Iain Deas

From the New Localism to the 'New Regionalism': The Implications of Regional Development Agencies for City Regional Relations

Abstract Throughout the last three decades efforts to regenerate British cities have been based around the construction of new institutional alliances and policy networks supported by a series of urban-based initiatives. Successive Conservative governments premised their intervention on the assumption that cities (and particular parts therein) were the most appropriate geographical level around which to organise policy intervention. In pursuing this city-based agenda, the policies were themselves instrumental in constituting the city as an object of policy: a problem in need of a solution. The aim of this paper, however, is not to explore how certain spaces or scales become constructed through, for example, government policy, political practices or state restructuring. Rather the paper augments work conducted on the socially constructed nature of ‘cities’ and ‘regions’. It explores for regeneration policy and politics the implications of the tendential shift away from a model of ‘new localism’ towards an alternative model of ‘new regionalism’. The origins of the central element of New Labours emergent regional project — the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) — are established before the paper moves on to examine the likely political relationships between the local state, drawing upon the example of Manchester, and the regional state, drawing upon North West England, under the new institutional arrangements.

Conceptualising and Measuring Urban Competitiveness in Major English Cities: An Exploratory Approach

Recent years have witnessed considerable academic debate with regard to the ways in which urban competitiveness can best be conceptualised and measured. In this paper we draw on these theoretical discussions in an attempt to interrogate the dynamics of competitiveness. We report on research to develop indicators to explore the relationship between sources (the initial stock of assets in a city) and outcomes of competitiveness (the result of attempts to exploit these assets by firms) across a sample of urban areas. We argue that urban asset bases provide a strong predictor of competitive performance in English cities, but that this general pattern is interrupted by some cities for which competitive outcomes are stronger or weaker than might be expected in light of underlying asset bases. The study findings provide some tentative methodological suggestions, augmenting the limited volume of empirically focused work regarding the means by which different aspects of the contested concept of competitiveness might best be measured. The findings also illustrate the differing competitive fortunes of major English cities and provide pointers with regard to priorities for policymakers in moulding and managing urban asset bases.

Towards Post-political Consensus in Urban Policy? Localism and the Emerging Agenda for Regeneration Under the Cameron Government

Abstract The paper explores recent experience of urban policy in England and provides an assessment of its evolution and future prospects under the Cameron government. It explores the contention that urban policy has undergone a fundamental repositioning in which neo-liberal ideas, linked to the emerging localism agenda, have begun to exert a profound shift in the role of the state in formulating and delivering policy. The paper argues that neo-liberal thinking increasingly permeates contemporary policy, but that this exists alongside a residual (but diminishing) emphasis on socio-spatial dimensions of equity. This, the paper concludes, reflects the emergence of a degree of post-political consensus around the role for urban policy and the mechanisms for its delivery.

The search for territorial fixes in subnational governance: City-regions and the disputed emergence of post-political consensus in Manchester, England

The paper considers the notion that innovation in territorial governance is associated with a set of core neoliberal ideas about local economic development which have come to constitute a new and pervasive consensus. Through a case study of attempts to construct city-regional institutions in Manchester, England, over a period of 25 years, it attempts to track the themes that have underpinned the development of a local politics of economic development. The paper considers the extent to which evolution of city-regional institutions and policy accord to wider ideas about post-political forms of governance and the erosion of democracy in cities. It concludes by considering the degree to which this experience is representative of a wider orthodoxy in the governance of local economic development.

Measuring Neighbourhood Deprivation: A Critique of the Index of Multiple Deprivation

There is now a sustained interest in measuring geographical variation in social and economic circumstances in order to guide urban policy resource allocation decisions. The most recent attempt to measure local area deprivation in England has come through the governments Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). The authors aim to consider the degree to which the IMD provides a reliable mechanism for doing so and to suggest the ways in which its successors might best be refined. They argue that although the IMD, in many respects, represents a commendable advance in terms of the development of techniques to quantify deprivation, there remain significant limitations that future approaches could profitably address.

Obscure ritual or administrative luxury? Integrating strategic planning and regional development

Regional land-use planning and regionally based economic development have evolved to a large extent as parallel but separate entities, each occupying distinct policy domains. This absence of holism in regional policymaking has been mirrored by the limited level of academic interest in examining the linkages between regional economic development policies, on the one hand, and physical land-use planning, on the other. The authors consider the extent to which proposals from the Blair-led Labour government for Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) and Regional Planning Guidance (RPG) in England represent a continuation of the historic disjunction between economic development and strategic planning. They begin by assessing earlier attempts at the integration of strategic planning and economic development concerns and, in light of the experience of earlier initiatives, assess the prospects for the latest set of ‘regional’ proposals. First, they explore the means by which conflict between the development-led priorities of RDAs and those expressed through RPG might be resolved. Second, they consider the extent to which the relative autonomy accorded to individual regions to determine their approaches marks the emergence of genuinely ‘region-specific’ planning as opposed to the continuation of ‘centralist regional’ planning.

Regions, City-Regions, Identity and Institution Building: Contemporary Experiences of the Scalar Turn in Italy and England

ABSTRACT: In recent years, extensive academic effort has been devoted to interpreting the scalar turn in political and economic geography. This has involved considerable emphasis on the interrelationships across institutions at different spatial scales, stemming from the globalization of economic activity and associated regulatory structures, and the related rescaling of state economic functions to a variety of sub-national institutional entities. This article attempts to augment this work by addressing recognized uncertainties about the dynamics of this process of rescaling, manifested through conflict over the precise configuration of sub-national scalar boundaries. Through a comparison of recent experiences of regionalism in Italy and England, it considers the tensions implicit in the new regionalist territorial settlement, focusing on conflicts that have crystallized around contrasting efforts discursively to construct regional and city-regional identities. In conclusion, the article revisits the validity and utility of contested conceptualizations of resurgent (city) regionalism and considers the possible trajectory of future change.

The Song has Ended but the Melody Lingers

This paper assesses the prospects for the Regional Development Agency (RDA) initiative, in light of the experience of Britains Urban Development Corporation (UDC) programme. It explores the contrasts between the two initiatives and considers the prospects for the RDA programme. The paper argues that RDAs pose only limited constitutional implications, but should be more accurately considered as another managerial innovation — reflecting the Blairite preoccupation with “joined-up government” — in the search for more effective delivery mechanisms for sub-national economic development policy. It concludes by arguing that RDAs, like UDCs before them, represent a new hub of power to which locally accountable policy makers may prove to be marginal.

The search for policy innovation in urban governance: Lessons from community-led regeneration partnerships

Contemporary innovation in local governance in England is, in part, trying to formalize partnership working, drawing on the supposedly exemplary experience of urban policy. The latter has a long history of efforts to promote more effective intergovernmental coordination, vertically between neighbourhood, local authority, regional and central government levels as well as horizontally across agencies, and diagonally with civil society. The reality, as this article demonstrates through the experience of New Labours flagship New Deal for Communities initiative, is much more complex, even in the case of ostensibly more successful partnerships. In this article we evaluate two partnership case studies — one seen as successful and the other as problematic — in order to highlight the importance of inter- and intra-partnership governance and the potentially damaging concentration of partnership efforts upon meeting spending and outcome targets at the expense of a focus on more challenging issues such as community engagement and the development of creative and innovative solutions to complex problems. This analysis calls into question the practical viability of formalizing and promoting more joined-up governance, reiterating the longstanding difficulty policy makers have encountered in achieving more coordinated policy actions.

The contested creation of new state spaces: Contrasting conceptions of regional strategy building in North West England

Part 1: Theoretical Contexts for Territory, Identity and Spatial Planning Part 2: Studies of Territorial and Spatial Planning Part 3: Institutions of Governance and Substantive Policy Roles Part 4: Complexities and Interdependencies in Spatial Governance