Inter-organisational approaches to regional growth management

Abstract

Metropolitan regional growth managementThe management of metropolitan regions is becoming more complex. Objectives now include greater economic, social and environmental responsibility. Metropolitan planning emphasises local consultation and devolution of decision making but regions are increasingly affected by global forces. Resources are more limited but there is increased demand for their use to be effective.The purpose of this paper is to suggest potentially more effective ways of addressing issues of metropolitan planning through the insights offered by two paradigms of inter-organisational theory. It does this using an investigation of regional planning for South East Queensland, Australia. The paper starts with an overview of the area, then after identifying relevant elements of two inter-organisational paradigms revisits the case study in more detail to link concepts and practice. It concludes with suggestions for metropolitan regional planning and for inter-organisational theory.The South East Queensland contextThe core of the South East Queensland (SEQ) region is the state capital, Brisbane (Fig. 1). It is one of the fastest growing regions in the country. Most of the growth is through intra-state and inter-state migration as part of a 'sun-belt' phenomenon. With only 11.7 per cent of the national population in 1996 the region accounted for 25.3 per cent of the nation's growth over the 1991-96 period; over the same period it accounted for 77 per cent of the population growth of the state (Minnery and Barker, 1998). The population of the region was 2.2 million in 1996 and is expected to be between 3.0 and 3.3 million by the year 2011 (Regional Coordination Committee, 1998). Growth is mainly lowdensity urban sprawl across a vast area. This creates difficulties for public-sector managers in planning for infrastructure and services.Because of the peculiarities of the Australian national constitution, urban and environmental planning as well as jurisdiction over local governments are the responsibility of the six state governments rather than the national (federal) government. The structure of the various planning systems and local government's role in the systems vary from state to state. There is an interesting parallel here with the European Union (EU) which 'is not allowed to develop and implement explicit urban policies (owing to the principle of subsidiarity)' (van den Berg, Braun and van der Meer, 1997, 256).In Queensland local governments provide local infrastructure such as sewerage and water delivery systems. Town planning schemes are created and administered by local governments, although state government has the right of final approval. Major infrastructure such as water supply, main roads, hospitals and schools are provided by state government.Unlike the other Australian states, Queensland does not have a state government regional planning agency. As Abbott notes, in the pastregional planning has been a neglected area of policy in Queensland. State governments did not see a role for themselves in regional planning and Local governments viewed it with hostility and as a threat to their autonomy. (Abbott, 1995, 135; [see also Caulfield, 1992])Two limited and ultimately unsuccessful attempts at regional planning have occurred in the past. The first was part of planning for post-war development in the 1940s but led to little other than state government departments agreeing to some data collection boundaries (Minnery, 1988). The second led to the production of the Moreton Region Growth Strategy (Department of the Coordinator General, 1976) which was never implemented.With planning in the region devoid of any significant state level involvement, coordination between local authorities was at best ad hoc; at worst it was nonexistent. In this policy vacuum there were no institutional links between land use and infrastructure plans of local governments and those of the state government. …