Alan Reeve

Town Centre Management and Regeneration: The Experience in Four English Cities

There is a growing recognition of Town Centre Management (TCM) as one of the several mechanisms to regenerate town centres in the UK context. However, in practice the role of TCM is diverse, ranging from day-to-day maintenance of urban centres to strategic contributions to economic regeneration and developing future vision of the town as a whole. TCMs contribution and capacity to regenerate town centres depends both on the nature of the TCM strategy applied on local regeneration problems and challenges and on local socio-economic circumstances. Drawing on research completed in 2005, this paper presents evidence from four contrasting town centres of the distinctive roles played by TCM in town centre regeneration. The paper demonstrates that under certain conditions TCM has the potential to go beyond its typical focus on town centre enhancement and leverage, to a focus much close to the wider social objectives of regeneration in the UK context. The paper also outlines a predictive model for understanding which types of town centre are likely to benefit from TCM as an approach to regeneration.

Townscape heritage initiatives evaluation: Methodology for assessing the effectiveness of Heritage Lottery Fund projects in the United Kingdom

As a result of various social and economic factors, many historic townscapes in the United Kingdom and elsewhere have declined over the last half century. There have been many attempts throughout the world to revitalise such urban heritage areas, but the actual effectiveness of few of these schemes has been systematically evaluated. Good public policy choices would greatly benefit from such evaluation. The UKs Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) decided in 1999 that their Townscape Heritage Initiatives would be an exception. A research team from Oxford Brookes University was engaged to undertake a ten-year study of the £52 million being spent in about sixty British towns and cities. A sample of about one third of projects receiving HLF support are being scrutinised. The evaluation methodology is outlined, along with explanations of some challenges faced in such a large programme. The four mechanisms for gathering research data are explained, the origin and rationale for the sixteen indicators being employed are described, and the approach to overall evaluation outlined. Finally there is an overview of the baseline stage of the work, highlighting key issues from a research perspective, and briefly reflecting on findings to date.

The impact of heritage investment on public attitudes to place: evidence from the Townscape Heritage Initiative (THI)

This paper is concerned with public perceptions and attitudes to heritage townscapes, and how these might be influenced by investment in such places, focused on their public realm, and building restoration and improvement as a catalyst for urban regeneration. It draws on a ten-year study of the impact of the Townscape Heritage Initiative, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, on a sample of 16 cases across the UK. By comparing an analysis of changes in townscape quality over this period, with changes in public perceptions (captured through the use of a household survey in all 16 cases at three points in the ten-year period), it draws empirically grounded conclusions about the influence of heritage investment on attitudes and perceptions to the quality of the local environment. The findings from the research suggests that public attitudes are positively influenced by programmes of investment in the built heritage, but that this influence is complex and is not as robust as the physical regeneration itself. The paper also reflects on the relative influence of the post-2008 economic recession on public attitudes to place compared with the influence of heritage investment.

Understanding the impact of economic migrants and landless farmers on mass produced housing and community space in China, using the case of Zhangjing, Suzhou

ABSTRACT As a consequence of the rapid, government-led and globally fuelled urban development that is occurring within China, an unplanned form of urbanization is emerging, whereby landless farmers and economic migrants are resettling and occupying both public space and housing in ways that deviate from the community development plan. The paper will use both historical and contemporary urban theory, together with a case study of Zhangjiing in Suzhou Industrial Park, China as means of critiquing and learning from these consequences and the planning and policy instruments in place. The case of Zhangjing can be critically reviewed in the context of Christopher Alexander’s argument that when a new urban development is created which is modelled or predicated on a tree structure to replace the semi-lattice that was there before, the city takes a step towards dissociating itself from its geographical and cultural context.

Punch and Judy at the Beach and in the Mall

This article examines how the traditional English folk form of Punch and Judy is deployed in two very different contemporary public settings in the UK: the beach and the shopping mall. It explores how the nature of public settings alters profoundly the meaning of this highly specific cultural object and how its commodification as part of the spaces of everyday consumption transforms its original value and connection to its audience. Other examples of street performance in British urban contexts are also considered. The article derives from recent ethnographic research into the contemporary significance of Punch and Judy, combined with theoretical accounts of spectacle in urban space. Its authors are from two quite different academic and research fields – puppetry and street performance, and urban design. The research demonstrates how these approaches and styles of conceptualizing public space can be creatively synthesized to yield fresh insights into the nature of spaces of performance – and on the notion of ‘tradition’ as it is experienced in the contemporary public realm. The analysis and examples of Punch and Judy performances derive from an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded PhD ethnographic study in collaboration with Royal Holloway, London.