Graham Moon

Urban Problems since 1979: The Conservative Approach

This chapter will focus on the general approach which post-1979 Conservative governments adopted towards urban regeneration. We will cover the following themes: • The general ideas which informed urban policy during the premiership of Margaret Thatcher. This will entail a general discussion of Thatcherism. n n nThe state of Britain’s cities in 1979 and the nature of urban problems as they evolved during the 1980s. n n nThe key themes which the Conservatives stressed in their attempt to translate theory into the practice of urban regeneration. In particular we will be concerned with how a ‘free-market’ approach affected the definition of urban regeneration and led to the prioritorisation of urban economic regeneration and the domination of a strategy of property-led regeneration.

The Watershed? Urban Policy 1977–79

This chapter is primarily concerned with the 1977 White Paper Policy for the Inner Cities (HMSO, Cmnd 6845). We examine the context in which it was published, its implications for urban policy and the proposals which flowed from it via the Inner Urban Areas Act, 1978. We will: n n nOutline the key background themes which were current at the time when the White Paper was being prepared. n n nDiscuss the White Paper itself and the proposals it contained. n n nExamine the operation and effectiveness of the ‘partnership authorities’ which were created by the 1978 Act. n n nCompare theoretical interpretations and assess policy coherence.

Post-War Urban Problems and the Rediscovery of Urban Poverty

This chapter considers the period from 1945 to the mid-1960s and sets out the background from which a coherent British urban policy began to emerge in the late 1960s. Prior to this time urban issues were conceptualised and tackled in a very different manner; urban policy as defined in Chapter 1 and discussed in later chapters did not exist in a form which would be recognised today. Urban problems were largely seen in physical terms. They were to be tackled by the redevelopment of the city and by the dispersal of urban problems through the creation of new towns and the fostering of regional policy.

First Steps: Urban Initiatives and Urban Problems in Early 1970s Britain

The first urban initiatives emerged in Britain in the late 1960s. The programmes initiated at that time, the Urban Programme and the Community Development Projects were firmly in tune with the prevailing social pathology approach and operated through area-based measures. Notwithstanding these initiatives, many urban problems continued to be addressed by physical approaches. This chapter covers: n n nThe experiences of the early urban initiatives and their successors in the period up to the mid-1970s. We will reflect on the lessons they suggested for future urban initiatives and show how the assumptions that underlay them, notably the social pathology approach, were undermined by the experience of the urban initiatives themselves. n n nThe demise of the remaining physical measures associated with problems of housing, urban growth and industrial change, and discuss the themes of counterurbanisation and deindustrialisation; issues central to the emerging views on the structural base of urban policy. n n nAn assessment of the theoretical basis and policy coherence of the approaches pursued during the period. n n nThe ideological and politicoeconomic context in which urban policy found itself in the mid-1970s. This context was to play a crucial role in determining the parameters within which urban policy would both operate and develop in subsequent years.

Local Government and Urban Policy

Many, if not all, of the initiatives and policies we have reviewed in the preceding chapters have had an effect on local government. In some cases, local authorities have been intimately involved in the development and carrying-out of policy. In other cases, policies, or their consequences, have been imposed upon local authorities. In either case there have often been major consequences involving the reorientation of local authority activity. This was particularly the case during the Thatcher years (Rhodes, 1988; Moon and Parnell, 1989); there was a major restructuring of central-local relations, with the powers of the centre being generally, but often not without cost, enhanced at the expense of the local government.

Analysing Urban Policy

In this first chapter we shall address some necessary preliminaries to the study of urban policy. We shall: n n nConsider the term urban. An understanding of the meanings associated with this ill-defined term are essential in the study of a field labelled ‘urban policy’. n n nOutline three distinct analytical traditions: pluralist, Marxist and New Right. These approaches, and their subvariants, provide concepts which allow real-world urban policies to be analysed and evaluated. n n nPropose a framework for policy evaluation; this will provide the basis for subsequent chapters focused on the assessment of specific urban policies.

Urban Initiatives since 1979: Innovation, Consolidation and Assessment

In the previous chapters we provided an overview of Conservative thinking on urban regeneration and examined a series of inherited initiatives. This present chapter comprises three parts: n n nA discussion of the innovatory initiatives which had the specific purpose of facilitating free-market, and more specifically property-led, forms of urban regeneration. These initiatives were Enterprise Zones (EZs), Urban Development Corporations (UDCs) and Free Ports (FPs). n n nA analysis of the attempt by the third Thatcher government and the subsequent Major governments to consolidate and coordinate the Conservative approach to urban regeneration. n n nAn assessment of the practical contribution which the post-1979 governments have made to urban policy.

Urban Planning under Conservatism

In Chapter 2 we briefly described the role of urban planning legislation as an instrument for the promotion of urban containment. We indicated the importance of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, to the establishment of a post-Second World War urban planning system based on the preparation of land-use plans and the regulation of urban change through development control legislation. The impact of this system extended beyond its role in fostering containment. It provided, and, to a considerable extent, continues to provide, the guiding day-to-day framework which regulated development in British cities. If the approaches, initiatives and, latterly, policies, which we have examined in the preceding chapters constituted the emerging grand designs of governments for dealing with urban problems, then urban planning legislation provided the less spectacular everyday means by which much of the change was managed.

Race, Urban Problems and Urban Initiatives

By the end of the 1980s it had been estimated that non-white people made up just under 5 per cent or 2.6 million, of the UK’s total population (Jones, 1993, p. 12). Of these people, about 2.2 million may be described as black or Asian. At the regional level the black and Asian population is unevenly distributed throughout the UK, with the vast majority concentrated in the South-East (including Greater London), the North-West and parts of the Midlands and Yorkshire (Jones, 1993, p. 16). At the subregional level we find a similar unevenness, with most black and Asian people living in urban areas, particularly in the major conurbations of England. Even within urban areas there is a high level of unevenness, with the black and Asian populations being highly concentrated in a small number of inner city areas where they have, on the whole, remained settled since the early 1950s (Jones, 1979; Robinson, 1991). This polarised spatial distribution is by no means accidental and relates to the nature of the employment and housing markets in which black and Asian people found themselves in the post-Second World War period.

Reshaping the Urban Policy Inheritance

A lot happened to urban initiatives during the Thatcher years. There is no easy way to divide these developments into manageable but distinct chapters. We will therefore make a basic distinction between the policies which the post-1979 Conservatives inherited and those they created. This is entirely a distinction of convenience; we recognise that there is no hard and fast distinction between the two sets of initiatives. As we shall see, even those programmes which the Conservatives inherited were often fundamentally restructured to reflect Thatcherite preoccupations. In this chapter we will examine the reshaping of the policy inheritance. We will consider five areas which each impacted, to a varying extent, on urban problems: n n nRegional policy. n n nThe urban programme. n n nUrban regeneration. n n nHousing policy. n n nEmployment-related initiatives.