New East Manchester: urban renaissance or urban opportunism?

In this paper we ask how a shrinking city responds when faced with a perforated urban fabric. Drawing on Manchester’s response to its perforated eastern flank - and informed by a parallel study of Leipzig - we use the city’s current approach to critique urban regeneration policy in England. Urban renaissance holds out the promise of delivering more sustainable - that is more compact, more inclusive and more equitable - cities. However, the Manchester study demonstrated that the attempt to stem population loss from the city is at best fragile, despite a raft of policies now in place to support urban renaissance in England. It is argued here that Manchester like Leipzig is likely to face an ongoing battle to attract residents back from their suburban hinterlands. This is especially true of the family market that we identify as being an important element for long-term sustainable population growth in both cities. We use the case of New East Manchester to consider how discourses linked to urban renaissance – particularly those that link urbanism with greater densities - rule out some of the options available to Leipzig, namely, managing the long-term perforation of the city. We demonstrate that while Manchester is inevitably committed to the urban renaissance agenda, in practice New East Manchester demonstrates a far more pragmatic – but equally unavoidable – approach. This we attribute to the gap between renaissance and regeneration described by Amin et al (2000) who define the former as urbanism for the middle class and the latter as urbanism for the working class. While this opportunistic approach may ultimately succeed in producing development on the ground, it will not address the fundamental, and chronic, problem; the combination of push and pull that sees families relocating to suburban areas. Thus, if existing communities in East Manchester are to have their area buoyed up – or sustained - by incomers, and especially families, with greater levels of social capital and higher incomes urban policy in England will have to be challenged

Governing Ourselves: Citizen Participation and Governance in Barcelona and Manchester

Barcelona and Manchester have become paradigmatic examples of 'governance-beyond-the-state', 'new localism' or 'local state entrepreneurialism'. Whatever the label, citizen participation has become a key feature of governance in each city. This article argues that a useful way of understanding the developing relationship between governance and citizen participation is through the analytical perspective of governmentality. This perspective illuminates two paradoxes that characterize the new governance arrangements in these two European cities. The first paradox is that the power of the state is not necessarily diminished despite the emerging plurality of actors involved in governance. The second paradox lies in the fact that the spread of participatory practices as an integral element of new modes of governance does not necessarily lead to citizen empowerment. Copyright (c) 2010 The Author. Journal Compilation (c) 2010 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

The politics of partnership: urban regeneration in east Manchester

The prevailing discourse on local governance is that local authorities are subordinate both to central government and to a plethora of local partners. While Manchester City Council (MCC) remains subordinate to central government, its status enables it to exert influence over the urban domain within its boundaries and to act as an intermediate organization between its local partners and the core executive in Whitehall. This reflects the influence that MCC has been able to maintain over the process of urban regeneration within its territory despite the other structures involved, and the creation of the Urban Regeneration Company (URC) of New East Manchester (NEM). MCC may possess singular characteristics but its political style of `community leadership' need not be unique. While the local state has ceded some of its activities to other agencies in this time of multi-level governance it still enjoys a powerful overarching control that can be characterized as metagovernance

`It's like Maintaining a Hedge': Constraints on Citizen Engagement in Community Regeneration in East Manchester

Since participation at the local level is frequently urged as a solution to political disengagement (Stoker, 2006), it is important to acknowledge the structural obstacles to the ready imposition of the participatory project. This article argues that this focus upon popular democratic participation in urban affairs neglects the realities of political and social life, particularly for poorer areas of cities, and the structural constraints that greatly limit the opportunities for residents to engage actively within their community. From this perspective, the miracle is how much participation occurs rather than how little

Who Participates, How and Why in Urban Regeneration Projects? The Case of the New ‘City’ of East Manchester

Participation is advocated by political leaders as crucial for enhancing social responsibility, building social capital, improving public services, qualifying for full citizenship and for enabling local democratic participation. Despite this increased commitment to encouraging public participation, however, there remains a lack of understanding of what motivates individuals to become community activists. This analysis of urban regeneration confirms that participation is a minority sport reflecting the reluctance and/or inability of the majority of community members to engage. The motives for that minority of local people who do engage are, therefore, important for policy-makers and academics to understand. This research project in east Manchester reveals that the motives of activists are varied and more nuanced than is proposed by existing social science theories such as rational choice, social network theory or the application of such concepts as citizen-consumers. A hybridized model which privileges social network theory without, however, entirely excluding ideas of the consumer-citizen and rational choice is advocated as a more effective way of explaining both community activism and also the varying levels and durability of individual participation. If participation is to increase, however, it is vital that the nuanced motives of participants are better appreciated