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A litte story from the frontlines of day to day capitalism. Back a couple of years a Chinese lithium processing company, Ganfeng, decided to take over a London listed lithium miner, Bacanora Lithium. There was much huffing and puffing about the Heathen Chinee taking over a good and stoutly British company and so on, echoes of Yellow Peril and all that. We noted it at the time and insisted that it should be left be.The thing is the potential mine that Bacanora owned was in Mexico, the Sonora deposit.Ganfeng was left be, did take over Bacanora. Now the Mexican Government has cancelled all the mining licences at Sonora. Other than the most wonderful shrieking argument to come there's little to no value there, therefore.British shareholders, who were left be, therefore are now cashed out and paid, their money fructifying in their pockets. The Chinese have that argument to come. From the point of view of the British Government, of British politics, this is about as a good a result as it is possible to gain. This being the result of exactly the opposite of what the government was urged to do of course. The correct policy to have over stock markets is, once we've ensured the basic rule of law, leave it be. Things will sort themselves out. For markets in the ownership of assets really do work.If intervention had happened then it would be assets owned by Britons made valueless. The policy of benign intervention means it's foreigners losing their money in foreign. And really, isn't that the best possible outcome?

This article probes the Israeli 'Clearance and Construction' urban regeneration programme, which encourages apartment owners nationwide to turn their old dwellings into new tower-clusters. By comparing distinct planning communications on such projects, we aim to contribute a class-related perspective to the debate on post-politics in planning. Planning literature addresses the neutralizing effects of the neoliberal ethos on urban regeneration, highlighting the techniques through which planners dismiss community needs, use values and local voices. We respond to scholars calling for more nuanced perspectives by analysing a dataset of objection hearings in different cities, tracing how planners present their decisions and advance projects, and how different social groups accept and/or reject planners' rationale. Our findings point to two main outcomes: first, we show that most participants accept the entrepreneurial rationale but their discourse often mixes acceptance with dissent; second, we show that such mixed discourses vary across locations and reflect socio-spatial distinctions. The more affluent participants objected more and highlighted use values and the public interest, yet their discourse largely echoed planners' discourses. Conversely, the poorer objectors, who focused on exchange values, disrupted the consensual planning order by highlighting their own hopes and personal struggles. Who, then, were more submissive to neoliberal ethos? These results, we argue, call for a nuanced analysis of current planning relations. We argue that such analysis should specifically look at synchronization between consensual planning and co-optation, dissent and socio-spatial deviation.

Environmental economics involve techniques for monetary valuations of environmental resources. But environmental problems raise fundamental questions of social, political and environmental organization. This article mirrors in economics the `cross-over' of Left and Right suggested by Giddens. Positive economics leads to notions of planning, not to laissez-faire and makes evident Habermas's view of the `scientization' of politics. Positive economics contains an implicit political theory of technocracy. Economics cannot conceive of social resources, and views environmental resources as externalities. It attempts to obtain money valuations for non-traded resources. Essentially, this is a planning supplement to markets and it is unclear how both markets and planning supplement can be justified simultaneously. Environmental questions are also ethical. We act as citizens in considering them. They are less suited to markets than to a public forum which requires justification in terms of the collective welfare and involves a process of dialogue between citizens.

Mirroring the complexities of cities and neighborhoods, this volume makes a conscious departure from consensus-oriented public participation to conflict-resolving public participation. In India, planning practice generally involves citizens at different stages of plan-making with a clear purpose of securing a consensus aimed at legitimizing the policy content of a development plan. This book contests and challenges this consensus-oriented view of citizen participation in planning, arguing against the assertion that cities can be represented by a single public interest, for which consensus is sought by planners and policy makers. As such, it replaces consensus-centered rational planning models with Foucauldian and Lacanian models of planning to show that planning is riddled with a variety of spatial conflicts, most of which are resolvable. The book does not downplay differences of class and social and cultural identities of various kinds built on arbitrarily assumed public interest created erroneously by further assuming that the professionally trained planner is unbiased. It moves from theory to practice through case studies, which widens and deepens opportunities for public participation as new arenas beyond the processes of preparation of development plans are highlighted.The book also argues that spaces of public participation in planning are shrinking. For example, city development plans promoted under the erstwhile JNNUM programme and several other neoliberal policy regime initiatives have reduced the quality, as well as the extent of participatory practices in planning. The end result of this is that legally mandated participatory spaces are being used by powerful interests to pursue the neoliberal agenda.The volume is divided into three main parts. The first part deals with the theory and history of public participation and governance in