Urban regeneration in context

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Urban regeneration in context

• Chrissie Gibson and Steve Millington

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Why and What?

• Urban Regeneration has been a government priority
  since the 1960s and is a major impetus and source
  of funding for place making and place management.
  

Urban Regeneration has been defined as A
comprehensive and integrated vision and action
which leads to the resolution of urban problems
and which seeks to bring about a lasting
improvement in the economic, physical, social and
environmental condition of an area that has been
subject to change. Roberts, P., Sykes, H., et al.
(2000)?
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Chronology of Regeneration

• Regeneration is a daunting task.. No sooner has
  one problem been solved than another emerges.
  Robert and Sykes (2000)

Comparison of the different approaches and
priorities in UK regeneration policy and the
effects on long term management
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Chronology of Regeneration

• Product of the industrial past
• Pre-war attempts were piecemeal weak
  legislation, philanthropic
• Concept of area based regeneration originated
  during the 1930s with the beginnings of regional
  policy
• Beginnings of the North-South divide

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Chronology of Regeneration

• 1945 post-war reconstruction
• Focus on rebuilding bomb damage and slum
  clearance
• 1947 Town and Country Planning Act
• 1960s regional policy redistribution of
  manufacturing employment through Assisted Area
  status

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Chronology of Regeneration

• 1968 Urban Programme
• onwards realisation that poverty was a major
  problem in the inner areas of cities
• Growing disparities between urban cores and the
  suburbs
• 1979 onwards targeted area based
• Partnerships
• Enterprise Zones
• Urban Development Corporations
• Training and Enterprise Councils
• City Challenge and holistic strategies
• Single Regeneration Budget

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Chronology of Regeneration

• Post-1997
• Rogers report (1999) Urban Task Force
• Social exclusion
• Revitalisation of regional development e.g. RDAs
• Urban Regeneration Companies
• Core cities programme city regions
• Neighbourhood renewal

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Chronology of Regeneration

• Scale shift from regional redistribution to
  localised policy interventions
• Shift to neoliberal policy and entrepreneurial
  planning
• Shift in emphasis from social to economic
  renewal
• Physical regeneration and flagship projects
• Involvement of private sector implementation
• Market led solutions
• Sustainability

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Types of problem

• Physical
• dereliction
• older housing - lacking basic amenities, damp
  etc

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Early Initiatives

• White Paper 1977
• Policy for the Inner Cities

• Urban Programme
• 57 deprived areas selected for special programmes
• Industrial Improvement Areas

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Enterprise Zones 1981

• Aimed to create new employment by attracting new
  businesses to derelict areas.

• reduction in planning controls
• the relief from local authority rates.

• by 1990
• 22 Zones
• over 5,000
• employing 126,000 people, 58,000 jobs were
  additional (DETR, 1995)?

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Garden Festivals 1984-92

• Idea borrowed from Germany
• First International festival was in Liverpool
• Stoke, Glasgow, Gateshead, Ebbw Vale

• Successful as attractions
• Some problems with long term management and after
  use.

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Urban Development Corporations

• Focus on regenerating land and property
• Large budgets powers to grant planning
  permission to buy land compulsorily
• Separate organisations run by unelected boards

• Stephen Ward (1994) described their powers as
  draconian... .UDCs were intended to facilitate
  urban regeneration in a way that entirely
  bypassed local government.

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Methods

• Both market-led' and interventionist
• Intensive image building
• Flagship projects

• Frequent use of City Grant
• Assumption that the benefits would trickle down'
  to the local community.

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Examples
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Central Manchester Development Corporation
1988-96

• Aims
• To bring back into use land and property
• Reposition and rebrand much of CMDCs territory
  as distinctive within the city centre
• Manchesters amazing urban renaissance was
  kick-started in 1980s and 90s by CMDC.
  (Williams, 2003)?

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City Centre Living
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Tourist attractions
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High Quality Design

• Major investment in the public realm, leading to
  higher maintenance costs

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Winding up

• Short life bodies.
• major investment in land and property
• legal liabilities
• environmental improvements
• Little consideration of longer term
• CMDC solution
• Set up Castlefield Management Company two years
  before the UDC wound up.
• Partnership of local businesses and public
  agencies
• Responsible for maintenance and promotion.
• City Council has now taken back responsibility

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New UDCs

• Thurrock Thames Gateway UDC (est 2003)
• London Thames Gateway UDC (est 2004)?
• West Northamptonshire UDC (est 2004)?

• Harness the long-term benefits of
• London 2012Olympics
• Crossrail 16 billion investment
• Town Centre regeneration Redbridge, Barking,
  Canning Town, Romford

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CITY CHALLENGE

• Change in philosophy
• Tackling more of the social problems
• Predominantly deprived housing areas
• More community involvement
• Competitive bidding between Local Authorities to
  transform the way LAs approached urban
  regeneration.
• 1 billion, money "top sliced" other inner city
  expenditure
• Evidence of partnership between the private
  sector and the local community.
• Strategies must direct the benefits to the people
  of the area.
• Trickle-down discredited (Parkinson, 1989)?

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City Challenge

• Constitution reflected greater local
  participation in decision-making
• Boards had representatives of the council,
  business and local community (stakeholders)?
• Strong emphasis on managing the projects
• clear "end state vision"
• Milestones and monitoring of outputs
• fall-back position in case of failure of key
  projects.
• Plans must be time-limited. Projects should be
  self-sustaining.

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Examples
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City Challenge legacy

• 39,194 houses improved
• 53,510 jobs created/preserved
• 1896 ha derelict land reclaimed/improved and
• 3138 business start-ups promoted. (Russell et
  al., 1996)?
• Relationships (building blocks for further
  schemes)?
• Evans (2007) attributes the success of East
  Manchesters regeneration to the relationships
  build up through the Development Corporation and
  City Challenge.
• Couch and Dennemann (2000) similar conclusions
  about the Liverpool Ropewalks.
• Hulme
• Strong investment from house builders, now mixed
  tenure
• Little local investment/job creation, especially
  in local services.

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Long term concerns

• Cannot start too early on designing exit
  strategies - 'exit consciousness', as it is
  described by, must suffuse everything Bradford
  City Challenge (1995)
• Need to identify 'foster homes' for individual
  projects, amongst local agencies likely to be
  around in the longer term
• Mainstream service managers need to be more
  sensitive to short-term funded projectsOc
  (1997) and JRF (1995)

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New Labour in power 1997
Urban policy encompassed two key agendas

• 1. Social Exclusion Unit
• New Deal for Communities
• Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy

people-based regeneration emphasis on joining
up existing agencies (health, education, police)
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New Labour approach

• 2. Urban Task Force in 1998 headed by Lord Rogers
  of Riverside (Richard Rogers)
• Urban White Paper (DETR, 2000)
• CABE (Commission for Architecture and the Built
  Environment)?

Design-led Urban Renaissance linked to economic
competitiveness (Colomb, 2007)?
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Criticisms

• The consequence is to provide one set of
  policies for the urban middle classes and one for
  the urban poor. (Amin, 2000 vii)
• the civilised middle classes are the role model
  and the saviour of cities (Atkinson, 2003a in
  Colomb, 2007 8)?

Who are we making places for? Has regeneration
created a polarization? Some places and spaces
for the wealthy but exclusion of other groups in
society.
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Urban Regeneration Companies

• Recommended by the Urban Task Force Three pilots
• First URC - Liverpool Vision - 1999
• New East Manchester
• Sheffield One
• Now 22 URCs
• Geographically more diverse
• 1st East (Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth)?
• West Lakes Renaissance
• CPR Regeneration (Camborne, Pool and Redruth)?

• Responsibilities
• To co-ordinate investment plans from both the
  public and the private sectors
• To attract new investment through the purposeful
  and imaginative promotion and regeneration of
  their areas.

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Different approaches and priorities

• Property focus UDCs, Enterprise Zones
• Community focus City Challenge
• Design focus Urban Task Force, CABE

Themes The property led approach ran into
problems in the 1990s and often failed to
re-skill and revitalise local communities
(Ravetz, 2000)? More complex, interrelated
issues, require more sophisticated
solutions Changing assignment of responsibility -
increasing role of private sector working in
partnership with public sector and
communities. Realisation that short term
initiatives too much time and energy has been
lost through the needless destruction of expert
teams. (Roberts and Sykes, 2000 6).
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Implications for place making, place management
and marketing

• Which is the best approach?
• easier to manage?
• most equitable?
• other criteria?

• How can we attract more inward investment into
  regeneration areas?