Urban regeneration and community benefit

Abstract

The main body of this thesis presents the results of research examining two major urban policies operating on Tyneside, a conurbation in the North East of England, in the early 1990s - Urban Development Corporations (UDCs) and City Challenge. The research examines in detail the ways in which Tyne and Wear Development Corporation and North Tyneside City Challenge have addressed the twin issues of community participation and community benefit. Examination of the Tyneside area demonstrates the long term effects of industrial decline and central government’s continued public policy response; UDCs and City Challenge are significant recent examples. There is a large body of literature which focuses on the related issues of industrial decline, urban deprivation and public policy response. Some of this literature has highlighted the limited ability of urban policy to ameliorate many of the problems found within the inner city. More recently, commentators have argued that urban policy should address the social needs of local communities directly and not, as many recent urban initiatives have, concentrate almost exclusively on the physical regeneration of derelict areas. Whilst official output measures published by the Department of Environment suggest, in general, that UDCs and City Challenge authorities are successful in meeting their objectives, meaningful evaluation must examine the outcomes of policy and not concentrate solely on the physical 'outputs'. With this in mind, a framework has been adopted which incorporates two key concepts required to evaluate urban policy in a meaningful way - community participation and community benefit. This framework focuses analysis on people and local communities, rather than simply the physical outputs of policy. By using the concepts of community participation and community benefit in evaluating urban policy initiatives, this thesis demonstrates the limitations of the UDC and City Challenge models when addressing the needs of deprived local communities.