national transport
networks

*                     Transport issues and policy in dynamic regions

*                     Connecting peripheral regions

*                     Transport and regional sustainability

*                     Personal mobility and transport policy

*                     The role of transport in contemporary regional
policy

*                     Transport planning and multi-scalar governance 

*                     Mobility and regional labour markets

 

Please submit offers of papers in the form of 400 word abstracts through
the Regional Studies Association on-line conference portal by Friday 6th
July 2007. Your MS Word file should contain your name, telephone, fax
and e-mail details. To submit go to www.regional-studies-assoc.ac.uk
<http://www.regional-studies-assoc.ac.uk/>  and follow the Winter
Conference Call for Papers link.

 

Proposals will be considered by the Conference Programme Committee
against the criteria of originality and interest, subject balance and
geographical spread.

 

Lisa Bibby Larsen, Regional Studies Association, PO Box 2058, Seaford
BN25 4QU, United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0) 1323 899 698, Fax: +44 (0) 1323 899 798, E-mail:
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