3. Propuesta didáctica
3.12. Evaluación final de la unidad
Other than the style of urban regeneration that has been adopted in different time periods, the approaches to urban regeneration can be grouped in general as to their way in which they see the urban problem in highest priority to tackle and the way in which they try to handle it. Because, although urban regeneration has passed through several attempts in time until it has reached its latest scheme, all those attempts are still being adopted in variety of schemes in variety of places today. Zielenbach (2000) describes a clear basis for the well-known adopted approaches for urban regeneration. According to his identification, the approaches can be grouped in two categories as to being
‘individual based’ and ‘place based’.
2.4.1. Individual-based Approaches to Inner-city Regeneration
According to such classification, individual based approaches focuses on improving social structure of the residents of a particular distressed area. Ensuring the long-term viability of the area as a geographic place takes on secondary importance. In effect, these initiatives can be matched with variety of anti-poverty programs organized largely in U.S. and neighbourhood regeneration and community integration programs in many Western European countries like England and Holland. Individual based approaches can also be separated into three in itself:
1. Social development is one of the most widespread approaches to neighbourhood revitalization that refers to the improvement of local institutional capacity. From 60s and onwards, public authorities have provided funding for enhancing education and training facilities, health and social services. By strengthening
particular neighbourhood while simultaneously improving the quality of life for residents. According to this category, success of such social neighbourhood revitalization is tested by several indicators like; lower dropout rates, crime rates, infant mortality rates; higher numbers of job placements; and higher levels of resident satisfaction.
2. Program-driven economic development is another individual based approach that focuses more specifically on wealth creation within the community. In doing so, increasing the number and availability of jobs for local residents stands to be the primary goal. This approach stresses on the need for a local economic development model. It firstly focuses on attracting companies to the neighbourhood and keeping them there. Public sector and CBOs are expected to work with local businesses to increase the economy of the neighbourhood. Secondly, the approach involves preparing residents to be more productive through providing education and job training programs.
Measures of revitalization for this approach are mainly the number of jobs created, the local employment rate, number of retail establishments, the amount of retail sales and the amount of commercial space that is developed.
3. Trickle-down economic growth is the approach that accepts regional and national economic development as the solution for distressed urban areas in contrast to more locally driven approaches above. According to this approach, policy makers seek the prospects for macro-level economic growth and wealth creation. It is expected that benefits of expanding economy will help also the inner city since it is an integral component of the city or the surrounding region. Trickle-down economic approach combined with the strategies of program-driven economic development stands for the achievement of regional economic competitiveness on which majority of the developed countries today rely on while constructing their inner city policies. Indicators of this approach are again reduced poverty and unemployment rates.
2.4.2. Place-based Approaches to Inner-city Regeneration
The second category, place-based approaches, is expressed as containing revitalization strategies which assert a distressed area as an economic input. In this situation, improving property values is a primary goal, and bettering conditions for existing residents may be viewed as a less important outcome. Other than the individual
based approaches there are three groups that can be stated as place-based approaches according to Zielenbach’s classification:
1. Gentrification is one of the most widely used approaches attributed to inner city regeneration. Several examples for gentrification processes exist in neighbourhood revitalization projects in variety of cities worldwide. The process is couched with physical restoration of central-city neighbourhoods of which the future users will be upper class income groups. For many urban planning advocates, gentrification is evaluated as the failure of a revitalization effort in a deprived inner city locality.
Unlikely, for many policy makers gentrification represented a benefit for inner cities, hence they encourage it through tax regulations, zoning changes or other possible tools.
The indicators of a gentrified locality are then; increase in property values, increase in the amount of local commercial activity, per capita incomes, and change in resident composition as well.
2. Incumbent upgrading, like gentrification, refers to the rehabilitation of declining inner city neighbourhoods’ properties. However, incumbent upgrading involves the improvement of communities by existing residents. Such kind of approach is generally observed in second-ring neighbourhoods rather than the centre as in the case of gentrification. It is the attempts of existing residents to prepare the stability of the neighbourhood. The indicators of such upgrading stand to be the same as the ones in gentrification except for the change in resident composition.
3. Adaptive re-use, the third of the place-based approaches, is the conversion of functionally obsolete or rundown properties into other functions by renovation. This approach generally refers to centrally located brownfields’ redevelopment initiatives experienced in early industrialized cities in developed countries and transformation of docklands (flagship projects) in cities that have waterfronts. Chief indicators of adaptive re-use are; increased numbers of building permits and construction loans, increased economic activity, increased tax revenues and additional inner investments. Adaptive re-use, although Zielenbach (2000) evaluates it as an approach under the place based category, is better evaluated as a mode of intervention for purposed revitalization such as conservation, redevelopment or rehabilitation rather than a separate approach itself.
2.4.3. The Emerging Need for a New Collective Approach
It is possible to make such an inference from above classification that the individual based approaches, especially the first approach, tend to focus on the needs of low-income inner city residents without adequately addressing the economic and especially the physical value of the neighbourhood as a whole. On the other side, the place-based approaches focus more on the economic development and marketing of the neighbourhood, but largely ignore the needs of the low-income residents currently living there. As understood from the experiences of developed countries where the earliest regeneration policies were generated to tackle urban decline, each of the individual based or place based approaches either separately or combined has been experienced in many cases. What came into picture lately in 2000s is that there is a need for a holistic approach that addresses both of above characteristics of declining inner city localities.
An economic regeneration in a problem area should undoubtedly rely on community building initiatives in that locality (social development approach). But at the same time it should focus on building regional economic strategies for regional economy (trickle-down economic growth approach), since an inner city locality cannot be thought and planned independently from its surrounding the region. This will help wealth creation and poverty reduction in macro-scale which will then also affect the inner city. Strengthening the local economy (program-driven economic development approach) is also as important as the notions of first two approaches in terms of directly focusing on enhancement of the locality economically. From the point of view of place based approaches, a revised approach should rely on increasing community consciousness in a distressed inner city area to make them actively participate in planning and implementation of a purposed revitalization process as in the form of incumbent upgrading. Briefly, a revised approach should adopt the synthesis of policy actions and regulatory tools drawn forward in those four approaches according the above classification of Zielenbach. However, this will not mean it is the exact framework which must suit for the regeneration of cases. The nature of the regeneration process of an area is mainly influenced by the physical outline of the area. In some areas the physical fabric left behind by previous forms of economic activity may become an asset, whereas in other areas it may be a burden. Docks and waterfronts, warehouses
and textile mills seem frequently to be returned to profitable uses within certain investment, while a historical conservation area with enlisted properties create unavoidable barriers for entrepreneurship. The purpose for which land and buildings can be used through a regeneration process will in fact depend upon both regional and local demand. Within the inner cities having the excellent proximity to central business districts, the trend has been for regeneration to be concerned mainly with both economic and physical modernization of the built environment, together with encouragement of mixed-use. Policy actions and strategies for regeneration of different inner city contexts will certainly be different. According to demand which is shaped by the pressures of possible inward investments, gentrification becomes an inevitable process in some cases. The future vision of a distressed inner city is best determined after the true analysis of the potential of site characteristics that will suit the competitive aspects of the region in macro scale. Actually, revitalization strategies generated for each deprived urban area reflects how adequate national and local governments predict the use of urban economic space.