1.2  Urban regeneration and community

According to (Byrne, 2001:47) the built environment matters for the system because is it is the basis of a crucial circuit of accumulation in a capitalist system. However, even more relevant is the role that the actual physical restructuring of urban space plays in particular de-industrialised places . This process of restructuring is intimately linked at all levels with what Castells (1996) calls the informational global economy. It is connected at the abstract level of world system because of the determinant influence finance capital now exercises over all economic activities. At the meso level, global companies operate through information nets which now might be considered to constitute the real structure of the enterprise. At the local level, processes of urban governance re-structure the form of cities to facilitate inward investment, for example, in flagship projects based around financial services, the new information economy and consumption. This has the knock-on effect of revalorising certain parts of the city, potentially setting in motion the process of gentrification, . and creating conditions of increased polarisation. As Robins asserts “we are seeing the consolidation of the divided city, in which urban space , while it is functionally and economically shared, is socially segregated and culturally differentiated,” (1993: 313). The focus of the many and varied projects in the ENTRUST study, is to address this problem of polarisation by developing and implementing strategies aimed at socially inclusive regeneration.

Most contemporary European cities, even while they re-invent themselves, now face the problem of how to manage “excluded zones.” Geddes (2000) observes that recent research has placed particular emphasis on the “spatiality” of processes such as social exclusion , “reflecting not only the different positioning of localities within shifting regimes of accumulation, but also political and policy traditions embedded in welfare regimes” (2000: 783). It is within this context that local partnership arrangements have become a feature of policy for urban regeneration at the local level across European cities. They seek to re-situate regeneration away from the free-floating flagship project, and in the heart of urban communities and urban civil society.

The challenges facing the cities in the ENTRUST project are multiple and diverse. Most cities struggle to maintain their resident population due to a variety of factors including the limitations imposed by physical or topographical constraints, changes in economic conditions ( Glasgow ), and the influence of social aspirations and the quest for “quality of life”.

With the exception of Dublin , population in the case study cities is either static or in decline. Population was in decline in Dublin throughout the twentieth century, but has recently begun to increase as a direct result of tax-driven apartment building projects in the inner-city. Nevertheless, in the case of both Lisbon and Dublin the relatively high price of property in the inner-city, ensures that most of the significant population growth continues to be on the periphery of the city, and in newly emerged suburban communities in the neighbouring counties. Even in a very livable city such as Copenhagen , people tend to move out of the city and into the suburbs after they start a family.

Glasgow and Valletta are facing massive population loss to outlying suburban areas, and new towns which offer better opportunities for work. Likewise, many companies have found it preferable to relocate to green field sites in the suburbs, than to stay downtown. This obviously has a long- term impact on the composition of the inner- city community, the pool of social capital and economic resources available, and the degree to which communities can be mobilised to participate in the regeneration of their neighbourhoods.

The city of Valletta has significant symbolic importance in Malta , but has lost its key urban functions. Conceived as the “city of the knights” of St. John in 1566, it was a fortified city built on a peninsula. From its inception it was the modern and elite city on the island. A population of more than 15, 000 residents in the 1960s has declined to a population of 7,000 today. The city is perceived primarily as a historic place with its urban function limited to that of a cultural, administrative and symbolic political city. Crucially, it is not perceived as a city for residential living any more. This makes it difficult to conceptualise urban regeneration other than in terms of the restoration of historic monuments.

Vilnius struggles to re-position itself as a European heritage city, and to shed all vestiges of its recent past as an outpost of Soviet Russia. In the inner suburb of Užupis, the buildings are in a very bad state of repair. The local regeneration agency is renovating the facia of the buildings on the street front in the hope of attracting investors to the area. This concentration on the street frontage also has the advantage that the passing tourist will not have to confront anything irregular that will detract from the romanticism of the architecture. Passing from one such street into the courtyard out the back, is like pasting through a time machine and finding yourself in the C19. The dwellings have serious structural problems, there is no running water and no indoor toilets. In some yards, rubbish is piled high, while chickens run around. No longer controlled by a centralist Soviet state, the current political regime has opted for a market-oriented form of governance. Housing was privatised immediately after independence and now 92 % of people own their homes. There is no social housing policy nor any provision for those at the lower end of the socio-economic structure. People are too poor to improve their dwellings so they continue to live in sub-standard conditions.

Political change in Germany post 1989 has had a major impact on the spatial configuration of Berlin. For example, the neighbourhood of Kreutzberg, which was formerly a Turkish and urban bohemian enclave, has, as a result of unification, been re-positioned much closer to the central downtown. This has resulted in significant gentrification in the neighbourhood. The city's unification has also placed enormous financial pressure on the municipality, leading to a re-orientation of urban policy toward public-private partnership.

Cities, then, experience fluctuations in their fortunes due to various external variables. How does the process of urban regeneration address these shifts? Dublin , Glasgow , Copenhagen and Hamburg have all engaged in major “flagship” projects linked to harbourside or riverside development, new cathedrals of consumption, and “new economy” investment. A second tier of urban regeneration has emerged which is expressed committed to generating change from the bottom-up. Gaining the commitment and trust of the local population is seen as crucial to advance this process. This raises some important questions.

Is there a relationship between level of community participation and the character or profile of a neighbourhood? Is community participation more or less active in older historical neighbourhoods than in newer neighbourhoods that lack a distinct identity? Usually, in historic areas and neighbourhoods there are events, practices, even a shared memory of the past - that contribution to a sense of belonging within the community. Urban regeneration initiatives, however sensitively conceived and delivered, may not be able to substitute for more organic—time deepened and memory qualified- forms of community capacity building, (Corcoran, 2002). Nevertheless, it is an embedded and frequently unspoken assumption of urban regeneration policies, that they can somehow provide a sustainable, local, and community-based response to the forces that are currently re-shaping the urban landscape