Evaluating the impacts of Urban Regeneration Companies in Portugal: The case of Porto

Posted on: 26 November 2014
By: mackene
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Cities have undergone many changes since the 1950s, not least the expansion of urban areas to the detriment of the historic central areas, some of which have been left to decay. In Portugal the most visible results of this phenomenon are found in the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto. To address this problem, the Portuguese Government conceived the first legal instrument for urban regeneration in 2004 which allows the local administrations to form publicly owned companies, urban regeneration companies (SRUs), to actively endorse urban regeneration in historic city centres. This paper, which appears in the journal Planning Practice & Research (Vol.29 Issue 5, October 2014), discusses the activities of the Porto Vivo SRU, one of these companies created in Porto, in the context of the Portuguese milieu of urban regeneration and evaluates Porto Vivo’s operation.

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Building a brighter future for the north.  Leeds, 6 November 2014

Posted on: 20 November 2014
By: mackene
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The Centre for Cities and the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office hosted the Northern Futures Summit, marking the end of a period of public consultation to gather ideas on how best to stimulate economic growth in the north of England. The event brought together over 300 delegates and a broad range of speakers, from local and national politicians and policy-makers, to local students, business representatives and leading academics. Above the line-up of speakers, however, it was the deliberative and inclusive format of the event that really made the day unique. The proposers of the most bold and innovative initiatives put forward during the consultation process were invited to deliver their pitches to a series of panels, which then debated and discussed each idea on its merits. All delegates were then able to vote for their favourite suggestions, with results shown in real-time in the room. A video of the event is available online.

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The road to growth: Is transport the driver of local economic development?

Posted on: 20 November 2014
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This report analyses 474 projects Local Growth Deals. It showed that 63 per cent of the projects involved were transport-related, of which 73 per cent were road-related. The report emphasises that, to be most effective for growth, local enterprise partnerships should focus on both long-term, larger transport projects as well as short-term, minor improvements.

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The form of gentrification: Common morphological patterns in five gentrified areas of London, UK

Posted on: 19 November 2014
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The first part of this paper offers an overview of the main aspects of gentrification, triggers, development, investment, protagonists, and then move on to identify recurrent urban and architectural characteristics of gentrified areas. The central portion of this paper then focuses on the relationship between urban form and gentrification in five cases of gentrified urban areas in London, which have already been focus of studies on gentrification of a sociological nature.

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Pasqual Maragall uses the Olympics to transform Barcelona into a global city

Posted on: 18 November 2014
By: mackene
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Barcelona’s transformation under Pasqual Maragall provides one of the best examples of using major events as a catalyst for long term urban improvement. This is the sixth entry in the Urbanism Hall of Fame series, exclusive to TheCityFix. This series is intended to inform people about the leading paradigms surrounding sustainable transport and urban planning and the thinkers behind them. By presenting their many stories, TheCityFix seeks to challenge our readers to think carefully about what defines leadership and innovation in sustainable transport and urban development.

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Going for growth: Reviewing the effectiveness of government growth initiatives

Posted on: 18 November 2014
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The All Party Urban Development Group (APUDG) has published a report which argues that the next government should further extend devolutionary powers to the UK’s cities and regions to promote growth and close the UK’s north-south divide. Consideration should be given to simplifying the planning process within enterprise zones through the introduction of measures similar to Simplified Planning Zones.

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Capturing economic opportunities: How can cities carve out new growth paths?

Posted on: 30 October 2014
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Some of the questions the URBACT workstream “New Urban Economies” is exploring are: what is the scope of action for cities to steer their economy? Should cities “sit and wait” for changes to come and affect them, or is there room for pro-active urban policy to grasp emerging opportunities? If so, what is in their scope for action? How to act in a sustainable/integrated way?

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Architecture & water documentary: Part 2 – Gentrification machine?

Posted on: 27 October 2014
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The second chapter in a three-part documentary about water’s relationship with the built environment. It considers the effects of waterfront living on gentrification, property ownership and access to the river.

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Unleashing metro growth

Posted on: 22 October 2014
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Over the past year, the City Growth Commission has played an important role in raising awareness of the important and undervalued role the UK’s cities can and should play in national economic growth. This report further advances the case for affording greater levels of funding, autonomy and flexibility to enable all cities to respond to their unique challenges and realise their true potential.

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The role of universities in the regional creative economies of the UK: Hidden protagonists and the challenge of knowledge transfer

Posted on: 22 October 2014
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Since the 1970s policies have been developed across Europe to evolve this institutional landscape. Since the late 1990s, regional and urban development strategies have also sought to harness the growth potential of the cultural and creative industries to regional and urban economic development. However, whilst the regional and urban planning literature has examined the growth-promoting potential of universities very closely, their possible role in relation to regional and urban creative economic development has received less attention. This paper aims to begin addressing this gap by interrogating the relationship between universities and the regional creative economy using, as a starting point, a model of analysis suggested by the Triple-Helix theoretical framework. The paper finds that whilst universities possess often long and hidden associations with regional and urban creative activities—as hidden protagonists—there are important institutional and professional challenges in the possibility of their developing an explicit and sustainable role as new actors in the regional and urban creative economies. The paper identifies the nature of these challenges with a view to developing a clearer understanding of the system, policy and institutional realities that underpin the often complex dynamics of knowledge creation−practice relationships found in arts and humanities disciplines. This article can be found in the latest issue of European Planning Studies (Vol.22, Issue 12, 2014)

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