This section introduces neighbourhood planning and localism in policy and practice and begins to outline the significance of the initiative and what it reveals about the key themes that we are addressing in relation to democracy, participation and the purposes of planning. Four chapters bring together theoretical analysis and field research to lay out these key themes, test them in practice and flag up the continuing lines of inquiry. In Chapter Two, Sue Brownill provides a comprehensive introduction to neighbourhood planning and situates it within an international context of community-led planning, citizen engagement and shifting scales of governance. She explores the social, spatial and political assemblages of localism, and highlights the counter-narratives and challenges revealed through neighbourhood planning, discussed further throughout the book. In Chapter Three, Quintin Bradley articulates the democratic practices of neighbourhood planning, as well as its themes of autonomy, self-management and insurgent citizenship. He charts a tradition of collective direct action in the planning system, exploring the political identities of the locality and the impact of neighbourhood planning on the regulation of participation and the inequalities of political space.

From this engagement with the possibilities, tensions and contradictions of neighbourhood planning, Chapters Four and Five examine planning practice and begin to clarify the operation of these themes at the neighbourhood level. In Chapter Four, Quintin Bradley, Amy Burnett and William Sparling highlight the distinctive spatial practices of neighbourhood planning that aim to balance social, economic and environmental sustainability in housing, regeneration and low carbon futures. In Chapter Five, Gavin Parker provides a vivid depiction of the geographical spread of neighbourhood planning and the motivations and abilities of the community groups engaging in it. He explores the tensions between local and technical knowledge, participative democracy, and the socio-spatial inequalities of localism as they are experienced in neighbourhoods, and provides an evidence base from which to draw out the book's wider observations about the dynamics of neighbourhood planning.