Regenerating Places Flashcards
What are the four sects of economic activity
Primary (agriculture, forestry, mining, fishing)
Rural areas tend to have more primary employment in farming, mining, quarrying and fishing
This tends to be low-paid, manual work
Secondary (manufacturing)
There is more secondary employment in northern cities such as Manchester, Sheffield and Glasgow, but this has declined over time.
Tertiary (retail, services, office work)
In the tertiary, or service sector, jobs are concentrated in urban areas but these vary from cleaners on minimum wage to very high paid professionals like lawyers.
Quaternary (scientific research, ICT)
Quaternary jobs in research and development and hi-tech industries are found in London and the South East.
Levels of employment type
Part time/full time
Temporary/permanent
Employed/self-employed
specialist functions
Historically, specialist functions such as banks, department stores, council offices and doctors’ surgeries are classed as high-order functions and located in larger settlements, whilst grocer’s shops, post boxes and pubs are classed as lower-order functions and found even in small villages.
However, the landscapes produced by the functions are rapidly changing due to internet and broadband and changing customer habits. The retail landscape has transformed with online shopping, click-and-collect and banking, affecting high streets. Regeneration may try to conteract ‘cloning’ of land uses and encourage specific place identities to draw customers back. In rural settings, pubs may also be community centres, post offices and village shops. In cities and converted farm buildings small industrial units (e.g. light manufacturing), often high-tech, have appeared, and there has been a large rise in small businesses nationally.
Role of planning by government and other stakeholders as a factor for change
National government policies on restructuring the UK economy, trying to equalise the benefits and reduce the negative externalities of changes. The 1990s policy of increasing student numbers so that 50% of children could go onto higher education.
A plan-led system with tight control over developments, zoning and segregating land uses began from 1948. Green belts introduced and new and expanded towns were developed to relieve population pressure from larger cities. The policy of state funded council housing, industry and transport shifted from the 1980s towards privatisation and greater partnerships with private investors and speculators.
Conservation area policies limit new developments and encourage conversions rather than renewal schemes. National interests may override local ones, for example with HS2 and fracking. Larger schemes must have an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
Central government intervention in local places started to change in the late twentieth to early 21st century when the policy of ‘localism’ and individuality began.
Local planning centres on elected parish and city councils, and on a few larger cities. There has been an increased input into local decisions through Local Area Plans and stakeholder meetings. The cumbersome planning process was streamlined in 2013, although criticised for fast-tracking decisions without full consultation.
Image or the perception of a place may affect whether a place needs changing, or is able to change.
Historical Development as a factor for change
Post-production era: once key factors in many places: primary production (agriculture, farming, fishing) and manufacturing have stopped being so.
Competition for the optimum site for functions: commercial, retail, residential, infrastructure. Land values and intensity of use historically increased towards the Central Business District (CBD) or core of a village (church, marketplace) because access for most people pre-motor age was best here.
Changes in consumer trends:
in retailing, from corner ship to supermarket to online shopping
in house types: increased demand for single homes due to demographic and cultural trends.
role of big businesses and TNCs in shaping consumer demand, and hence the character of places (cloned shopping malls)
Increased affluence has increased leisure and tourism functions, so many houses and buildings have been converted, such as bars, B&Bs or second homes.
Historic Buildings (ex-warehouses, canals, old market squares) can be a physical asset for places seeking regeneration. Large areas of derelict buildings and the legacy of toxic waste from manufacturing can be a deterrent.
Accessibility, connectedness as a factor for change
Access to other places - by road (especially motorways), rail and air.
Connections help competition for investment and visitors.
Physical causes for a change
Location: proximity to large cities and core economic zones.
Environment: places vary in attractiveness.
Technology: lifts allowing high rise, and motor vehicles, facilitating urban sprawl and counter-urbanisation. Fibre optic cables and broadband are shifting traditional ‘landscapes’ and relationships.
Measures of change
Change can be measured using employment trends, demographic change and changes to deprivation levels. Population growth or decline is a key indicator of how economically successful places are.
Middlesbrough’s population was 146,000 in 1991, but had fallen to 138,400 by 2011, a decrease of more than 5%.
Reading’s population grew from 136,000 in 1991 to 155,000 in 2011.
Economic change measurements
Reading, and nearby Bracknell, had gained over 40,000 digital economy (industries like mobile technology, ICT, software design and app development) jobs by 2016, whereas in 2015 Middlesbrough was in the news for the closure of the Teeside Steelworks with the loss of 3200 direct and indirect jobs.
What is the IMD
The Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) attempts to quantify deprivation in England. It uses seven data domains which are weighted towards income and employment. The IMD is a very fine grained index because it spits England into nearly 33,000 small areas with abut 1500 people each.
Income (large weight)
Employment (large weight)
Education (medium)
Health (medium)
Crime (less)
Barriers to housing and services (less)
Living environment (less)
Using the 2015 IMD data for 326 local council areas in England, Middlesbrough was the 7th most deprived area in England whereas Reading was the 147th, with less than half the level of deprivation in Middlesbrough.
(Reading’s rank may seem a little high, but the very lowest levels of deprivation tend to be found in rural areas and commuter belt towns and villages in the South and South East.)
All large towns and cities have some degree of deprivation and Reading is no exception.
Regional and National influences on Reading
Regional Influences on Reading
London’s greenbelt has made Reading a nearby alternative where development is allowed.
Migrants are attracted to Reading, being close to London and close to their UK entry point.
Within the M4 corridor, it is the preferred location for hi-tech industry in the UK.
Many people live in the area, but commute to London.
National Influences on Reading
High transport spending in the South and South East has provided connections: the M4, Heathrow airport, the M40 and the M3.
Regional and National influences on Reading
Middlesbrough
Regional Influences of Middlesbrough
Iron ore deposits, which were in part the origin of Middlesbrough’s industrial growth, were exhausted decades ago.
There are poor road connections to nearby cities such as Leeds and Newcastle, and very poor rail connections.
It is close to the North York Moors National Park, but not close enough to benefit from tourism.
National Influences on Middlesbrough
It is located in a ‘cut-off’ corner of the North East, too far east of the A1 trunk road, and east coast mainline railway.
Things that show a place is successful
High rates of employment
Inward migration (internal and international)
Low levels of deprivation
Impact of a reigon being successful
Economically successful rural and urban regions attract people and investment, though they are not free of problems (overheated property prices, congestion of roads and public transport, skills shortages).
Residents’ perception of a successful places varies
as younger people in high-earning jobs will enjoy the fast pace and opportunities (e.g. London or Manchester). (But the unskilled on low wages/unemployed will disagree)
retirees may want somewhere with a slower pace, a good climate, sheltered accomodation and access to healthcare, e.g. Torquay in Devon or Christchurch in Dorset. (But younger adults may wish to escape)
most will view environmental quality in rural areas as better than in urban
Santa Clara County as a successful region
This is in the San Francisco Bay area of California, USA
It is the original ‘Silicon Valley’ and host the headquarters of Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Adobe and eBay in the cities of Cupertino, Palo Alto and San Jose.
Indicators of the regions success are:
The population in 1990 was 1.5 million, growing to 1.9 million by 2015
Though roughly the same size as Kent (the county in the UK), it has an annual GDP of $180 billion (similar to the Czech Republic)
An average detached house in Santa Clara costs over US $1 million
The average household income in 2014 was $89,000
Santa Clara County has a very ethnically diverse population, as it has attracted migrants from across the USA and internationally. In 2014, 198,000 immigrants gained residency or permission to work long term in California, more than any other US state and about 20% of the total for the USA>
In 2017: 32% white, 26% Hispanic, 37% Asian, 3% black, 1% Native American, 1% Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander
Successful urban places
Either due to market forces and/or government-led regeneration
E.g. London and the South East, as it benefits from being the capital and successive government policies to protect its competitive status, e.g. the Thames Gateway, the 2012 Olympic Games and Heathrow expansion plans.
Large cities such as Birmingham and Bristol have developed strong service and financial centre economies.
If a place is popular it means it’s viewed as largely attractive.
However, people with lower incomes in the successful places will be disadvantaged due to higher cost of living and property prices.
In addition, skills shortages occur (IT, technology, creative, finance, engineering, plumbing, building and caring)
due to previous low education take-up, restrictions on ‘skilled’ immigrants and inflated living costs (in London)
Rural places
The 2011 census showed that rural places generally were experiencing a reversal of a 250-year trend of urban areas dominating jobs, wages and productivity.
Some small villages and towns such as Worchester have been growing faster than many larger urban areas, both in terms of population and economic output. Top of the Halifax survey list was Rutland in the East Midlands.
Generally, rural areas have lower rates of unemployment and insolvencies, with the exception of some ex-mining settlements.
There has been much growth in smaller and micro-businesses (under ten employees) and home working is more important than in rural areas. Higher value food products are booming, as are leisure and tourism.
Accessible and attractive rural communities have seen in-migration of younger families, commuters and retirees. This counter-urbanisation reverses the long-term trend of net out-migration from the countryside to rural areas. Transport and technology innovations, especially mobile networks and government investment in high-speed broadband has allowed more highly skilled professionals to live in attractive rural locations.
Cornwall as an unsuccessful region
Whole regions may be classed as relatively unsuccessful, such as mainly rural Cornwall. ‘Two countrysides’ exist side by side, and place perceptions by residents are likely to vary.
Better-connected, well-off and growing places, such as the Itchen Valley in Hampshire, contrast markedly with less well-off, remoter agricultural places such as Llansilin on the Welsh border, or places once dominated by mining.
Locally, many pockets of deprivation may be ‘hidden’ statistically, made up of a few houses, or streets or a small estate in even the most affluent of urban fringe villages or more remote settlements.
Disparities in regeneration
Social segregation and residential sorting are a common feature of inequalities, and is self-reinforcing as conditions decline in struggling neighbourhoods - the most extreme example is the ‘white flight’ in urban USA.
In both rural and urban areas there are significant inequalities between places that are often spatially very close. This is especially true in urban areas where very deprived areas can often be found next to areas with almost no deprivation.
In Reading there is:
In some places very highly deprived areas are right next to the least deprived ones
in the north east, there is an area in the 10% most deprived next to one in the 10% least deprived (of the country as a whole)
Areas close to the town centre Central Business District to the south and to the west are most deprived
Northern areas of Reading are the least deprived
Some areas of high deprivation are towards the edge of the urban area
Sink Estates
Areas that need regeneration can be found next to those that have no need of it at all:
Rich, gated communities can be found right next to ‘sink estates’ in cities and towns
Gated communities are wealthy residential areas that are fenced off and have security gates and entry systems. They are increasingly common in the UK.
Sink estates are council housing estates that are the least desirable to live in and have the shortest waiting lists for housing. They are characterised by high levels of economic and social deprivation and crime, especially domestic violence, drugs and gang warfare. They tend to house the lowest income, most in-need residents.
Examples of sink estates are the Barracks in Glasgow and Broadwater Farm in North London.
Redruth was the first town in the UK to introduce a temporary curfew for youngsters centred on a sink estate of just six streets known as Close Hill.
Up to a third of families claim benefits in the ex-mining area of small rural towns in Cornwall’s ‘Camborne Corridor’
In rural areas, successful, prosperous commuter villages may be only a few miles away from less attractive rural villages suffering population decline and service deprivation
Political engagement in the UK
In the 2015 UK general election 66.1% of voters who could vote, did. There were large variations in the turnout:
78% of people aged over 65 voted, compared to only 43% of people aged 18-24.
Locally, turnout ranged from 51% in Stoke on Trent Central to 82% in East Dunbartonshire in Scotland.
Turnout is the lowest in deprived inner cities and higher in wealthy suburbs and commuter belt rural areas.
The proportion of men and women who chose to vote was very similar.
Professional and managerial turnout was 75%, whereas among manual workers it was only 57%.
Only 55% of ethnic minorities groups chose to vote.
Local election engagement
In local elections, to elect local councillors who run councils on a day-to-day basis, turnout is much lower, only 36% in the UK 2014 local elections.
The factors that can explain variation in political engagement include:
Language barriers, especially among recently arrived immigrants
Lack of trust in politicians, strongest among the young and some ethnic minority groups
Feeling that one has no influence, strongest among minorities
Lack of belonging to a community giving a feeling of isolation.
This is important because the very communities that need regeneration the most are often the least engaged in the political processes that influence regeneration.
