Being informed by the modernist philosophies, planning and urban construction during this period was characterised by the introduction of modernist architectural styles, functional zonings, the development of tower blocks and shopping centres. On the one hand, the massive scale of the developments and constructions helped to accommodate people that desperately need decent housing with basic facilities. Furthermore, between 1955 and 1974, around 1.2 million dwellings were demolished during the Slum Clearance which resulted in a need to re-house 3.1 million people (Tallon, 2013). On the other hand, these local authority-led strategies raised several issues. The first one is the compatibility of new buildings within existing urban fabrics, as it was criticized that the modern buildings, such as poorly designed inner-city commercial complexities, often show no respect to the surrounding environment. Moreover, the former businesses and residents were displaced by Compulsory Purchase Orders and had to pay higher living costs if taking rents and transportation fees into account. Secondly, the post-war urban planning was featured with demolition, clearance and redevelopment at a large scale yet with little understanding of the consequences. It is often accompanied with demolition of old neighbourhoods and the creation of spatial concentration of socially and economically disadvantaged people in the council houses.
such as education, health care as well as social security provision. Many of the residents choose to leave council housing in deprived communities once they can afford houses in more prosperous communities with high quality services and low crime rates. Consequently, the vacant properties would be filled by other disadvantaged people, which led to further issues of local disadvantage (Atkinson and Moon, 1994a). Helping the poor together with mitigating the growing fear of social unrest thus became the major concern of the urban policies.
The concept of ‘Urban Regeneration’ emerged in the 1960s as a reaction to urban decline. The term has been used together with a number of other phrases such as urban revitalization, urban redevelopment, urban renewal and urban renaissance by government, media or academics to characterize a similar process, as is defined by Roberts ( 2000, p.17)
“A comprehensive and integrated vision and action which leads to the resolution of urban problems and seeks to bring about a lasting improvement in the economic, physical, social and environmental conditions of an area that has been subject to change”.
Revitalization goes beyond restricting the physical fabric and focused on conservation and preservation of historically important buildings and rehabilitating buildings in deteriorating conditions while redevelopment is usually pushed forward by profit-oriented private sectors that treat the dealing with minority groups and lower income as a tactical compromise rather than a strategic goal (Fainstein and Fainstein, 1983). Thus the process is based with scarce inner city land resources and is business- dominated. It is always seen the social linages that support community and small local business
been destroyed by such a way of development.
Urban renewal mainly refers to the physical change in the use of land or buildings stemming from prevailing economic forces (Public Affaris Committee, 2010). It is described as actions that rebuild the city, clear away vacant sites and obsolete buildings and produce new building design and forms (Healey, et al., 1992) It may involve different parties yet is not comprehensive and proactive enough to facilitate neighbourhood growth. (Tang, et al, 2011)
Urban Regeneration represented a more careful, sensitive, harmonious development that adopts means such conservation and rehabilitation, re-use and new development (Wise, 1985). Turok (2005, P.57) gave three distinctive characteristics to current urban regeneration programs:
"1. It is intended to change the nature of a place and in the process to involve the community and other actors with a stake in its future.
2. It embraces multiple objectives and activities that cut across the main functional responsibilities of central government, depending on the area’s particular problems and potential.
3. It usually involves some form of partnership working amongst different stakeholders, although the form of partnership can vary.
revitalization (Healey, 1991) with an emphasis on maintaining the continuity as well as history and natural embedded within the community (Lynch,1981). The scope of urban regeneration goes beyond revitalization of old structures and consists of “radical urban rebirth” and “sustainable self-renewal” as its final goal (Furbey, 1999). Couch (1990) states that while urban renewal is a process of physical change mainly led by government or states, urban regeneration represents a wider process within which the state or local community seek to attract investment, employment, consumption going back to an urban area and improvement the quality of urban life (Couch, 1990). Regeneration also aims to improve the appearance of a place so as to attract people and business. At personal level, regeneration aims to enhance individual skills, capacities and provide them with opportunities so as to enable them to participate and benefit from the process (Turok, 2005). It tries to get a balance between social, economic and environmental elements. (Turok, 2005)
With the passing of the Local Government Grants (Social Need) Act as well as the following Urban Aid Programme4, urban regeneration models were
introduced from the US as an explicit strategy which initiated four decades of continuous central government intervention in urban affairs (Johnstone and
4The Urban Aid Programme was launched in 1969 by the First Wilson Government to provide community and family advice centers for the elderly, money for schools and other services, thereby alleviating urban deprivation.
Whitehead 2004b). During this phase, the emphasis of Urban Programmes was on small-scale community projects and social schemes (Atkinson and Moon, 1994b; Cullingworth and Nadin, 2006). Even given the changes, what specifically constitute deprivation and what issues should be addressed by the proposed projects still remained unclear. Subsequently, the second generation of key area-based policies were the Community Development Projects5, which were action-based research projects. This policy promoted a way of examining the poverty, which could result in changes within the economic, educational and housing markets allied to the weak bargaining position of the poor (Atkinson and Moon 1994b). Moreover, the Inner Area Studies6 (1977) arrived at similar conclusions to that of the Community Development Projects in terms of developing the argument that the root cause of deprivation was the poverty of the residents. Moreover, the inadequate social security provision for disadvantaged groups resulted in low personal incomes and reduced the chance of social mobility.
5Community Development Projects (CDPs) were set up in areas with high levels of deprivation to encourage self-help and participation by local residents in order to improve their communication and access to local government, together with improving the provision of local services.