Community-led Regeneration Research Articles

Alternative micro-regeneration strategies for urban villages in China? Social entrepreneurship-based artistic intervention in Aohu Village in Shenzhen

Recent shifts in China’s urban village regeneration strategies have transitioned from comprehensive, large-scale redevelopment to nuanced, incremental micro-regenerations, incorporating artistic interventions as a dynamic mechanism for fostering urban governance innovation. This paper examines the transformative impact of social entrepreneurship based artistic intervention within the micro-regeneration of urban villages, particularly through a case study of Aohu Village in Shenzhen. It highlights how a local artist and villager catalyzed the village’s bottom-up regeneration by mobilizing his social networks to attract artists and organize art events, significantly boosting Aohu Art Village’s profile and contributing to social innovation. This approach not only drew attention from local government but also demonstrated the potent influence of artistic intervention on neighborhood regeneration and local governance. Unlike conventional, top-down planned art villages, Aohu retains its original community fabric through community-led regeneration while also addressing challenges such as rising rents and potential displacement of artists. The case study of Aohu Art Village illustrates the critical role of social entrepreneurship in urban village regeneration, emphasizing the necessity of a balanced understanding of artistic intervention, community engagement, and sustainable urban regeneration in China’s evolving urban landscape.

Inner-group and inter-group relations in Seoul participatory planning: revisiting the concept of social capital

ABSTRACT This paper explores the composition of social relations in Korean community-led regeneration planning. Power dynamics among participants are understood as an important factor in shaping decision-making planning processes. While the concept of social capital and the social network theory have received great attention, particularly in recent Asian planning cases, as tools to understand participatory processes, empirical studies on processes of building social capital among different social groups in participatory planning are still limited. This study examines the uneven formation of social capital and its operation to unpack participatory planning mechanisms that may unintentionally reproduce the relationships of domination/marginalisation in the decision-making consultation processes. The study focuses on a recently designated community-led regeneration project, the Garibong-dong urban regeneration project in Seoul, a neighborhood where a considerable number of Korean Chinese communities live.

Building infrastructures for inclusive regeneration

This paper explores the foundational role of physical infrastructure in making inclusive, community-led regeneration possible. It does this through documenting three years of engaged research on participatory planning, conducted in Westfield, a community in Sheffield, UK, which experiences ‘multiple deprivation’. The research looked to support community-led planning efforts taking place under the auspices of the Big Local regeneration programme and afforded significant insight into the combined impacts of austerity and ideologically driven community development initiatives for people trying to make positive change in their communities. Our principal contributions are twofold: firstly, a theoretical contribution, on the role of physical infrastructure and how it is understood in making certain kinds of community development possible and impossible; secondly, the application of this theoretical insight to a concrete case, Westfield’s pub-turned-community-centre, Com.unity. We conclude by arguing for the critical importance of ‘the publicness of public things’, and the need for a fundamental reimagining of the roles and responsibilities of both the state and communities in valuing and investing in the infrastructures that make inclusive urban regeneration possible .

Community-led regeneration practice in Ghalam Gudeh District, Bandar Anzali, Iran: A participatory action research (PAR) Project

Community-led regeneration has become a key issue in sustaining urban redevelopment and improving the quality-of-life. This paper explores the bottom-up regeneration practice through ten-step participatory planning by the engagement of the local community and other possible stakeholders in the Ghalam Gudeh neighbourhood, Iran. Based on the methods of qualitative study and participatory action research, the paper mostly aims to understand the contribution of community-led regeneration strategies to a socially deprived area similar to the empirical study by conducting interviews, workshops and meetings. The strategies included empowerment, capacity-building, co-experience of creative activities and grouping of residents with the support of facilitators and local authorities. Consequently, it has led to the establishment of a Neighbourhood Development Centre as well as modelling the neighbourhood vision and a participatory regeneration framework. The results indicated that based on trust-building and awareness-raising, residents tended to get engaged in the regeneration process despite contradictory attitudes towards community-led regeneration project. With the involvement and empowerment of participants, it is possible to develop an integrated vision aimed at transforming the economic, socio-cultural, physical, and environmental circumstances of the area to increase the level of quality of living.

Community-Led Regeneration Initiatives Can Alleviate Fuel Poverty

Community-Led Regeneration Initiatives Can Alleviate Fuel Poverty

Community-led regeneration: Applying the experience of the ‘community facilitator’ in Iran to China

Over the last decade, there has been a growing emphasis on neighbourhood regeneration and community participation in China. The focus has been partly on promotion of community involvement in rule-making and decision-making processes. However, the issue of community participation in urban redevelopment has received little attention. In recent years the Iranian Government has placed new emphasis on urban renewal through participatory approaches. In Tehran and some other cities, renovation of deteriorated urban fabric has been initiated through neighbourhood facilitation offices. The facilitation tools guide participation processes over three main steps: (1) intent and belief of the planners and managers on community’s participation; (2) reducing the government’s share in the production system and increasing the role of supervision, guiding and facilitating; and (3) improving societies through building trust and attracting public participation. This paper considers the extent to which local communities in disadvantaged neighbourhoods have a difficulty in making an impact on decisions affecting the neighbourhood redevelopment. The paper concludes that community participation in neighbourhood redevelopment in China remains at the bottom of the ladder of participation. The paper analyses the principles of the facilitation office (local renovation office) in Iran, and it describes how renewal of the deteriorated fabric in disadvantaged neighbourhoods has gone forward. Finally, the paper aims to take advantage of the Iranian experiences in terms of the Chinese context. The discussion in this paper draws on evidence from multiple sources — existing literature, governmental reports and policy documents.

Y21: Culture-Led Regeneration in Twenty-First Century UK City Regions

This paper is concerned with regions of cities, or ‘City-Regions’ and the capacity of culture as a mechanism of social development in the twenty-first century. It focusses on a case study research project ‘Yorkshire 21’ (Y21), funded by Leeds Beckett University UK. This interdisciplinary project united academic researchers with local communities to enable small-scale, culture-led community regeneration projects in Yorkshire. It was born out of the university’s mission to engage with and contribute to the well-being of the region, and to increase public engagement with academic research by establishing a conversation between scholars and members of the public. Following the exemplar of a series of creative writing community history workshops held as part of the project, the article examines a small-scale study of culture-led regeneration in a specific City-Region of the UK. Critically exploring community-led regeneration as a strategy based on recovery and valorisation of local culture, the article proposes the centrality of community contributions to culture-led regeneration projects in contemporary UK City-Regions.

Crowdfunding regeneration: More than an alternative model of finance

In early 2014, the Greater London Authority’s (GLA) Regeneration Unit commissioned Future Cities Catapult to research the capacity and potential for a public sector-led web-based crowdsourcing platform. This report recommended that the Unit trial new methods of digital engagement for direct participation in regeneration. As a result, the GLA launched a pilot Mayor’s Crowdfunding Programme to enable community groups to part-fund and deliver projects they deemed important in their local areas. This paper discusses this method of regeneration project delivery, considering the transformative power of the programme for local engagement in the context of current participation methods. It highlights how the programme is shaping a new role for local government in facilitating equity, outlining how crowdfunding, in this case, does not represent a retreat of the state but a repositioning of it. It notes the challenges associated with this, before sharing difficulties encountered in the GLA’s process and lessons for long-term sustainability of facilitating crowdfunded and community-led regeneration. The programme is discussed with specific reference to two successful projects from round two of the pilot: a pop-up market, TWIST on Station Rise; and a linear park, Peckham Coal Line.

SURF’s Alliance for Action

In its post-economic-crash National Regeneration Strategy of 2011, called ‘Building a sustainable future’, the Scottish Government placed increased emphasis on community-led regeneration across Scotland. That significant departure from the previous failed property model of regeneration was broadly welcomed. But SURF — Scotland’s independent regeneration network — expressed concern regarding the inadequacy of resources to sufficiently enhance historically underfunded community capacity. As part of its broader community empowerment policy development, the Scottish Government agreed to invest in a SURF initiative aimed at both supporting and testing the viability of more collaborative community-based regeneration in a continuing recessionary context. SURF’s cross sector Alliance for Action brings together practitioners, funders, policy makers and academics to invest in and support collaborative regeneration in two contrasting urban communities. In conceiving and delivering this initiative, SURF drew on its experience, networks and widely respected ‘honest broker’ status to identify and support practical options for achieving more participative and sustainable community regeneration. The two main aims of the Alliance for Action initiative are to enhance resilience and practical outcomes locally and to identify and promote constructive debate on wider policy and resource considerations. This paper is based on the SURF’s 18 month interim report of the initiative so far. It indicates that the networking approach has successfully linked local assets with national resources and policy. It has also helped to coordinate investments and encourage collaborative partnerships within and between the communities and relevant national agencies. The report highlights learning on shared challenges of trust, leadership and the impact of the constrained and competitive funding context for community regeneration.

Post-regeneration: Succession and sustainability

Castle Vale, a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Birmingham, has witnessed a physical and social transformation over a period of 20 years; the transformation continues as a result of succession planning, a range of succession vehicles and an ongoing vision. Through community-led regeneration, partners and residents of Castle Vale have identified a model of succession and sustainability that focuses upon a cyclical process of transformation. This is based upon having the vision, capacity and financial strength to break the cycle of decline. The succession model is not a quick fix; it takes time, commitment and ongoing investment to embed a culture of change, a vision not only for the future, but for the here and now.

Gendered economies: Transferring private gender roles into the public realm through rural community development

This paper considers the important issue of women's economic participation in rural community development and regeneration. The paper explores the economic lives and actions of women residents in “Ilston”, a village in the Northumberland Rural Coalfield. The women's narratives illustrate the economic connections between private and public spheres, represented respectively by the household and community-led regeneration initiatives. The connections were realised through a female responsibility for household budget management, which incorporated the protection and maintenance of their personal and household economic status within the community. This role was extended into the public sphere through female responsibility for community group and project fund raising, management and subsequent maintenance of the community group's economic status. This practice formed part of the women's constructed economic identity(ies) within the community, and in turn feminised economic practices regarding community-led development and regeneration in the village.

A neighbourhood renewal project in Dalston, Hackney: Towards a new form of partnership for inner city regeneration

This paper revisits a speech given at a conference in July 2002 which presented some prospects for real regeneration, rather than the familiar pattern of gentrification, in the Bradbury Street area of Dalston, Hackney. Since then many of the ideas posited — some new, some old — have found support in a wider arena and are now being tested in action across the UK, as the agenda for community-led regeneration and social enterprise gains momentum. The speech ended with the crucial caveat that it was most unlikely that the full beneficial effects on the mainstream economy of such initiatives could be achieved unless appropriate local, regional and national strategies in the public sector could uphold the key principles and rules underlying this approach. This paper retraces these arguments, notes some progress on this front and focuses on the role of the private sector and retail and leisure vitality. A key theme is that the private sector, if it comes to appreciate some pressing realities and adopts these strategic principles, can contribute to real inner-city regeneration. Such regeneration will engage and benefit rather than displace inhabitants. It is suggested that this reflects wider and increasing imperatives for the mainstream economy to become more socially involved at the heart of its business.

Generation, Degeneration, Regeneration: The Theological Architecture and Horticulture of a Deprived Housing Estate

This is an account of some of the theological questions raised by the government-sponsored, community-led regeneration of an urban housing estate. The process of regeneration exposes deep assumptions in all parties involved: it reveals significant, and sometimes contradictory, notions of human flourishing; and it evokes rival perceptions of the cause and character of constraints on human well-being. This survey concentrates on the theological notions of generation and degeneration, or creation and fall, because it is these perceptions of how things were intended to be and in what respects they have gone wrong that tend to shape consequent assumptions about the need, goal and methods of regeneration.