Centre for Urban Development

and Environmental Management

Staff

Dr Neil Evans
Research Fellow
Tel: +44 (0)113 283 2600 ext. 4065
Email: n.evans@leedsmet.ac.uk

Dr Neil Evans is a Research Fellow in CUDEM. His PhD was awarded in February 2001 from the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield. Neil’s doctoral research concerned community participation in land-use planning in the Japanese inner city, and planning for reconstruction after the 1995 Hanshin (Kobe) Earthquake. This involved a fifteen-month period in 1997/98, based at the University of Kobe, conducting case study research in several districts in the Kobe area that were devastated by the earthquake.

After joining the CUDEM research team in December 2001, Neil initially worked on a UK Economic and Social Research Council-funded project entitled ‘Regionalisation and the New Politics of Waste’, concerned with how new policy agendas, institutional arrangements and political pressures are influencing strategic planning for the management of municipal solid waste across England, by tracing the level of involvement and the role of various actors and regulatory frameworks from different spatial scales in the development and implementation of sub-national waste management strategies (December 2001 – October 2004).

Neil has since been working on two other major European-funded projects. The first is ‘geoland’: an Integrated Project within the European Commission`s Sixth Framework Programme (FP-6), Priority AERO-2.2 - Aeronautics and Space (January 2004 – December 2006). CUDEM is working within the Spatial Planning Observatory, one of 6 observatories within geoland, that aims to introduce innovative Earth Observation (EO) derived and GIS based information products to spatial planning procedures and methods at European, national and regional level. The Observatory aims to build on and exploit existing EO projects and to complement the European Spatial Planning Observation Network (ESPON), while making reference to the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) framework.

The second project is ESPON 2.3.2 Governance of Territorial and Urban Policies from EU to Local Level (September 2004 – November 2006). This is one of several ESPON projects that CUDEM is currently engaged on. The project is concerned with the growing interest in the concept of governance, particularly within the EU and its institutions. It is studying the practice of ‘territorial governance’ in relation to spatial development, informed by a general hypothesis that good governance practices should improve the overarching EU objective of ‘territorial cohesion’.

During 2006, Neil was also part of the CUDEM team that produced work for the North West Europe Interreg IIIB Programme Secretariat as part of the process of developing the current North West Europe Spatial Vision into a ‘Programme for Action’. He also worked on a study for the Countryside Agency – ‘Countryside in and around towns – green infrastructure in Yorkshire & Humber’. This study was concerned with new ways of thinking about the networks of green spaces and corridors that surround and link into towns and cities, and in particular their multifunctionality.

Neil organises and chairs the CUDEM Research Seminar series - www.leedsmet.ac.uk/as/cudem/news.htm

Publications

Evans, N. (2001) ‘Discourses of urban community and community planning - a comparison between Britain and Japan’, ShOP (Sheffield Online Papers in Social Research) No.3 (April), Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield.

Evans, N. (2002) ‘Community participation in urban regeneration in the UK and Japan’, in Anglo-Japanese Academy Proceedings: Anglo-Japanese Academy for Young Social Scientists 2001, International Center for Comparative Law and Politics, University of Tokyo, pp. 359-374.

Evans, N. (2002) ‘Machi-zukuri as a new paradigm in Japanese urban planning – reality or myth?’, Japan Forum 14(3): 443-464.

Davoudi, S. and Evans, N. (2002) ‘Regions and the institutional arrangements for strategic waste planning’, The Yorkshire and Humber Regional Review 12(3): 22-24.

Davoudi, S. and Evans, N. (2003) ‘Strategic planning for waste management and the role of Regional Technical Advisory Bodies’, Town and Country Planning 72(2): 49-52.

Davoudi, S. and Evans, N. (2003) ‘Divisions that hinder waste management’, Planning 1 August: 14.

Davoudi, S. and Evans, N. (2004) ‘Waste planning: a regional picture’, Regions No.253: 4-8.

Davoudi, S., Evans, N. and Smith, A. (2004) ‘A review of the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Waste Strategy’, The Yorkshire and Humber Regional Review, 14(2): 10-12.

Davoudi, S. and Evans, N. (2005) ‘The challenge of governance in regional waste planning’, Environment and Planning C 23: 493-517.

Davoudi, S., Evans, N. and Smith, A. (2005) Regionalisation and the New Politics of Waste: A National Overview, CUDEM: Leeds.

Evans, N. (2005) ‘Geoland Project: using satellite-derived data in spatial planning’, Research Report, Planning, Practice & Research 20(3): 353-354.

Conference Papers

Evans, N. (2001) ‘Community Involvement in urban regeneration in Japan’, Planning Research Conference, 9-11 April, Liverpool.

Evans, N. (2001) ‘Machi-zukuri – neighbourhood planning by the community or for the community?’, Nissan Seminar Series, May, Oxford.

Evans, N. (2001) ‘Community Participation in Urban Regeneration in the UK and Japan’, Anglo-Japanese Academy Workshop for Young Social Scientists, 4-6 September, Sheffield.

Evans, N. (2002) ‘Regional waste planning’, RTPI Yorkshire Conference Series, Resource Management, 11 September, Northallerton.

Evans, N. (2003) ‘The Development of New Forms of Regional Governance in Strategic Waste Planning’, Regional Studies Association International Conference, 12-15 April, Pisa, Italy.

Davoudi, S. and Evans, N. (2004) ‘The challenge of governance in regional waste planning’, ESRC Urban and Regional Economics Group Seminar, 6-8 January, Edinburgh.

Davoudi, S. and Evans, N. (2005) ‘The role of the region in planning for waste management’, Planning Research Conference, 3-5 April, Manchester.

Davoudi, S., Evans, N. and Smith, A. (2005) ‘Scalar tensions in the governance of strategic waste planning’, RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, 31 August – 2 September 2005, London.