Urban renewal and citizenship: the quality of life in British cities, 1890-1990

Abstract

This paper juxtaposes two key themes: the concept of citizenship and ideas on urban renewal over the past century. The aim is to explore the interaction of cultural changes and the physical environment of cities. The concept of citizenship represents a cultural response to social change which itself has changed dramatically over the past century. Urban renewal has taken many forms. Yet behind all the growing technical expertise in dealing with the physical environment, there are specific social responses to the city which legitimize action. By looking at citizenship and urban renewal together, it is possible to establish a perspective on how the urban environment has been manipulated over the past century, often in ways which have barely interfaced with the social demands of many sections of the community.

Civic Communication in Britain

“…Over time, as Helen Meller has noted, the emphasis shifted from the former to the latter. 30 While the journal has obvious limitations as a source (it was in the camp of one faction), it was a publication that collated the major activities of local government together in a weekly publication, in a way no other journal of the time did. The first issue of London in 1893 proclaimed it as a medium for "the description of new streets, the beautifying of our parks, the improved sanitation of our homes .…”

Civic perceptions: housing and local decision-making in English cities in the 1920s

“…17 Thus increased state intervention also brokered new local relationships: where civic identity through active citizenship was increasingly structured in terms of the willingness of municipalities to incur debt through, amongst other things, urban renewal programmes. 18 Importantly, in both Nottingham and Leicester pre-war`progressive' laxity in matters of municipal welfarism was held in no small part responsible for Liberal atrophy, from which the other parties sought to bene®t electorally. 19 In short, therefore, the conditions existed for self-nominating progressive authorities to construct an enhanced reformist identity through locally initiated social provision.…”

Social Reform and Allotment Gardening in Twentieth-Century York

“… 21. After Helen Meller, “Urban Renewal and Citizenship: The Quality of Life in British Cities, 1890-1990,” Urban History 22 (1995): 63-84. …”