Commentary Towards a theology of urban regeneration

Abstract

Working in partnership with other faiths and a number of agencies including the RDA for the North West the author has set up Faiths4Change, which is an organisation working across the faith communities engaging local people in the holistic transformation of their local environment. Quoting the African proverb 'We have borrowed the present from our children', he believes that young people are much more alert to the need to create cleaner, safer and greener communities. He believes that there is a real tension between community-led regeneration and programmes that are centrally driven. He feels that these tensions are often revealed in the language that is used. People living in local communities tend to use organic language such as 'seeds, planting and renewal'; those who control the money tend to use mechanical language such as 'triggers, buttons, levers and targets'. He is convinced that one cannot have mechanical solutions to organic problems and that those with the money and the power need to understand more fully how communities die and live again. In this paper, he reflects on the experience and what was learned when he was Chair of Kensington Regeneration in Liverpool from 1999 to 2004.