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영어

This is the first of two papers that map the evolution of UK urban regeneration policy from the Second World War to the introduction of the Sustainable Communities Plan in 2003. The Sustainable Communities Plan (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, ODPM, 2003) was heralded as a ‘step-change’ in UK urban regeneration policy and for the first time in many years appeared to forefront ‘sustainability’, ‘communities’ and ‘sustainable communities’. So how did this urban policy arise and is it a ‘step-change’? To explore this and answer the question it is necessary to look back into the historical development of UK urban regeneration policies. Therefore this first paper concentrates on ‘Twentieth Century’ urban regeneration policy from the post Second World War period to the election of New Labour in 1997. The consistent aim of both papers is: first, to understand the ways in which discourses of ‘community’ and sustainability’ have manifested (or not) in UK urban policies over several decades and second, to chart the ways in which ‘urban problems’ have been perceived and how policies have evolved in response to this within the particular socio-economic-political context of the period.