ABSTRACT
This chapter engages with common conceptualisations of space to set the disciplinary scene for the discussions in the following chapters. Building upon previous recognition that vertical and horizontal spatial imaginaries of power in planning are overly simplistic (Brownill, 2017a), the vertical space of planning and the horizontal space of local government are explored under the banner of dimensional understandings of space, before progressing to consider networked space as a way of integrating the vertical and horizontal. The chapter proposes that the space of neighbourhood planning is simultaneously all three as - amongst other things - it is bound to the vertical structure of the planning system, contested by the horizontal distribution of parishes and local authorities, and driven by the network. This prompts consideration of the ways in which this configuration remains insufficient as it takes us to the significance of - but does not directly address - the active way in which different stakeholders drive the network in the construction of place. Subsequently, the differential construction of place and space by communities and planners respectively allows deeper interrogation of performative and affective understandings of place, as a springboard into the substantive analyses in the following chapters.
