Introduction

Chapter Six discussed the evolution of the new regionalism within spatial policy and the ways in which successive administrations have put greater emphasis on policy-makers, communities, and individuals to take greater responsibility for their own well-being. Within this context there has been a growing emphasis on the role that spatial planning can play in delivering the new agendas and how economic and social spaces can be made more balanced and ordered to support wider policy objectives. Since the early 2000s these priorities have been encapsulated in the emergence of sustainable community planning that seeks to create new places in which:

This chapter examines the form and character of this shift to sustainable community-building through an assessment of the relationships between employment, labour market-building, and (sustainable) spatial communities. It assesses the differences between these policy agendas and those of the post-war period outlined in Chapters Three and Four, and documents the ways in which the sustainable community has become the primary policy vehicle in and through which its wider agendas will be delivered and implemented. It argues that the new agendas are premised on particular conceptions of (im)mobility and the relationships between place, employment, and community-building. In contrast to earlier rounds of spatial policy, the role of the state is relegated to that of an enabler, or in Schuppert's (2005) terms an ‘insurer’, that guides market processes in ways that fulfil wider policy agendas. State power is not to be used directly to create sustainable communities but will instead create the conditions and contexts in which sustainable communities are constructed and developed. The chapter begins by discussing the emergence of the discourse of sustainability and the rise of the sustainable community before turning to contemporary debates over key worker (KW) programmes. It uses these to provide insights into wider questions of labour market-building, citizenship, and state capacities.