Disruption, destruction and the creation of ‘the inner cities’: the impact of urban renewal on industry, 1945–1980

Kefford, Alistair

doi:10.1017/s0963926816000730

Cited by 14 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The consequences of this radical change in the costs of doing business in the town centre were predictable; swathes of lower-value, often independent, commercial activity were uprooted and expelled from central areas, to be replaced by only the most profitable and organised business tenants who could stand the increase in their operating costs. The disruption to local economies and business practices was very considerable indeed (Kefford, 2017). Many non-commercial activities -civic, social and residential uses -disappeared from town centres altogether.…”

Section: The City Transformedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Actually existing managerialism: Planning, politics and property development in post-1945 Britain

Kefford

2020

Urban Studies

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This article engages a long-established paradigm within urban studies: that of the transition from managerialism to entrepreneurialism in late 20th-century urban governance and the associated process of neoliberalisation. It begins from a fundamental intellectual problem; although we are well served with studies of urban entrepreneurialism and neoliberalism, we know surprisingly little of the detailed workings of the ‘pre-neoliberal’, managerial era from the 1940s to the 1970s. In the absence of sustained investigation of this period, many chronologies and critiques of urban transformation rest upon a set of assumptions which – as this article shows – are not always accurate. The article focuses upon Britain, tracing the installation of a modern planning regime in the 1940s and surveying some key features of the UK urban redevelopment regime as it evolved over the ensuing decades. It shows that much of what is held to be paradigmatic of neoliberal urbanism (public–private partnerships, urban entrepreneurialism, financialisation) was already powerfully present within British urbanism in the earlier, managerial era. I highlight in particular the dramatic post-war rise of the UK property development industry, and the new urban forms and norms it generated, as a key product of the era of urban managerialism in Britain. I relate these surprising findings to Britain’s distinctive history and political economy but I also advance arguments that are of wider relevance; around the nature and aims of governance from the 1940s to the 1970s, and how we should best conceptualise and explain processes of neoliberalisation.

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Section: The City Transformedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Actually existing managerialism: Planning, politics and property development in post-1945 Britain

Kefford

2020

Urban Studies

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“…18 Understanding the physical environment is vital in understanding social and economic change, not least because in many British cities, the redevelopment of inner urban areas led to the 'destruction' of businesses and employment after the Second World War. 19 The impact of this destruction extended far beyond the former sites of industrial employment. As Kieran Connell has shown, photographs of the Balsall Heath area of Birmingham in the late 1960s captured 'the ambiguities and contradictions of navigating a rapidly-changing inner-city area'.…”

Section: [Insert Table 1 Here]mentioning

confidence: 99%

Dereliction, decay and the problem of de-industrialization in Britain,c. 1968–1977

Andrews

2019

Urban History

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De-industrialization and the rise of the service sector have formed the basis of recent attempts to develop a new metanarrative of economic change in twentieth-century Britain. Their effects have been taken as writ through labour market statistics or aggregate measures of gross domestic product. However, by focusing on particular micro-economic spaces, a different story emerges. Using the inner areas of Liverpool as a case-study, this article shows how the city's social and economic problems were underwritten by the decline of the service sector, located around the port. By reading the effects of social and economic change through accounts of the physical environment, it demonstrates how urban decay and dereliction provided material resonance to Liverpool's economic decline. The city's landscape of urban decay and dereliction encompassed the infrastructure of everyday life – housing, roads and even trees – as well as that of economic activity, including the docks and warehouses. Taken together, this article shows how this landscape of urban decay and dereliction came to be constituted as an agent within Liverpool's continued economic decline in the 1970s rather than simply being a reflection of it.

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De-industrialization: strengths and weaknesses as a key concept for understanding post-war British history

Tomlinson

2019

Urban History

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This article argues for a central role for the concept of de-industrialization in understanding the evolution of the economies of urban Britain in the years since 1945. Above all, it is suggested, this concept is crucial because it focuses attention on the consequences of the transition from an industrial to a service-dominated labour market. To make this argument requires a careful definition of the term, along with recognition of its potential weaknesses as well as strengths. Key issues are highlighted by drawing on three diverse urban areas, which help to show the ubiquity of the process, but also its diverse patterns, chronologies and impacts. These examples are a stereotypical ‘post-industrial city’ (Dundee); a major city where de-industrialization has played an under-regarded role in developments (London); and a medium-size town in the south of England (High Wycombe), where the decline of a core industry (furniture) was crucial to its recent history. The final sections analyse the relationship between de-industrialization and other key frameworks commonly deployed to shape understanding of the recent history of Britain: ‘decline’, ‘globalization’ and ‘the triumph of neo-liberalism’.

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Disruption, destruction and the creation of ‘the inner cities’: the impact of urban renewal on industry, 1945–1980

Cited by 14 publications

References 24 publications

Actually existing managerialism: Planning, politics and property development in post-1945 Britain

Actually existing managerialism: Planning, politics and property development in post-1945 Britain

Dereliction, decay and the problem of de-industrialization in Britain,c. 1968–1977

De-industrialization: strengths and weaknesses as a key concept for understanding post-war British history

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