Green Inc

Book reviews in that potential migrants tend to be directed to areas where more new housing is being built. These in turn tend to be areas where land is being released for housing by the planning system. The model predicts that for every 10 extra private completions, nearly 5 extra net migrants are attracted.

Angela Hull Department of Town and Country Planning, University of Newcastle, UK

City As Landscape: A Post-Post Modern View of Design and Planning Tom Turner

Chapman & Hall London paperback £22.50 The quality of the environments we produce is at the forefront of a government inspired debate. The spectrum from these 'quality initiatives' via lottery projects to the lack of civic designers in local government, revived interest in new settlements, and debate about which profession should be in the lead, indicates the importance and relevance of this subject. As my successor at the Scottish Office has said "Urban design principles are being resurrected, but we have learnt through bitter experience that quality is not just in the eye of the beholder but also is in the experience of the user". This is therefore a timely book and it may be important that title and subtitle do not mislead. The author suggests that, considering the etymological origin of the word, it is reasonable to use 'Landscape' to mean a particular (users?) view of the world. 'Post-post modern' he uses only for want of better name, admitting later on that since it is a preposterous term we must hope for something better.., the Age of Synthesis being a possibility. Tom Turner teaches at the University of Greenwich and saw himself first as town planner, then as landscape designer followed by an urban and landscape planner; ending up by seeing it as folly to conduct design without planning or planning without design. From this experience arises his emphasis on taking a 'layered approach' to

the 20 essays which are grouped into six themes or layers. The first deals with theories and starts by observing that as direct consequence of pluralism the modern city street resembles an out of step chorus line "if anything goes then nothing goes"; but notes that (as a sign of postpost modernism) the built environment professions are beginning to seek to temper reason with faith: the deep faith of Alexander's pattern language. The subsequent essays in this group expand on this theme, from design before there were drawings (the cart wheel and mediaeval buildings) via a discussion of design methods and why a city is not a tree, to conclusions about the design sequence, starting at different points and proceeding by different routes. The foundation is thus well laid for the subsequent layers which deal more specifically with planning, urbanism, landscape design, open space planning and finally gardens. The result is a challenging mixture of design theory, philosophy of place, and practical advice, illustrated by a wide range of examples stretching from London's greenway concept, via the Parc de la Villette to the author's own garden. This is then a challenging book; readers from many different background will find stimulation even when disagreeing. For example one undeveloped issue is the distinction between adjusting what is there (the landscape), as against building from scratch (architecture). This is an important distinction when considering what design skills or training are most appropriate to city adjustment by design. Another example is the suggestion that 'survey: analysis: plan' can be replaced by 'vision: idea: design: analysis: survey'. This springs from the 'layered' approach in which ye old sieve analysis can be enriched by GIS and the compact disc record or plan of the layer. Hence it is claimed that "planning-bylayers may turn out to be the greatest invention since design by drawing".

Derek Lyddon 31 Blackford Road Edinburgh EH9 2DT, UK

Green Ine Frances Cairncross

Earthscan London paperback £10.95

(1995)

277pp

Frances Cairncross is, above all, an economist. It seems proper that after years working for The Guardian (as Economics Editor and then Women's Page Editor), she moved to The Economist. From 1989 to 1994 she was their Environment Editor. She had already written a widely praised account of the role of economics in the environment debate, Costing the Earth, in 1991. Green, Inc. sums up her experience of those 5 years as Environment Editor, using much of the material which appeared in special supplements. In some ways it is an odd book. With Earthscan as the publisher, and Jonathon Porritt praising the book on the cover, one might expect a strong green statement, clear of The Economist's normal stance. This does not materialise. What results is a fine and rather uncertain line between the net-liberal economics one would expect from an Economist writer, and a view that "government will need to step in" (p viii). The latter view is argued simply from 'common sense' and with varying conviction, whilst the importance of mainstream economic wisdom is asserted repeatedly, from the weight of a lifetime's professional work. There seems to be little awareness that this fine line is not so self-evidently defensible as Cairncross appears to imagine, or that it is the subject of a whole literature and debate, both within economics and within the wider social sciences - especially political science and sociology. To myself the advocacy of the role of government is welcome (this was in any case stressed much more in Costing the Earth), but the insistent emphasis on economics' centrality effectively works against this advocacy. Cairncross's introduction admits that her helpers have been primarily (environmental) economists, and the book is full of a simple opposition between 'economists' and 'environmentalists', as if these were the only kinds of approach to our current dilemmas, and as if they were unified in themselves. These are very few ref-

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Book reviews

erences to the views of economists outside the neoclassical mainstream, or to the views of environmentalists with whom she does not agree. This matters little to those of use who are familiar with the positions she is attacking, but to a student using this as a first approach to the subject, it would leave a peculiar sensation of an invisible opposition. This black and white division of the intellectual world can get tiresome, with economists always implicitly praised and the rest of the world (environmentalists, politicians, voters, even at one point "feminists", p 99) castigated for not having the "rational" approach to decision making owned by economists. She clearly dislikes the "horde" of NGOs with their "bullying" (pp 240-241); no talk of hordes of corporations or their bullying. A typical comment is in the chapter on waste management, where she complains of governments showing "a flagrant disregard for sensible economics, let alone common sense" (p 149). Deep down (or not so deep down) this is a kind of mandarin or Fabian elite view of the world, which believes that it has a holy grail (here, neoclassical economics, backed by a particularly British idea of 'common sense') to solve a large part of the world's problems. After the end of Cairncross's tenure as Environment Editor, The Economist's reaction to the Brent Spar episode was typical: "a defeat for rational: decision making... the wrong decisions on the basis of kneejerk populism combined, as ever, with the best of intentions" (24/6/95, pp 110 and 16). This is a deeply problematic view of the world, which the complexities of contemporary living are weakening each year (the "rationality" of roadbuilding, of sciefitists' advice on BSE and so much else). It is a view that is not able to engage with debates about democracy and participation; I am thinking of the work of Patsy Healy in urban planning and of discussions on citizen science (for example, Alan Irwin), or, at a different scale, of David Held's work on Democracy and the Global Order (Polity, 1995). Nor is it able to communicate with cultural or social understandings of global change, exemplified in the writing of Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens, and in the British environ-

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mental debate in the work of Lancaster's Centre for the Study of Environmental Change. Perhaps it is this over simple 'common sense' conceptualisation of the world that prevents, in my view, the achievement of Cairncross's proclaimed primary aim, to explain how economic growth can be combined with environmental protection. Other recent treatments of this issue, for example by Paul Ekins and Michael Jacobs, ~ by Michael Jacobs, 2 or from a different perspective, in essays by Martin O'Connor,3 at least take the debate forward. Cairncross simply asserts that the two must be compatible, as there is no chance that growth, in the poor world especially, can be stopped, nor should it be. Whilst this is a perfectly acceptable opinion, it does not carry forward the argument. The above books, and many others, are at least more open about the real power structures in the world. From Cairncross one would never realise the systematic 'distortion' of the neoclassical economists' image of the world by the existence of transational companies (these hardly get a mention), nor would one be aware of many facets of the deep seated conflicts which exist inside and between countries, which are only disguised by statements like "the world has only so much wealth to devote to solving environmental problems" (p 123). The fact that the carbon tax proposed by the EU was stopped by large companies' lobbying does not seem to enter into her picture of a rational economic process - - and is therefore not mentioned. This then unfortunately leaves her clear and effective argument for a carbon tax stranded amidst some unnamed (?governments, ?voters) villains. All this is a pity, as the book has its strengths. It is an exceptionally easy read, with an enviable style, and an ability to cut through arguments with a few well chosen phrases and illuminating examples. If one were to ask the (perhaps to some fairer) question. "what value does this kind of economic approach add to consideration of environmental issues?", the answer is: it depends on the section of the book. The chapters on environmental valuation, and on regulation/taxes and permits/subsidies, are clear, if partial, presentations, as are those in the "poli-

cies in action" section, on energy, waste and wildlife. Those with varying kinds of stronger green convictions may or may not like the conclusions (advising broadly and evidently reluctantly against nuclear power development, favouring the use of the seas for dumping wastes, advocating waste incineration, without reference to the now almost worldwide doubts about this technology, and so on); but this economist's point of view is given. Costing the Earth had more extended discussions of some of these issues, and I would recommend a return to that book, to get the full Cairncross treatment. In most other chapters the discussion is as sharp and easily readable as ever, but the argument comes essentially from a general knowledge of the issue under discussion, not particularly from an economist's special viewpoint. This allows some freer and more interesting discussions, for example in the chapter which takes issue with the view that businesses will be more profitable if they are more environmentally conscious; Cairncross rightly criticises this (extremely common) opinion, for implying that the adjustments required will be easier than they really will be. In these chapters then one gets essentially a stated political position - - in favour of free trade (mostly) in the chapter on trade, in favour of the IMF/World Bank structural adjustment programmes (mostly) in the discussion of aid, and seeing legal measures as compatible partners for the economic view presented here. These are interesting commentaries, but they are those of an informed observer rather than of one especially expert; and they still operate with an underlying sense that the 'rational' position of the economist gives some favoured viewpoint. In conclusion, I would only recommend the use of this book in teaching when accompanied by a clear health warning, and balanced by the use of other approaches. On that basis it provides good material for debate, and with its tremendous advantage of readability, it is likely to prove popular with students who do not want to go into more academic and demanding texts. For the general reader, the same applies, but with the caveat that this kind of simple 'free trade economics'

Book reviews is not likely to be the theoretical key we need, to open pathways for transforming the production and consumption of coming generations.

Tim Marshall Lecturer, School of Planning Oxford Brookes University Oxford OX3 0BP, UK

References 'Environmental sustainability and the growth of GDP: conditions for compatibility' in V Bhaskar and A Glyn (eds) (1995) The North, the South and the Environment, Earthscan, London. Michael Jacobs, 'For real world' (1996) The Politics of the Real World, Earthscan, London. His essays in M O'Connor (ed) (1994) Is Capitalism Sustainable?, Guilford, New York.

The Determinants of Small Firm Growth: An Interregional Study in the United Kingdom 1986-90 R Barkham, G Gudgin, M Hart and E Harvey Regional Policy and Development Series 12, Jessica Kingsley Publishers and the Regional Studies Association London (1996) 168pp paperback £19.95 There has been a large increase in the past decade or so in research work on the behaviour of small firms in the UK. This work has focussed on both new firms and established firms. It has examined the constraints on growth and the positive and negative pressures of a wide range of policy measures, especially the portfolio of policies introduced through the 1980s to foster entrepreneurial attitudes and prospects for expansion and job creation. The work has dealt in the main with small companies involved in manufacturing, but by no means exclusively. Many studies have had a geographical dimension, setting the companies studied into a particular urban, rural or regional locale. The findings of recent work have been brought together by Storey (1994) in his overview volume from the 1989-93 Small Business Research Programme of the Economic and Social Research Council. The present empirical study builds upon the earlier work, particularly upon two studies undertaken in the Northern

Ireland Economic Research Centre. Using data bases especially created to include all manufacturing establishments, the processes of job generation in small firms between 1973 and 1986 were examined on a comparative basis between Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Leicestershire (Gudgin et al, 1989). A follow up study (Hart et al, 1993) demonstrated a sharp relative improvement of the firms in Northern Ireland between 1986 and 1990. The study reported on in this book extends this work, in investigating the determinants of growth in small manufacturing firms between 1986 and 1990 in four UK regions: Northern Ireland, Leicestershire, Wearside and Hertfordshire. The study was based on interviews with owner-managers in 174 small firms. The particular stress in the questioning was on the characteristics of the owner manager and his management strategies and business practices. The owner characteristics examined involved the educational background, the work experience and the motivations of the main decision maker in each firm. And the business strategy variables included the priority given to marketing and the use made of market research, the approach taken to product innovation and production diversification, process innovations and sources of finance. The authors place the study into its context in relation to earlier work, spending some time discussing the difficult issue of how to measure the growth of small firms relative to financial measures of performances. Growth in turnover 1986-90 was the chosen key growth variable. The firms sampled are not new start ups: they had been in existence for at least 5 years by 1986 and so had been trading for at least 10 years by the time of the survey in 1991. In that sense, the firms were already success stories, given the attrition rate of start-up businesses. Each firm employed less than 50 full-time workers in 1986. All of the firms were single plant and indigenously owned. The firms were from five industrial sectors: clothing, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemicals, and other manufacturing. The results from the analysis of the survey data are extremely interesting.

In summary, success in terms of growth was associated with: • youth of the owner (and not necessarily the founder of the company) • professional qualifications of the owner • working with other owners • and with other business interests • a profit-orientation • with the use of market research • using direct contact with customers, not agents • and a narrow product range • but with continuous incremental product improvement The degree of association with growth varies between these manager and firm characteristics as may be expected, but these are the highlights from a much longer list. The preferred regression equation using 26 variables (of which 19 were statistically significant) explained half the variance. The authors discuss the results variable by variable in some detail. They make the point how some variables act as proxies for a group of underlying variables. The professional qualifications variable for example is an indicator of both education and experience. And the entrepreneurial variables do not come through as strongly as in other small firm studies, but this probably reflects the maturity of the firms in the sample and the fact that only two-thirds of the owner-managers were founders of their firm. In making comparisons between the four areas, the sample size is really not large enough to separate real geographic contrasts from possible sampling fluctuations. And, although there was a marked difference in the average growth performance of the sampled firms in the two northern regions compared with the two southern regions, the factors used in this study did not explain the difference. Each region had different advantages and disadvantages in terms of the variables referring to growth, but no clear differences in the variables referring to constraints on growth. There are many useful lessons from this study, not least that the growth performance of small firms has much less to do with finance and markets than with the characteristics of the skills and

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