Urban ‘regeneration’: reflections on a metaphor

Abstract

Recent British urban policy has pursued ‘regeneration’. This article offers a critical reflection on this pervasive metaphor. ‘Regeneration’ is a signifier of profound change in many religious traditions and political ideologies, both radical and conservative. In practice, however, the more conservative meanings, deriving from individualistic spiritualities and ‘psychologisms’, sociological organicism and statist interventionism, remain dominant. Hence, for all its ‘holistic’ and ‘inclusive’ novelty, contemporary urban regeneration preserves some familiar limitations of perspective. In particular, in its quest for ‘social inclusion’, often the ‘excluders’ are not in view and the ‘excluded’ are not in focus.

Tackling health inequalities and social exclusion through partnership and community engagement? A reality check for policy and practice aspirations from a Social Inclusion Partnership in Scotland

“…Most SIPs have had at least a partial focus on improving health within their communities, within the 'new' regeneration agenda. This aims to tackle the degradation of the built environment, reclaim excluded people and reintegrate a fragmented, polarised society (Furbey 1999).…”

Mind the Gap? The Persistence of Pathological Discourses in Urban Regeneration Policy

“…Corpus Mega-level Construct pathological discourses Historical analysis of policy discourses (Furbey, 1999;Atkinson, 2000) Grand-level Re-form pathological discourses in terms of a New Labour policy discourse Analysis of UK Labour government policies (Watt and Jacobs, 2000;Levitas, 2005) Meso-level Reflect and reconstruct discourses in a unique Scottish policy context Scottish urban policy documents (Scottish Office, 1988;1990;1998; The historical analysis of policy by Furbey (1999) highlights the metaphorical nature of "regeneration", "redevelopment", "renewal" and "renaissance". Although these terms suggest a rebirth or profound change, the concept in policy has become associated with a more conservative, organicist process of slow renewal and change.…”

“…This shifts the blame onto these communities (Furbey, 1999). This is an historic problem with UK urban policy since it emerged in the late 1960s in response to President Johnson's 'War on Poverty' in the USA (Atkinson and Moon, 1994;Atkinson, 2000;Fischer, 2003).…”

Problem definition and re-evaluating a policy: the real successes of a regeneration scheme

“…Yanow (1996) provides the example of using the metaphor of a community centre as a "supermarket" of community services to implement a programme of community development in the context of a culture (Hebrew culture in Israel) which had never had community centres. In the field that is the focus of this paper, urban renewal or regeneration, extended metaphors of decline, degeneration, renewal and regeneration frame policy understanding (Furbey, 1999).…”