Urban Regional Regeneration

Urban regional regeneration is a difficult term to examine in isolation, given that it has never been subject to a formal and universal definition, is deeply intertwined with political thinking and state politics, and has under- gone considerable change in interpretation and application. Encompassing a diverse group of activities and disciplines, as well as several areas of public policy, it is recognizable today as a rapidly changing set of values and professional practices, tied to wider economic, social, and environmental change. The term regeneration was introduced and popularized in the 1980s in the USA and UK as a policy response to deindustrialization, the decline of manufacturing activity in urban industrialized areas (see Bluestone and Harrison 1982; Martin and Rowthorn 1986; Lever 1988). As such it epitomized mass market failure. The use of state intervention and investment, to not only reverse the process of industrial decline but also to ameliorate the effects of job losses on key communities, led to high profile regeneration in areas such as Baltimore, and the wider rustbelt area of the USA, which in turn became important international demonstrators for regeneration.