Inner City Regeneration

Recent years have seen a central assault on the powers of local government, combined with an increasing concentration of decision-making within Whitehall. At the same time, a process of deindustrialization has left many older cities in a state of serious decline, both economically and socially. Central government has sought to combat this with a bewildering range of instruments designed to attract industry into these areas, with local government left very much on the sidelines. This developing trend raises a number of questions concerning constitutional accountability for what is happening in our cities. An increasingly opaque central government machine is exhorting industrial and financial capital to act in the local interest. With local government not necessarily playing the central role it become exceedingly difficult to identify responsibility for action taken and not taken. This book discusses the background to this situation and examines the various players in inner city regeneration in detail. In conclusion, the author argues for better long term planning frameworks and for a rebirth of territorial politics.