In response to the challenges posed by urban decline, local policy activism has increased in countries across Europe. Ren Peter Hohmann argues here that we should view these area-based community initiatives, such as England's New Deal for Communities and Germany's Social City Program, as incubators for new forms of urban governance that seek to foster the active participation of residents and nonprofit groups. Based on his comparative analysis of initiatives in Bristol, England, and Duisburg, Germany, Hohmann's study provides a richly informed assessment of local policy activism and its impact on neighborhood organizations and developers.
Exploring the streets of London, Manchester, Belfast, Edinburgh or Cardiff, one cannot help but notice the striking transformations taking place in the urban landscapes. This prominent regeneration of urban areas in the UK and around the world has become an increasingly important issue amongst governments and populations. The growing concern has been a result of the impacts of the decline of cities since the collapse of manufacturing industries and the heightening of global competition. A range of innovative approaches to tackle urban problems have been taken over many decades to attempt to regenerate the fortunes of towns and cities across the UK. This text provides an accessible, yet critical, synthesis of urban regeneration in the UK incorporating key policies, approaches, issues and debates. The central objective of the book is to place the historical and contemporary regeneration agenda into context. Section one sets up the conceptual and policy framework for urban regeneration in the UK. SectiontTwo traces policies that have been adopted by central government to influence the social, economic and physical development of cities, including early municipal interventions in the late nineteenth century, community-focused urban policies of the late 1960s, entrepreneurial property-led regeneration of the 1980s and competition for urban funds in the 1990s. The penultimate section illustrates the key thematic policies and strategies that have been pursued by cities themselves, focusing particularly on improving economic competitiveness and tackling social disadvantage. These approaches are contextualized by discussions covering, for example, urban competitiveness policies and the focus on sustainable urban regeneration. The final section summarizes key issues and debates facing urban regeneration, and speculates upon future directions. Urban Regeneration in the UK blends the approaches taken by central government programmes and cities themselves in the regeneration process. The latest ideas and examples from across disciplines and across the UK’s urban areas are illustrated. This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date synthesis that will fill a significant gap in the current literature on regeneration and will be a tool for students as well as a seminal read for practitioners and researchers.
In the past decade, urban regeneration policy makers and practitioners have faced a number of difficult challenges, such as sustainability, budgetary constraints, demands for community involvement and rapid urbanization in the Global South. Urban regeneration remains a high profile and important field of government-led intervention, and policy and practice continue to adapt to the fresh challenges and opportunities of the 21st century, as well as confronting long standing intractable urban problems and dilemmas. This Companion provides cutting edge critical review and synthesis of recent conceptual, policy and practical developments within the field. With contributions from 70 international experts within the field, it explores the meaning of ‘urban regeneration’ in differing national contexts, asking questions and providing informed discussion and analyses to illuminate how an apparently disparate field of research, policy and practice can be rendered coherent, drawing out common themes and significant differences. The Companion is divided into six sections, exploring: globalization and neo-liberal perspectives on urban regeneration; emerging reconceptualizations of regeneration; public infrastructure and public space; housing and cosmopolitan communities; community centred regeneration; and culture-led regeneration. The concluding chapter considers the future of urban regeneration and proposes a nine-point research agenda. This Companion assembles a diversity of approaches and insights in one comprehensive volume to provide a state of the art review of the field. It is a valuable resource for both advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students in Urban Planning, Built Environment, Urban Studies and Urban Regeneration, as well as academics, practitioners and politicians.
This theoretically rooted and research-based book provides insights on the JESSICA funding model which – unlike the traditional non-repayable aid – focuses on supporting sustainable urban development projects in a repayable and recyclable way. Looking through the lens of the JESSICA financial engineering mechanism used in urban transformation, it examines the functioning and performance thereof and formulates policy recommendations for the future. The aim of this volume is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the JESSICA sustainable funding model by exploring its repayable assistance mechanism to support sustainable urban development projects. The authors make several noteworthy contributions to the literature on EU cohesion policy and shed light on the use of the repayable instruments within public interventions, while providing, for the first time, a critical analysis of the JESSICA sustainable funding model from the holistic perspective which is especially relevant for supporting sustainable urban development. Financial Engineering in Sustainable Funding of Urban Development in the EU provides policy-significant findings that are important for EU cohesion policy in the field of repayable assistance to be reinvested in the long term in urban and regional transformation.
This book presents a comprehensive study of contemporary trends in urban policy and planning, bringing leading scholars together to focus on gentrification and its aftermath, with a special emphasis on the history and theory of community. Taking into account the changes to urban policy that followed the financial crisis of 2008, the contributors make a powerful case that the state must continue to play a major role in the maintenance of urban community--that culture and society cannot bear the burden on their own. Based on research from the Connected Communities Programme, the book will be a valuable resource for those working in geography, urban studies, planning, sociology, law, and art, as well as policy makers and community activists.
Entrepreneurship and urban regeneration policy have traditionally been treated as separate fields. This volume is one of the first to focus explicitly on the links between the two, examining how policy can help regenerate inner cities and other areas of urban distress.
The concept of social innovation offers an alternative perspective on development and territorial transformation, one which foregrounds innovation in social relations. This volume presents a broad-ranging and insightful exploration of social innovation and how it can affect life, society and economy, especially within local communities. It addresses key questions about the nature of social innovation as a process and a strategy and explores what opportunities may exist, or may be generated, for social innovation to nourish human development. It puts forward alternative development options which variously highlight solidarity, co-operation, cultural-artistic endeavour and diversity. In doing so, this book offers a provocative response to the predominant neoliberal economic vision of spatial, economic and social change.
This OECD National Urban Policy Review of Colombia provides a comprehensive assessment of the country’s national urban policy ‘the System of Cities’ and of different sectoral policies that affect urban life: transport, housing, land use, and digitalisation. Colombia has entered the 2020s facing five intertwined crises: the COVID-19 pandemic, rising levels of poverty and inequality, a wave of mass international migration, the peace process consolidation, and the climate emergency.
Urban regeneration is a key focus for public policy throughout Europe. This book examines social sustainability and analyses its meaning. The authors offer a comprehensive European perspective to identify best practices in sustainable urban regeneration in five major cities in Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, and the UK. This authoritative overview of the scholarly literature makes the book essential reading for researchers and post-graduate students in sustainable development, real estate, geography, urban studies, and urban planning, as well as consultants and policy advisors in urban regeneration and the built environment.
Now in its fourth edition, the highly successful Housing Policy has been thoroughly updated to include the latest legislation, together with an analysis of the effects of the recession on housing policy.
