ABSTRACT
In the preceding chapter we focused on the housing land development process and on how this is conditioned by a range of actors operating in different contexts and at various regulatory scales. We now turn to examine how this development process affects places in different ways at different times and illustrate some of the social consequences as outcomes coalesce, putting places on particular development “trajectories”. In this chapter we want to examine a range of these trajectories by focusing upon three villages in Aylesbury Vale. These have been chosen to emphasize the variation existing in the locality and to allow the examination of the local social impacts of land development. As we have discussed elsewhere (Marsden et al. 1993 Ch.6), we see localities as “meeting places” where various development networks intersect, leading to a range of outcomes which in turn provide the basis for future action. As we argued in the previous chapter, housing developments are the outcome of both local and strategic processes, being influenced by the competing representations of local and strategic actors. Furthermore, housing development allows new social groups access to rural space often resulting in action to constrain further development. It is therefore necessary to examine more closely the processes of land development at the village level and the social change that surrounds these processes.
