Urban Regeneration Programmes Research Articles

Pop-up Polanyi: Cultural entrepreneurs and the ‘vacancy fix’

Abstract Gentrification as an urban strategy pivots upon the dual mediation of the city as a site for aesthetic consumption and pleasure, and as a space of potential ground rent. The recent rise of urban regeneration programs that assist small scale cultural entrepreneurs into disused commercial property – ‘pop-up shops’ – is one example of the convergence of the urban cultural economy and gentrification. This article presents a preliminary explanation of the function of such urban programs through Karl Polanyi's socioeconomic concepts and the case of Renew Adelaide. It is argued that Renew aligns and then stabilises different Polanyian modes of economic integration (reciprocity, redistribution, and exchange), while inducing a partial and temporary de-commodification of urban space. This approach outlines how ‘pop-up’ programs contain multiple objectives. First, they induce the images of creative city vibrancy that can be folded into contemporary place marketing. Second, they enable celebrated entrepreneurial subjectivities to be performed. Third, they illustrate how ‘vacancy fixes’ are addressed via small-scale cultural projects supporting land banking for the owners of properties whose rent gaps have yet to be closed. This Polanyian approach explains how the modes of integration undergirding these programs are assembled via an orientation to the real or symbolic processes of gentrification.

Emerging social-spatial polarisation within the housing market in Colombo , Sri Lanka

This paper discusses the results of a study undertaken to understand the emerging relationship between state, market and social classes in the Colombo Metropolitan Region (CMR) in Sri Lanka. Castells1 saw the city as crucial to modern capitalism by creating new markets and different social classes in society. Housing is a central element of urban socio-spatial structures. It is a major component of people’s lives in cities. Three housing units were studied in detail: Sahaspura, a public sector condominium inhabited by lower class; Mattegoda, a public sector housing complex inhabited by lower-middle class; and Millennium City, a private sector housing complex inhabited by middle and upper-middle class. The sample survey (325 units) was supplemented by qualitative data collected from residents by using informal interviews and non-participant observation. The study reveals that the rising demand especially among the middle and upper classes for private housing localities has resulted in a steep rise in land prices, hence making private housing unaffordable to the lower classes, who as a result have sought the help of government housing schemes to purchase or obtain housing in urban areas. This study also illustrates that housing loans have further encouraged interest in private housing, providing a big boost to the existing housing market. The urban regeneration and renewal programme in central districts of Colombo has led to a mass eviction of the poor. The land that has become available is being used for commercial and luxury housing development. The process has led to the emergence of urban classes based on the housing structures they reside in.

Creating a sewing village in Seoul: towards participatory village-making or post-political urban regeneration?

AbstractThis paper examines an urban regeneration project in the Changsin-Sungin Area (CSA), Seoul, by drawing on the current debates on post-political urban policy. Adjacent to Dongdaemun Fashion Market (DFM), the K-fashion hub, the CSA is known for the clustered sewing factories embedded in residential housing. In 2014, the CSA was selected as a test-bed for the implementation of the new policy called the Urban Regeneration Programme (URP). This new scheme is publicly funded seeking continuity and civic participation in urban regeneration. The CSA-URP contrasts with previous schemes in Korea, in which private developers, with state support, were the main drivers of massive demolition and reconstruction. In order to promote participation, the city government has created an intermediary for public–private partnership and adopted the public contest for the distribution of resources. Significantly, this new model has shifted its focus of regeneration from housing to public space, from entitlement to participation, and from proprietorship to cultural capital. This has also raised new queries about whether the new model effectively promotes residents’ bottom-up participation or manages consensual atmosphere. By contemplating Seoul’s latest urban regeneration experience, this paper examines whether the CSA-URP offers corrective forces to capital-led and top-down urbanization or it depoliticizes the political. Thereby, the paper aims to contribute to the critical understanding of post-political urbanism.

Informal Trading and a Right to the City in the Khayelitsha CBD: insights from the field

Informal trading is an everyday livelihood practice in South African cities. Although praised for its local economic development potential, in the post-Apartheid context, it often sits in tension with urban regeneration plans. This research examines the case of the Khayelitsha Central Business District (KCBD), just outside of Cape Town, built as part of the Mayor’s Urban Regeneration Program. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, this research explores the material and symbolic spaces and everyday practices of street trading in the KCBD—specifically, how traders negotiate their trading practices in a context of on-going development. What we see in practice is informal traders existing in a complex space—caught somewhere between exclusionary urban regeneration projects, and waiting for the state. Concurrently, traders are inventing spaces through negotiating, quietly encroaching and self-managing in an attempt to secure livelihoods and grow businesses in the meanwhile; whilst ‘waiting’ in the long-term for physical and entrepreneurial development opportunities. By focusing on these symbolic experiences and actions of street traders in the KCBD, we can understand the often invisible, ordinary, everyday realities of the traders, through which ‘street politics’ is produced and an ‘actual’ right to the city is claimed. In this transitioning space, urban regeneration sits in tension with informal trading—a context in which these traders need to be given a voice, and where such research becomes valuable, in displaying a textured reality.

Planning centrality, market instruments: Governing Chinese urban transformation under state entrepreneurialism

This article defines the key parameters of ‘state entrepreneurialism’ as a governance form that combines planning centrality and market instruments, and interprets how these two seemingly contradictory tendencies are made coherent in the political economic structures of post-reform China. Through examining urban regeneration programmes (in particular ‘three olds regeneration’, sanjiu gaizao), the development of suburban new towns and the reconstruction of the countryside, the article details institutional configurations that make the Chinese case different from a neoliberal growth machine. The contradiction of these tendencies gives room to urban residents and migrants to develop their agencies and their own spaces, and creates informalities in Chinese urban transformation.

Decision-making tools for urban regeneration processes: from Stakeholders Analysis to Stated Preference Methods

Urban regeneration operations are connected to the creation of a multiplicity of benefits, both economic and extra-economic, that range from the increase in the environmental quality to the amelioration of the urban image, from the valorization of the cultural heritage to the creation of economic development processes. The articles aims at proposing an integrated evaluation approach for addressing decision problems in the context of urban regeneration operations. Starting from the real case of the regeneration programme of the city of Collegno (Italy), the contribution proposes an original evaluation model based on the combined use of Stakeholders Analysis and Stated Preference Methods. The results of the research shows the people’s perception about the social value of urban regeneration programme and their Willingness To Pay for specific transformation operations.

Uncovering How Urban Regeneration Programs May Stimulate Leisure-time Walking Among Adults in Deprived Areas: A Realist Review.

Evidence suggests that urban regeneration programs can stimulate leisure-time walking (LTW) in deprived areas. However, underlying pathways remain unclear. This study explored how urban regeneration might stimulate LTW among adults in deprived areas. We conducted a realist review, a theory-driven approach to evidence synthesis that focuses on mechanisms. We searched three electronic databases for peer-reviewed literature that describes how the neighborhood environment or urban regeneration influences LTW among adults in deprived areas. Evidence from 13 qualitative studies was synthesized. All studies indicated that safety problems and poor physical neighborhood design make adults fearful of walking. Seven studies indicated that poor aesthetics makes walking less relaxing and stress releasing. Seven studies indicated that poor infrastructure makes it inconvenient for adults to walk. A limited number of studies indicated that a lack of LTW facilities creates a shortage of settings for walking and that low levels of social capital constrain social support for walking and social interaction while walking. Evidence from this study suggests that urban regeneration might stimulate LTW among adults in deprived areas by creating a neighborhood that is less frightening, more relaxing, and more convenient to walk in.

POLICY METAPHORS AND DEEP LOCAL DEMOCRACY: THE CASE OF THE CHILEAN NEIGHBOURHOOD RECOVERY PROGRAMME

The Neighbourhood Recovery Programme is the first government urban regeneration programme implemented in Chilean underprivileged urban areas using deliberative processes. Through interviews with key policy makers and the revision of government documents, this article explores the cognitive metaphors by which this programme frames its local construction of sociability. In so doing, this research examines the programme’s potential to build a deep conception of local democracy. The article contributes to debates discussing the effect of the Chilean state in enhancing or curtailing civil society empowerment in politically excluded areas. It argues that this programme’s metaphors serve efficient policy implementation. However, they also reproduce top-down dynamics of institutional imposition that undermine accountability and have already been described by ethnographers in underprivileged neighbourhoods.

Regenerating Urban Areas Through Climate Sensitive Urban Design

Urban areas are among the most vulnerable sites affected by global warming. Research on the relationship between cities and climate change is now on the rise. The concept of Climate Sensitive Urban Design (CSUD) was coined with the awareness that city design must bring improvements to the urban environment besides economic, spatial, functional and aesthetic benefits and to tackle climate change issues in order to improve urban resilience. On the other hand, Urban Regeneration (UR) projects have a demonstrated potential to bring a significant contribution to the society, economy and environment of degraded urban areas and could facilitate the implementation of spatial policies that address climate change. At present, there are limited studies on Urban Regeneration efforts that possible contribution to climate change adaptation. Planners, architects and urban designers need to fully understand the opportunity provided by the Urban Regeneration process to implement the CSUD strategies. The authors argue that approaching Urban Regeneration with a Climate Sensitive design strategy would provide better integrated solutions. The application of the CSUD systems to an Urban Regeneration process have the potential to provide wider associated benefits, allowing urban designers and planners to creatively consider the form, function and design/aesthetic elements with an environmental approach. Through the review of case studies, the research presents the possible beneficial joint effects determined by the simultaneous application of Climate Sensitive Urban Design to an Urban Regeneration program with the aim to build urban resilience against the adverse impact of climate change.

Within the City: Ongoing Experiences in Local Urban Development Plans

The article presents a series of urban regeneration programmes carried out in the Lazio Region from 2011 to 2016, and financed by the resources of the cohesion policy 2007–2013. It covers: programme background, experience of the Municipality of Aprilia analysed in its most relevant details, some reflections concerning opportunities and limits of the programme, and some key elements to be developed in future research.

Cinema-going during the Gezi protests: claiming the right to the Emek movie theatre and Gezi Park

This paper explores the relationship between social movements, urban regeneration programmes and media outlets in cities, with a focus on the transformation of urban culture in regards to people’s engagement with the spaces of media platforms. The argument is based on the study of cinema-going practices of an audience community in Istanbul, during and preceding the Gezi uprising. By employing ethnographic methods, this paper interrogates the activism of an audience community against the impact of shopping-mallisation and commodification of Istanbul’s urban spaces under AKP rule. In order to reclaim ownership of their spaces and future, this audience community claimed their right to the Emek movie theatre, Gezi Park and other parks whilst creating their own outdoor screenings and social media platforms. This paper also provides an interpretation of social movement development attached to media outlets such as film festivals and screenings, particularly the development of spatial activism in relation to people’s use of films, streets and movie theatres, thus illustrating, challenging and reinforcing rights to the city. More broadly, it gives new insights on the film and protest culture of a ‘secular’ group within a predominantly Muslim population and shows alternative and creative methods of protesting during a popular uprising.

The impact of urban regeneration programmes on health and health-related behaviour: Evaluation of the Dutch District Approach 6.5 years from the start.

BackgroundLarge-scale regeneration programmes to improve the personal conditions and living circumstances in deprived areas may affect health and the lifestyle of the residents. Previous evaluations concluded that a large-scale urban regeneration programme in the Netherlands had some positive effects within 3.5 years. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the effects at the longer run.MethodsWith a quasi-experimental research design we assessed changes in the prevalence of general health, mental health, physical activity, overweight, obesity, and smoking between the pre-intervention (2003–04 –mid 2008) and intervention period (mid 2008–2013–14) in 40 deprived target districts and comparably deprived control districts. We used the Difference-in-Difference (DiD) to assess programme impact. Additionally, we stratified analyses by sex and by the intensity of the regeneration programme.ResultsChanges in health and health related behaviours from pre-intervention to the intervention period were about equally large in the target districts as in control districts. DiD impact estimates were inconsistent and not statistically significant. Sex differences in DiD estimates were not consistent or significant. Furthermore, DiD impact estimates were not consistently larger in target districts with more intensive intervention programmes.ConclusionWe found no evidence that this Dutch urban regeneration programme had an impact in the longer run on self-reported health and related behaviour at the area level.

"Welcome in my backyard"…but on my terms: making sense of homeless exclusion from renewed urban spaces in Copenhagen

Based on a Danish case study of urban renewal in Copenhagen’s Sundholm District, this paper examines, (a) how present urban regeneration efforts in a historically welfare-driven, but increasingly neoliberalized state context, is contributing to more or less spatial exclusion of the homeless, and (b) to what extent this may be associated with a revanchist/punitive stance of the Danish state. Using an urban political ecological lens, this paper highlights a relational understanding of the apparently dualistic/competing public and civic discourses shaping the Danish urban regeneration program. Revealing the complex ways that public socio-environmental policies and middle-class civic environmentalism/activism intersect with state-entrepreneurialism within such regeneration efforts, this paper presents an instance of a historically and geographically distinct process of neoliberal disciplining of the poor in Sundholm District. The paper shows that while such disciplining of the homeless is not driven by a purely punitive state, it results in soft, green-coded, nonetheless exclusionary implications for the homeless and their socio-spatial practices within the renewed urban spaces.

Urban Resurgence as a Consumer City: A Case Study for Weimar in Eastern Germany

Weimar achieved urban recovery as a ‘consumer city’ with sub-brandings like a population magnet with a high living-quality, a cultural city with touristic attractions, and a university city. Its intensive cultural promotion policies combined with urban regeneration programs have contributed to the recent demographic and economic growth. This study demonstrates this success and investigates its sectoral weaknesses compared to other German cities. Weimar needs an optimal mixture of consumption- and production-oriented development strategies to rectify the current structural imbalances and better control those negative impacts caused by a rapidly ageing population. Besides ample presence and intact connectivity of high-tech industries and producer services within a city which enhance R&D, innovation and productivity, Weimar should more seriously consider, when design-ing future development policy, that both urban growth approaches are interrelated: agglomeration generates higher income for the creative class, whereas high urban amenities attract young creative entrepreneurs selecting locations for start-ups.

The urban project of HafenCity. Today’s Urban and Traffic profile of the area. Executive summary of methodology and traffic research conducted in the region

Abstract HafenCity is the largest, ongoing, urban regeneration program in Europe. The old port area of Hamburg is fully reconstructed with a series of urban planning, traffic and building interventions, in the context of sustainable development (middle road back, renewable energy buildings like “Greenpeace”, “Unilever”, etc., proofing infrastructure and new infrastructure from phenomena of natural disasters like floods, promotion policies of “sustainable mobility”. The northern part of the port is relocated (as a result of the gradual relocation trend and technological upgrading which had already begun in the 1960s throughout Europe) and Hamburg is first associated with the water element and the River Elbe along with a program of its fully environmental restoration. Also the Elbe is still used for a number of smart travel people and goods to and from Hamburg. The old “logistic” used buildings are tottaly replaced by new buildings with mixed uses. Hamburg is flipping its face at the liquid element. It also introduces and seeks the full protection of the wider area of HafenCity phenomena of floods and tides which proved fatal in the past through implementation of the project “Warft solution”. All new buildings and traffic infrastructure is now built at a height of 4.5-8.3 meters higher than the initial level and in old level created a regenerated track of historical walks a total length of 10.5 kilometers, creating in this way an additional network of public urban space, in the context of sustainable mobility. Also the new line of traffic means (U-4) gives new chances in the way of Sustainable mobility for the whole city Which is the current planning, traffic and environmental image of the region of HafenCity 15 years after the beginning of the program and on completion of 70% of the planned interventions? How this occurs by utilizing a set of indicators in the direction of Sustainable Development and Sustainable Mobility and what is its contribution to the modulation of total microclimate of the greater Hamburg region by removing a perfectly disturbing use of the center of the city? Which parameters and practices must be taken into account from now on for the Planning, Traffic and environmental shielding of HafenCity, on the basis of original objectives as they possibly today redefined? Pilot presentation of the results of research with use of indicators of “European Local Transport Information Service (ELTIS)”

Zakres przestrzenny lokalnych systemów osadniczych jako czynnik kształtujący metodykę diagnozy społeczno-ekonomicznej w programach rewitalizacji

Zmiany społeczne i gospodarcze, których doświadczają gminy w ostatnich latach sprawiają, że wiele lokalnych systemów osadniczych ulega stopniowej erozji w najsłabszych punktach układów osadniczych. W przypadku lokalnych systemów osadniczych, zamkniętych obszarem administracyjnym jednej gminy, w programie rewitalizacji można wykorzystać pełen potencjał gminy, jednak konieczność uchwycenia zróżnicowania wewnątrzmiejskiego powoduje powstanie dylematów metodycznych związanych z zakresem przestrzennym diagnozy społeczno-ekonomicznej przeprowadzanej na potrzeby programów rewitalizacji. Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie wniosków dotyczących wyboru sposobu podziału obszaru analizy w związku ze specyfiką lokalnego systemu osadniczego.

Impact of area regeneration policies: performing integral interventions, changing opportunity structures and reducing health inequalities

BackgroundUrban regeneration policies are area-based interventions addressing multidimensional problems. In this study, we analyse the impact of urban regeneration processes on the evolution of inequalities in mortality from certain causes....

Is it better to invest in place or people to maximize population health? Evaluation of the general health impact of urban regeneration in Dutch deprived neighbourhoods

AimTo study the general health impact of urban regeneration programmes in deprived Dutch districts. We compared initiatives that focused on the improvement of place with initiatives that mainly invested in people. MethodA quasi-experimental design compared the trend in good perceived general health in the target districts with comparison districts. Generalized general mixed models assessed the rate of change in prevalence of good health per half year during a prolonged period before and after the start of the interventions. ResultsNeither the target districts that invested mainly in place nor the ones with interventions focused on people showed trends in general health different than comparison districts (p>0.05). However, only districts with interventions focused on place showed no deterioration in general health during the intervention period. The trend change in these districts differed significantly from the change in the districts that invested mainly in people (p<0.05). ConclusionUrban regeneration programmes that focus on place may be effective in promoting general health.

Assessing spatial benefits of urban regeneration programs in a highly vulnerable urban context: A case study in Catania, Italy

The relationship between sustainable urban development and environmental sustainability is crucial to every strategy of urban transformation, renewal and regeneration. In particular, urban regeneration entails programmes of urban transformation that involve the rehabilitation of existing parts of a city, re-use previously built-up area and abandoned buildings, and redevelop blighted urban spaces to increase urban sustainability. Few existing studies have evaluated the real environmental outcomes and effectiveness of regeneration programmes in terms of physical variables such as newly provided green spaces, access to public transportation, climate change or seismic-risk reduction.This paper proposes a method for spatially quantifying the benefits of regenerating areas with reference to environmental and urban factors, such as reduction of seismic risk, increase in accessibility and diversity of land use. Each aspect is evaluated by spatial indicators, calculated at different geographical units that steadily increase in size, in order to understand the effects of a single regeneration area and of a number of concurrent areas. The work focuses on the municipality of Catania (Italy), a high-density urban context, with a general lack of green spaces, and high levels seismic risk exposure.Results show that positive benefits can be extended from regeneration areas to contiguous relevant portions of the city, and that even a limited number of regeneration areas can produce relevant benefits. These benefits rely on the combination of characteristics of regeneration areas and urban environments in which they are located, such as population density, presence/accessibility of urban services, and land-use diversity.

Interfaces of informality

What happens at the interface of states and urban poor populations that live in informal settlements? How are academic disciplines, such as law, architecture or economics, and technical instruments, such as computer software, summoned to the interactions between experts from state or city governments and the laypeople whose housing and lives the former’s work is meant to improve? This paper reflects on these questions as it examines two different experiments, one historical and another from the recent past, in housing provision or amelioration for the residents of informal settlements. In post-revolutionary Portugal, the SAAL (Serviço de Apoio Ambulatório Local) housing program (1974–76) included ‘technical’ brigades of legal, architectural and economic experts tasked to help shanty town dwellers improve their housing conditions, either by assisted self-building or classic new-build. It was a clear example of the progressive urban politics of the time, or dialogical technical democracy avant la lettre. Some 30 years later, in Lisbon during the late 2000s, as a part of an urban regeneration program devised within the framework of multicultural urban politics and delegative forms of democracy, a detailed survey of non- and sub-standard houses was carried out with a bespoke computer software, which aimed at representing the technical feasibility of rehabilitation, rather than replacement, of those dwellings. Both experiments constituted platforms with the stated objective of working for the community and through which new state–citizen relationships were to be forged with the urban poor, but how were the latter’s knowledges and wishes integrated?