Local politics, new agendas and strategies for change in English historic cities

Abstract

This article introduces and discusses some of the implications of the effects of the dual processes of economic and state restructuring on historic cities in England. The article focuses on the politics of development which are emerging in historic cities in response to structural changes in the local, regional and national economy, and the move to reconstitute English democratically elected local government into a more widely constituted system of local governance. There is a wide literature on the heritage industry and conservation of historic cities, but there is little which examines the political economy of these places and the extent to which this shapes the development agendas and strategies being produced. The article begins to chart how economic and political restructuring in England impacts on historic cities, and focuses on how provincial English historic cities are responding to a range of competing and often contradictory economic and political pressures. The emergence of sustainable development policy frameworks which seek to reconcile the potentially incompatible requirements of growth, conservation and environmental sustainability in historic cities are seen as key sites of political contestation.