ABSTRACT
The new localism has provided a new logic around which local government is reinvigorating and transforming itself as a ‘key player in the transition to sustainability’. While the early environment movement often saw business as the ‘villain’ in which production driven by consumption led to ‘profligate and unsustainable behaviour’ the new localism has embraced the concept of partnership with business in the shift to a more sustainable future. Paradoxically the emergence of the new ‘localism’ contrasts sharply with the social-spatial focus adopted in environmental social theory. The new localism in environmental policy is important because it ‘represents an alternative to the Conservatives minimalist vision of local government and gives a new basis of legitimacy’. The relationships between density and energy use are complex and often contradictory and with the slow turnover of urban built form environmental problems cannot simply be re-designed out of cities.
