Regeneration is a term that’s been heavily used in the popular media over recent weeks. In particular, it’s been used in the context of the Olympic legacy – transforming an area of East London that was previously derelict and run-down into a thriving area that’s attractive to people. However, much of the coverage given to regeneration seems to assume that it’ll automatically tackle deprivation. This article however argues that we should not have such blind faith in the power of regeneration – if it’s not properly thought out it’s a policy goal that can exacerbate the problems it is trying to solve.
For me at least, regeneration means taking an area with run-down housing, stark social divisions, and lacking in businesses; and turning it into an area that is attractive, economically vibrant, and less socially divided. There are a number of ways that this can be achieved but traditionally regeneration involves overhauling local infrastructure, bringing in private sector investment and building new homes. However, in bringing about regeneration in such a manner, other issues spring up:
Very often when we talk about regenerating an area, we’re in reality talking about trying to gentrify it– improving the physical and economic landscape of a given place to encourage more affluent individuals to move there. This however, ignores the needs of residents that currently live there. In particular, building new homes exclusively for working professionals can raise local property prices so far that it drives locals out. Rather than revitalising an area for its current residents by tackling the root social and economic causes of deprivation, poorly thought out regeneration may simply look to increase the number of middle class inhabitants. Worse still, by driving locals out, you might just be shifting the original problem onto another area.
A second danger is brought by the fact that regeneration initiatives are often run top-down – led and controlled by large centralised organisations. This is hardly surprising given that regeneration requires the co-ordination of some many resources simultaneously that only large corporations and/or central government are capable of doing it. However, top-down regeneration risks producing facilities and buildings that the local population can’t use. In the case of public sector-led regeneration, we may get buildings or venues which local residents have little interest in. In the case of private sector-led regeneration, we may see the creation of jobs which locals aren’t suitable for or insufficiently trained to fill. In both cases, a top-down approach may mean that outsiders (who may already come from more affluent regions) see all the benefits from regeneration whilst the locals see little overall improvement in their lot.
Before I end, it’s worth pointing out that regeneration shouldn’t be disregarded as a policy option. Clearly there’s nothing inherently wrong in trying to improve an area and tackle deprivation. Indeed, there are examples where regeneration has widely been regarded as having been effective (e.g. Glasgow since the early 1990s and Liverpool over the past decade). However, as this article has argued, regeneration isn’t the silver bullet to addressing deprivation that it is often made out to be. Too often it is more concerned about attracting the affluent to a region as a short-to-medium term fix. To be really effective, regeneration needs to improve the root social and economic conditions that cause deprivation in the first place. This means placing the needs of an area’s current residents at the heart of policy.
