Regeneration to Renaissance

Abstract

The article discusses how urban regeneration has emerged as a key policy issue in the last 15 years; it draws on Lees’ (2003) argument about the various forms of post-war urban development: reconstruction, redevelopment, regeneration, renaissance as each representing a stage and responding to the failings in previous policy interventions. It traces the origins of interest in the term in human geography and social science to the 1980s restructuring of Britain's ‘space economy’ and specifically the development of the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) following urban riots. More generally though, it argues that there was an earlier breakdown in urban social cohesion in North America and Britain which was manifested by ‘race riots’ from the late 1950s. This led to a series of policy initiatives such as the American War on Poverty (AWOP) and the Community Development Projects (CDP) in the UK. It is suggested that debates in urban theory over the nature of the urban are mirrored, to some extent, by the tension between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ approaches to urban regeneration. These are discussed in a periodization drawn from Lees and the article concludes by suggesting that although urban regeneration has now adopted an urban sustainability discourse this has not diminished the tension between promoting social cohesion and economic competitiveness. The adoption in the UK of a private–public partnership approach has however incorporated some of the tensions between public and private sector approaches into state policy.