Regenerating places

Question 1

What does the term regeneration mean?

Answer 1

• To tackle problems or inequalities in an area rural and urban to make them economically successful and/or socially acceptable

Question 2

What is meant by the change in function of an area?

Answer 2

• The primary use of an area changing over time due to a multitude of reasons including, deindustrialisation, change in demographic etc.

Question 3

What is meant by demographic changes?

Answer 3

• Characteristics of a population including age, ethnicity, religion etc.

Question 4

What is gentrification?

Answer 4

• When more affluent people move into an area forcing people to increase the quality of local services to attract people of a higher social class

Question 5

What are the physical factors that can change the characteristics of a place?

Answer 5

• Location, ,if an area is closer to a city it can become more connected
• Environment, places vary in attractiveness
• Technology, if an area has lifts it can build high rises and the amount of cars may call for more roads.

Question 6

What are the accessibility factors affecting the change in characteristics of a place?

Answer 6

• Access to other places by road, rail and air
• Connections help competition for investment and visitors

Question 7

What are the historical factors affecting the change in characteristics of a place?

Answer 7

• Post-production era, deindustrialisation and colonialism
• Competition, early developments in a place can give it an advantage in the future
• Changes in consumer trends, demand in housing, from physical shops to online shopping
• The role of big businesses in changing consumer demands

Question 8

How do the role of national governments and other stakeholders affect the change in characteristics of a place?

Answer 8

• National governments restructure the UK economy equalising benefits while reducing the negatives of change. 1990’s policy of increasing student numbers so that 50% of children go on to higher education
• Central government intervention
• Local planning, increased local decisions made through local area plans and stakeholder meetings
• Image, perception of a place may affect whether it needs to be changed

Question 9

What are the main ways change in an area can be measured?

Answer 9

• Land use changes
• Employment trends
• Demographic changes
• Levels of deprivation

Question 10

What is the index of multiple deprivation?

Answer 10

• Used by the central and local governments to measure deprivation to target regeneration where it is needed
• 37 indicators are sorted in 7 sections, employment, income, living environment, barriers to housing, education, health and crime
• Discovered London boroughs Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Haringey have become less deprived since 2010 and been used in 24 Local enterprise partnerships to target aid

Question 11

What does perception of a place mean?

Answer 11

• How people engage with their place
• Varies between people depending on age, ethnicity and social class
• People may have positive or negative views of a place that vary over time

Question 12

What makes a place successful?

Answer 12

• Tend to be self sustaining
• High levels of employment
• High Ouput levels
• Low deprivation levels
• High quality of life

Question 13

Why might the perception of a place differ amongst people?

Answer 13

• Young high earners will enjoy the plethora of activities available to them whereas a low earner from the same area may not be able to partake and have a more negative view.
• Retirees may like slow pace of life and need good access to healthcare
• Quality of life is generally higher in rural areas than urban ones

Question 14

What makes an urban place successful and how does this affect perception?

Answer 14

• Either due to market forces or from government led regeneration policies
• An example of this is London, an area successful because of globalisation that regenerated areas such as Stratford with the 2012 Olympics.
• ## Low cost in the living in the North may be more preferable to low earners than higher wages in the south

Question 15

What makes a rural place successful and how does this affect perception?

Answer 15

• Lower rates of unemployment with the exception being ex-mining towns
• Increased growth in less than 10 employee businesses
• High value food, tourism and leisure products are on the rise
• Successful rural areas increase in-migration of young people and retirees due to infrastructural improvements of rural areas

Question 16

What are the social impacts of inequality?

Answer 16

• Less trust in government or institutions
• Less Social and civic participation
• Less Educational attainment
• Less social mobility
• More segregation of social class
• More violent crime
• More health issues
• Higher infant mortality rate
• Higher rates of debt due to people chasing alternative status

Question 17

What is the primary cause of urban decline?

Answer 17

• Deindustrialisation causes decline in jobs and therefore income which are both pivotal measurements in the Index of Multiple Deprivation

Question 18

What are the two types of cities involved in urban decline?

Answer 18

• Reinventor cities, Changing economic base such as encouraging IT and digital media which have higher wages, new businesses and productivity
• Replicator cities, rely on call centres and distribution centres and are less sustainable

Question 19

What are the primary causes of rural decline?

Answer 19

• Out-migration of young people and skilled workers (brain drain)
• Ageing population

Question 20

What is the order of the spiral of decline?

Answer 20

• National shift in industry
• Linked industries close
• Unemployment leads to affluent and/or young people move away
• Shops close due to less money being spent in an area
• Living and natural environmental problems
• Social problems such as lack of aspirations appearing in in most deprived areas
• This deters investors and house prices lower leading to in migration of immigrants and students

Question 21

What areas are prioritised and what areas aren’t?

Answer 21

• Sink Estates, low cost housing with high welfare spending, high levels of crime and social spending common in Glasgow and Broadwater in London.
• Gated communities, example of social segregation and are usually filled with affluent people. Surveillance of people who come in and out but it could be made hard for visitors to enter.

Question 22

What is a commuter village?

Answer 22

• Accessible villages by public transportation or cars
• 19 million people people lived in these according to the 2011 census
• Itchen valley is an example of this
• Tend to have small levels of deprivation but more affluent people moving in threaten low income residents such as farmers

Question 23

How can social characteristics influence voters opinions and interactions?

Answer 23

• 7.5 million people eligible did not register to vote in 2015, Black, young and poor people are the least likely to vote and 66% of those eligible did not cast a vote
• Rural places are more supportive of liberal and conservative parties

Question 24

What are the engagement levels of local elections like?

Answer 24

• 2014, local election participation rate stood at 36%
• 15% of people voted at police and crime commissioner elections in 2012
• This influenced calls for compulsory votes

Question 25

What are community groups?

Answer 25

• Groups of people from an area with similar interests such as NIMBYism that stop things like construction and fracking
• Can influence positive changes in an area such as a focus on food supply and access to healthcare.
• There are about 9000 grant organisations that can provide funds to people who call for it

Question 26

What are factors influencing levels of engagement with places and elections?

Answer 26

• Age, combined with attachment to place
• Ethnicity, views may differ due to antipathy in an area
• Length of residence, students and migrant may be less attached to a place than an older resident
• Levels of deprivation, if people are without necessities they may become anti-establishment
• Gender, women may feel less safe in an area than men due to events such as sexual assault late at night due to events such as the Sarah Everard murder.
• Membership, a feeling of belonging
• Influence, sense of playing a part in a place

Question 27

How do marginalisation, exclusion and social polarisation influence engagement levels?

Answer 27

• Marginalisation, people pushed to the sides of a more dominant or core culture
• Segregation of high and low socioeconomic people through sink estates and gated communities due to economic shift or income inequality, aka social polarisation

Question 28

How are rural and Urban places dependent on one another?

Answer 28

• People in rural areas rely on many key services in towns and cities such as healthcare, education and leisure
• Urban people rely on the countryside for food, leisure but due to having more power usually make decisions without knowing the extent of the consequences like fracking

Question 29

What is studentification?

Answer 29

• The process of a place becoming more suited for students such as shared housing, access to school etc

Question 30

What is the Northern powerhouse?

Answer 30

• Concept announced in 2014 to make Northern cities act economically together to rival the south
• Made hard by differing identities caused by poor transport links, and when they aren’t poor they still spark debate such as the HS2

Question 31

How does the national government affect regeneration?

Answer 31

• High cost and longevity are the reason the national government has to get involved
• Infrastructure and projects authority formed in 2016 oversees long term infrastructure investment and acquires private investment
• The DCLG ‘creates great places to live and work’ running ELAs and LEPs
• The Department for culture media and sports promotes UKs image abroad
• Defra promotes environmental stability as a part of economic growth.
• UK trade and investment oversees the regeneration and investment organisation. In 2015 had 40 projects over £100 million

Question 32

How do planning laws affect regeneration policies?

Answer 32

• National interest overrides local interests, 2010 main interest was economic growth
• ‘planning gain’ used to win over local communities fe. new social housing
• Slow decision making can make investors leave leaving house prices to fall, trap people causing a downward spiral
• Proposal must be submitted to Local authority which can be appealed if rejected which can be very costly

Question 33

How does planning for fracking affect regeneration policies?

Answer 33

• Process of obtaining natural gas shale rocl using drills and huge amounts of pressure
• The department for energy and climate change gives licenses through EIAs
• Many pressure groups against this including frack off

Question 34

How does planning for housing needs affect regeneration policies?

Answer 34

• Labour led governments focus on social housing
• Conservative governments prefer economic functions such as the ‘right to buy’ resulting in the selliing of 2 million council homes between 1980-1995
• The 2011 Localism act resulted in underinvestment, empty homes, affordability issues and planning restriction hindering developers causing slow decision making

Question 35

How does the deregulation of capital markets affect regeneration policy?

Answer 35

• Involve shares meaning can heavily affect local and national growth
• Deregulating financial markets brought forth by the conservative party to encourage more investment in London resulting in 30% of 2008 England’s GDP creating areas like Canary Wharf
• This is a crucial factor in the economic state of the country

Question 36

How does government policy of international migration affect regeneration?

Answer 36

• More tax is paid and vacancies, low and high skilled, can be filled.
• Younger populations give ageing ones a better economic structure
• Joining the EU increased immigration to the UK