Contesting the urban renaissance: journalism and the post-industrial city

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article considers national press representations of urban regeneration in UK cities, drawing on specific examples of urban regeneration in the 1990s. It examines the way in which much journalistic discourse tends to contest the notion of ‘urban renaissance’. However, in doing so, it argues that this critique is fettered by the constraints facing journalists writing about such complex processes and the contexts both within which they work and within which their work is presented. It goes on to recognise journalistic narratives as a rare example of a popular contestation of myths of the post-industrial city. The article suggests that the general messages about the significant role of the media in constructing urban narratives continues to be applicable to the situation in the early 2000s, and it argues for the inclusion of journalistic narratives in studies of the post-industrial city.