Nancy Holman

Nancy joined the Department of Geography & Environment in August 2008 having previously managed the MSc in Housing and Regeneration in the Department of Social Policy also at the London School of Economics and Political Science. A planner by training she has a PhD in Urban Policy (University of Portsmouth, 1999) and an MSc in Community and Regional Planning (University of Texas, 1996). Her work deals primarily with issues of governance and local planning including sustainable development and community participation. She has often used social network analysis to explore the complex relationships in the multi-level, multi-actor partnerships present in modern governing arrangements.

Research affiliation

LSE London, Member - LSE London is the London School of Economics' specialist research unit focusing on analyses of London's economy and broader metropolitan issues in a comparative context. The unit has a strong international reputation particularly in the fields of labour markets, social and demographic change, housing, finance and governance, and is the leading academic centre for analyses of city-wide developments in London. It is an interdisciplinary group involving staff from a number of departments who have particular expertise in economics, geography, government and planning.

Research interests

Conservation Policy:  Urban conservation policy is a strong theme in my current research.  Along with a colleague at the LSE, I have completed a large-scale analysis of conservation areas in England.  This has included a spatial hedonic analysis of more than 1million property transactions in 8,000 conservation areas in England and a qualitative analysis of more than 48 conservation areas in London.  Our preliminary findings suggest that positive heritage externalities exist and that residents in CAs tend to value their local environments, acknowledge the need for planning control and execute their right to object to neighbour’s planning request. A series of publications have and are following on from this research.  In addition, with colleagues at LSE London, I have applied for a large Urban Europe grant to examine how the value of heritage can be maintained in challenging economic conditions.

Urban Housing and Planning in London: My work here has dealt with the manner in which urban regime theory might help us understand politics and planning in the UK context.  I have recently undertaken research looking at the Localism Act using social capital to examine what the key dilemmas may be for localist planning. I have also completed work on the politics of suburbia in London and have examined housing density policy in the Capital.  Alongside colleagues in LSE London I have recently received £99,110 from the Higher Education Innovation Funding initiative to help us disseminate and exchange knowledge around our research on the Housing crisis in London.  

Selected recent publications:

• Holman, N, Thornley, A (2015) Backlash in the London suburbs: the local/strategic tension in multilevel governance. (urban periphery theme) Environment & Planning C

• Holman N, Ahlfeldt G M, (2015) "No escape? The coordination problem in heritage preservation" Environment and Planning A 47(1) 172 – 187

• Mace, Alan, Holman, Nancy, Paccoud, Antoine and Sundaresan, Jayaraj (2014) Coordinating density; working through conviction, suspicion and pragmatism. Progress in Planning, NYP . ISSN 0305-9006 (In Press)

• Holman, Nancy (2014) Like mixing oil and water?: the take up of sustainability in hard-to-reach places - an East Texas case study. Journal of Planning Education and Research. ISSN 0739-456X 

• Pani, Erica and Holman, Nancy (2014) A fetish and fiction of finance: unraveling the subprime crisis. Economic Geography, 9 (2). pp. 213-235. ISSN 0013-0095

• Holman, Nancy (2013) Effective strategy implementation: why partnership matters. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 31 (1). pp. 82-101. ISSN 0263-774X

• Holman, Nancy and Rydin, Yvonne (2013) What can social capital tell us about planning under localism? Local Government Studies, Online . pp. 1-18. ISSN 0300-3930

• Holman, Nancy and Thornley, Andrew (2011) The reversal of strategic planning in London: the Boris effect with a focus on sustainability. L’Observatoire de la sociètè britanique, 11 . pp. 145-159. ISSN 1775-4283

• Incorporating local sustainability indicators into structures of local governance: a review of the literature', Local Environment 14:4 pp 365-375, 2009.

• 'Community participation: Using network analysis to improve developmental benefits', Environment and Planning C: Government and policy 26:3 pp525-543, 2008.

• 'Following the signs: Applying urban regime analysis to a UK case study', The Journal of Urban Affairs 29:5 pp435-453, 2007.

• With Rydin, Y. 'Re-evaluating the contribution of social capital in achieving sustainable development', Local Environment 9:2 pp117-33, 2004.

• Astleithner, F, Hamedinger, A, Holman, N and Rydin, Y 'Institutions and indicators: The discourse about indicators in the context of sustainability', Journal of Housing and the Built Environment 19:1 p 7-24, 2004.

• Rydin, Y, Nancy Holman, Esther Wolff. 'Local Sustainability Indicators', Local Environment 8:6 p581-89, 2003. 

• Rydin, Y, Nancy Holman, Vicky Hands, Florian Sommer. 'Incorporating sustainable development concerns into an urban regeneration project: how politics can defeat procedures', Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 46:4 p545-61, 2003.