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Manchester's Regeneration Industry
Since 2000, ‘Urban Renaissance’ has become a key element of New Labour’s policy strategy. Though the stated aim of regeneration is to improve an area through social, economic and infrastructure investment and improvement, what is actually intended is better described as gentrification.
Current models of regeneration are based on close partnership with the private sector. Public money from central government or European sources is used to bring in private investment. As a result the council’s policies are heavily orientated towards the interests of private capital. As Tom Russell, the head of New East Manchester Ltd, is quoted as saying “The real challenge is to use public money to attract private investors.”
The strategy in East Manchester, in common with other areas of ‘urban renaissance’, relies on large scale demolition.
Eamon Boylan on Sports City makes clear, “The market has grasped the opportunity to acquire a high quality property at good value prices in an area where house prices continue to rise.” Far from the idealised, mixed communities of the Urban Renaissance vision, these policies are leading to what Loretta Lees describes as “a few gentrified islands of prosperity amid a sea of inner-city decay and suburban sprawl.”
Genuine community development is starved of resources while private sector flagship projects prosper. East Manchester already boasts the largest single storey supermarket in Europe. Now residents are told a supercasino will provide jobs and actually “reduce gambling”. But these assets will remain in the hands of multi-nationals and any new jobs for local residents are at the level of cleaners and security guards. Meanwhile existing community resources go down the tube. Why does Beswick need its existing open air market now it has a Wal-Mart?
Geographer Neil Smith first coined the phrase 'Revanchist City'. Gentrification has been challenged by grassroots and neighbourhood organisations, and this has provoked a repressive and aggressive reaction from the local state. The ‘Revanchist City’ has emerged, and it often explicitly aims to make the city safe for gentrification. This is typified by police clampdowns, ID cards, street wardens, social control methods and neighbourhood crime initiatives. This is an integral part of regeneration, as fellow geographer Kevin Ward argues, investment capital is conditional: civilise on our terms or else! This harks back to the liberal ideas of the worthy and unworthy poor..jpg)
Current models of regeneration are based on close partnership with the private sector. Public money from central government or European sources is used to bring in private investment. As a result the council’s policies are heavily orientated towards the interests of private capital. As Tom Russell, the head of New East Manchester Ltd, is quoted as saying “The real challenge is to use public money to attract private investors.”
The strategy in East Manchester, in common with other areas of ‘urban renaissance’, relies on large scale demolition.
Eamon Boylan on Sports City makes clear, “The market has grasped the opportunity to acquire a high quality property at good value prices in an area where house prices continue to rise.” Far from the idealised, mixed communities of the Urban Renaissance vision, these policies are leading to what Loretta Lees describes as “a few gentrified islands of prosperity amid a sea of inner-city decay and suburban sprawl.”
Genuine community development is starved of resources while private sector flagship projects prosper. East Manchester already boasts the largest single storey supermarket in Europe. Now residents are told a supercasino will provide jobs and actually “reduce gambling”. But these assets will remain in the hands of multi-nationals and any new jobs for local residents are at the level of cleaners and security guards. Meanwhile existing community resources go down the tube. Why does Beswick need its existing open air market now it has a Wal-Mart?
