Learning from the past in regeneration?

Last week, a government select committee published their report into regeneration. This was all about regeneration (and its failures) in England, but much of it resonates more widely. Before I mention what was in the report, it is worth noting the composition of the committee: 5 Labour MPs (including the committee chair), 6 Conservative MPs, 1 Liberal Democrat MP. I should also mention that last week a paper of mine was published. This is significant not because I had something published (!) but because the paper was entitled 'Learning from the Past? A Review of Approaches to Spatial Targeting in Urban Policy' and it has a lot to say about the issues in the select committee report. Unusually, for me, it also has no maps or stats in it! I look at examples from across the world and my view is that there is a problem with the way we conceptualise the 'problem' in urban policy, but enough about that.

Back to the select committee report... The most significant thing the report says - and this was widely reported in the news and regen media - is the following quote, from the opening paragraph of the conclusion:

"Regeneration to enable growth offers little evidence that the Government has a coherent strategy for addressing the country's regeneration needs. The document lacks strategic direction and fails to target action and resources at the communities most in need. The measures it sets out are unlikely to bring in sufficient resources or to attract the private sector investment that in many areas is badly needed."

The part about investment being badly needed in many areas is perhaps most significant in some of the former housing market renewal areas - one example being the Welsh streets in Liverpool - see a Google street view of this here. This subject is covered more generally in Part 3 of the report where there is a particularly powerful quote from from Ros Groves, Chair of a Liverpool residents' association, who said:

"We need to think what my people are living in and the conditions they are living in. It is a famous line: we have kids in schools; you ask them to draw a house and they will draw you a house with boarded-up windows, not fancy little curtains or anything else. To me, that is not a future that we can build on, which is criminal. We have a right to have a decent life and place where we live, and that is the one thing that we ask Government. Can we have it? Can we let any Pathfinder area be left with what some people are being left to live in?"

As you can tell, the committee are not exactly thrilled with the government's approach to the housing market renewal programme. Regeneration and Renewal used the word 'damning' and that about covers it.

In Learning the Lessons in Part 4 of the report there is a quote from Paul Lawless, Professor of Urban Policy at Sheffield Hallam University. His views on learning lessons are summed up in one particular quote: 

"One marked weakness in this strand of policy has been a reluctance on the part of new administrations to learn from previous regeneration initiatives. There is every possibility of this happening again, as a new government launches a regeneration programme with little if any acknowledgement of lessons from previous interventions."

My small contribution to the literature effectively finds the same things, and not just in England but more widely in different parts of the world. Not learning from the past, however, is not restricted to regeneration but the implications of not doing so here are particularly severe for those living in areas targeted by urban policy. 

Full details of the inquiry associated with the report can be found here. That's all I have to say for today! Take a look at the report - it makes fascinating reading (though I couldn't find it a pdf version).

Indices of Deprivation 2010

The English Indices of Deprivation 2010 were published this morning. Previous Indices were published in 2000, 2004 and 2007. I've decided to do a few posts on this because I find it very interesting and it does have real implications in relation to policy. In this post, I've done some basic mapping and analysis (click on any map to view it full size).

A quick snapshot first: the most deprived LSOA is in Tendring, Essex. It used to be in Liverpool. Overall, Liverpool, Middlesbrough, Manchester, Knowsley, Hull, Hackney and Tower Hamlets remain the most deprived local authorities. So, no major surprises.

Overview for the whole of England, with a list of top ten most deprived LSOAs.


Overview cartogram for England, with a list of top ten most deprived LSOAs.


Detailed map showing location of the most deprived LSOA in England.


A zoomable google map version of the above, for good measure.

View Tendring 018A in a larger map

A more focused map of Merseyside, showing Liverpool, Sefton and Knowsley.

Note: The Indices of Deprivation 2010 are produced for small areas called LSOAs. These lower layer super output areas are not 'neighbourhoods' in a formal sense but they often have a high degree of internal similarity. The average population of an LSOA is about 1500 and in total there are 32,482 of them in England. The data used in the Indices are mostly from 2008 but you can read more about this in the technical report.

The Future for England's Cities...

A quick post today on some recent research by the Centre for Cities. Their report - entitled 'Grand Designs? A new approach to the built environment in England’s cities' takes a look at what the future might hold for England's cities in relation to regeneration and the built environment.

Some interesting findings and analysis of population data going back to 1801. One particularly encouraging view is that money urgently needs to be found to continue the work in housing market renewal areas across England.

There are also some interesting maps and animations. I'm not saying they're interesting just because I did them, but because of the patterns they reveal. Honest. The latter can be found on the Grand Designs web page and the former in the report itself. Regular visitors to this blog (if there are any!) may recognise the animations from previous work I've done.

Regeneration 2000-2009

Much has been written about regeneration in the UK over the past decade. A couple of days ago I saw a piece in the Guardian about 'regeneration in the noughties'. Interesting stuff - basically, it says that a decade of regeneration has resulted in nice looking city centres but not a lot else. In particular, it looks at the experience in Sheffield. (For Sheffield, the Sheffield blog is also quite interesting.)

I wrote a blog post about this general topic ages ago but it's useful to reflect on the past decade since the new one looks like it will be all about public spending cuts and not much shiny new regeneration.

A plan to save Detroit?

A recent article by Bruce Katz captured my attention today. It's entitled 'The Detroit Project: A Plan for Solving America's Greatest Urban Disaster' - strong words indeed. It's of interest to me for a few reasons: 1. urban policy is one of my main research areas; 2. it mentions Sheffield - where I live; 3. it uses European examples in a positive light; 4. it makes international comparisons; 5. my Grandparents used to live and work in Detroit (they were immigrants in the early 1930s); 6. I've been there and seen the city first-hand (see photos below).

The policy challenges faced in Detroit are huge. The population has halved since 1950, unemployment is at 28% and there are 1,220 violent crimes per 100,000 people. Despite all this, I found it a very enjoyable city to visit. Maybe that's because I've also lived in cities such as Glasgow and Liverpool and I like interesting places. Anyone who has driven along the lower dock road in Liverpool and West Fort Street in Detroit will understand. However, the claim that 'Europe is filled with cities that have risen from similarly miserable conditions' is, in my view, a bit over the top. Having said that, anyone who grew up in Liverpool in the 1980s would understand the comparison.

I do agree with the assertion that 'recovery requires at least a generation' - as Katz says.

Area Effects - do they exist?

Much has been written in the academic literature about 'area effects', or how concentrations of poverty (or disadvantage, or deprivation, or whatever you want to call it) can act to create further disadvantage in terms of all sorts of things; from health to employment, to crime and so on.

Another issue here is the extent to which the geography of deprivation has largely remained the same in cities across the United Kingdom. So, if we look back in time and follow neighbourhoods through to the present day many of the areas that we target with policy today were seen as 'problems' decades ago. Despite lots of money being spent on them, things have not got much better.

The Department of Communities and Local Government's recently published Regeneration Framework has more to say on these issues but it also acknowledges the above two problems. But what can we do about it? Well, the Framework has three priority outcomes:

• improving economic performance in deprived areas;
• improving rates of work and enterprise in deprived areas; and
• creating sustainable places where people want to live and can work, and businesses want to invest.

Some good ideas but have we any reason to think it will be any more effective than previous approaches? Maybe. There is a growing realisation that, after 40+ years of area-based initiatives in England, something just isn't right in the approach we take.

The point of this post is to say that I concur with most of what's in the Framework but I don't there there is enough emphasis on the extent to which deprivation is a spatial phenomenon, as well as an attributional one. What I mean by this is that the spatial manifestation of deprivation also needs to be tackled head on. But first, it needs to be understood - and this is what my current research focus is on. I've blogged on this before, but I just wanted to re-emphasise it here since the Framework was on my mind. There's also a reference to a paper that I co-wrote (bottom of page 55) with some of the spatial context material in it.