Austin Barber

Conceptualising Sustainability in UK Urban Regeneration: a Discursive Formation

Despite the wide usage and popular appeal of the concept of sustainability in UK policy, it does not appear to have challenged the status quo in urban regeneration because policy is not leading in its conceptualisation and therefore implementation. This paper investigates how sustainability has been conceptualised in a case-based research study of the regeneration of Eastside in Birmingham, UK, through policy and other documents, and finds that conceptualisations of sustainability are fundamentally limited. The conceptualisation of sustainability operating within urban regeneration schemes should powerfully shape how they make manifest (or do not) the principles of sustainable development. Documents guide, but people implement regeneration— and the disparate conceptualisations of stakeholders demonstrate even less coherence than policy. The actions towards achieving sustainability have become a policy ‘fix’ in Eastside: a necessary feature of urban policy discourse that is limited to solutions within market-based constraints.

Birmingham: whose urban renaissance? Regeneration as a response to economic restructuring

This paper draws together two traditionally distinct discourses that have dominated debates over urban policy responses to economic restructuring, deindustrialisation, major plant closures and the rise of the service and knowledge-based economy over the past 20 years. It investigates the case of Birmingham, where the policy drive of city centre regeneration, flagship development and the re-making of central urban space for new economic activities has been accompanied by much acclaim and ‘boosterist’ hype. At the same time, the socio-spatial impact of economic restructuring and the resulting policy response has been extremely uneven. The economic difficulties and wider disadvantage experienced by much of the citys population and many of its neighbourhoods, especially those inner city areas with large ethnic minority populations, have endured and even deepened since the early 1990s despite the efforts of numerous area-based regeneration programmes funded by central government. The paper reflects upon this dual narrative by asking the question whose urban renaissance? From this study it clear that the dominance of the ‘boosterist’ discourse is significantly tempered by the uneven and enduring socio-economic divides within the city and the partial nature of the citys overall recovery, particularly in terms of providing employment for its residents. In this sense, significant policy challenges remain despite the clear achievements of the past 20 years. The paper concludes by considering new spatial policy approaches that could bind together the dual imperatives of creating new economic opportunities, and addressing aspects of acute need among the local population.

The meaning of place and state‐led gentrification in Birmingham’s Eastside

Despite Birmingham’s claim to constitute ‘England’s second city’, it has arguably been overlooked in much recent academic research – perhaps because of a tendency to regard Manchester as the paradigmatic English example of the emerging post‐industrial city‐region. Contributors to CITY have gone some way to redressing this imbalance – with Frank Webster’s paper in vol 5 no 1 and Kevin Ward’s paper in vol 7 no 2 underlining the wider issues raised by the adoption of ‘urban entrepreneurialism’ in Birmingham. This paper, by Libby Porter and Austin Barber, takes forward such concerns through a case study of the ongoing regeneration of an individual district of the city: Birmingham Eastside. Using the stories of two pubs, whose fortunes are permanently re‐shaped by state‐led development initiatives, the paper develops a critical reflection on academic and policy debates relating to gentrification and the restructuring of central districts of large cities. In particular, the authors highlight how current thinking about the regeneration of inner city districts marginalizes the socio‐cultural meaning of place and the human networks that animate city places. They argue that this constrains planning possibilities and imaginations for the area’s future. The paper’s concluding call for urban analysts and planners alike to go beyond the economic when examining the processes and effects of urban change resonates with much work previously published in CITY. In particular, Porter and Barber’s analysis echoes Frank Webster’s assertion in vol 5 no 1 that, whatever else it may have achieved, regeneration in Birmingham appears to have resulted directly in a destruction of community.

Planning the Cultural Quarter in Birmingham's Eastside

Abstract Cultural planning and the development of cultural quarters has become a new orthodoxy in the revitalization of inner city industrial districts, yet this orthodoxy is now widely questioned as to whether it delivers on its promises. In Birmingham UK, the aim to create a new cultural quarter in the industrial inner city area of Eastside represents a unique opportunity for the city to examine and learn from past lessons of the “cultural turn” in urban policy. The article examines these lessons and whether the Eastside scheme is set to repeat the mistakes of the past

Elucidating Sustainability Sequencing, Tensions, and Trade-Offs in Development Decision Making

The development process at the site or building scale is a multiobjective process requiring the cooperation of many professions and other stakeholders. The addition of multiple sustainability objectives, often seemingly unrelated (economic versus environmental versus social) in a rapidly changing global urban context, further constrains and complicates the process. The MODESTT mapping approach was developed to elucidate the interdependencies, tensions, and trade-offs between different sustainability objectives for a given development, and to make explicit the points at which a single design decision may ‘lock-in’ or ‘lock-out’ various possible outcomes. In this article, we review and analyse existing models of the development process, illustrate the decisions and activities inherent in delivering a single element of a development (illustrated in this paper with the example of a roof); then apply the MODESTT analysis to three sustainability objectives. The analysis makes explicit the critical importance of sequencing of actions and decisions, and interdependencies between specific objectives that lead to tensions and trade-offs between the multiple sustainability objectives. We conclude by making recommendations for the generic application of the MODESTT approach to improve sustainability throughout the site development process. Regardless of the tools that are available in the UK or elsewhere for the development process and for sustainability proxies, it is the timing and sequencing of decisions (when data are collected or the tools are applied) that are important in delivering effective solutions.

Urban Regeneration and Socio-economic Sustainability: A Role for Established Small Food Outlets

In recent years, the challenges of urban regeneration and sustainability have been brought together in discourses concerning the re-shaping of inner-city districts of large cities. Currently, sustainable development in regeneration policies is mostly dominated by the environmental dimension and qualities of the built environment, with some focus on the more easily quantifiable aspects of social and economic dimensions. There is, however, limited discussion about integrating socio-economic aspects of sustainable regeneration in the literature. This paper presents a critical exploration of the role of the existing small business base in facilitating more sustainable urban re-development from a socio-economic standpoint. Indigenous food outlets in Birminghams Eastside district—a re-development initiative branded as exemplar of sustainable urban development—are used to illustrate the role of small businesses in the day-to-day life of districts undergoing regeneration. The paper reflects on challenges and benefits from retaining and supporting established businesses throughout the re-development process and concludes with some reflections on lessons learnt from the case study. It argues that planners, policy-makers and developers should accord greater attention to the role of established businesses to foster urban districts that strive towards integrating aspects of socio-economic sustainability.