Winning the battles but losing the war? Regeneration, renewal and the state of Britain's cities

Abstract

Although three decades of regeneration spending have made a real impact on both local renewal and poverty/worklessness, many of Britain's cities remain very unequal places. Economic growth has tended to increase the gap between north and south and rich and poor. Future efforts to address these issues are likely to become more difficult as both the business economy and public spending contract. In this environment, policy making will need to overcome three fundamental obstacles: (1) any a priori assumptions that basic urban geography will and should remain the same; (2) mistaken interpretations of so-called `market failures'; and (3) confused thinking about the split between supply-side and demand-side policy solutions.