Neighbourhood Management and Urban Renewal - Essay Example

Neighbourhood Management and Urban Renewal: Liverpool and Manchester Introduction This paper shall tackle urban neighbourhood and renewal in two important locations in the United Kingdom: Liverpool and Manchester. It is not merely about describing historical backgrounds of economics and policy; however, all the more, it will provide a critical description of the various stages of urban development in Liverpool and Manchester, particularly in the aspects of social cohesion, neighbourhood management, partnership, and governance. This paper is a comprehensive observation and evaluation of neighbourhood conditions and the regeneration that is needed in order to trigger economic and political progress in the aforementioned areas. This is not merely about deprivation or the worrying proliferation of slums that need to be taken care of by the government, but this is about solving the causes of urban tangling that affect not just the ordinary citizens but all aspects of Liverpool and Manchester in general. The social reforms that took place in Britain will be discussed in depth, especially the extensive, lengthy discussions on deprivation, the chief role of the local governments of Liverpool and Manchester and the housing authorities and organizations in altering and improving the living conditions in the ground. Furthermore, this paper addresses environmental concerns and social conflicts within neighbourhoods as a way to include a more thorough understanding of social marginalization, sustainable development, and the importance of care of urban locations. While analyses and discussions on this paper are focused on Liverpool and Manchester, or the UK in general, a considerable number of issues are consequential to other countries. Liverpool and Manchester Liverpool and Manchester are situated in the North-western part of England. They are about 35 miles away from each other. These cities are particularly important for UK in that these are founding and ground-breaking cities, exemplifying the advent of the industrial era. During the early 1900s, particularly in the 1930s, the sum of the population of both cities only accounted to below 900,000 people, and population for each city has significantly reduced by fifty per cent caused by deindustrialization that led to a cascade of unremitting decline. Liverpool and Manchester had to fight and, to a degree, triumphed in getting rid of the image of decline and deterioration. Following an era of urban renewal in the 1990s, Liverpool and Manchester both relish a new perception of confidence and optimism. Notwithstanding these resemblances and comparison, the connection between the two cities has been very intricate. Their relationship has even gone beyond political, economic and social aspects: Liverpool and Manchesters competitiveness stretches to sports, particularly football, cultural organizations, music, and even in acquiring financial support from the European Union. Significantly, this rivalry is engrained and founded in a perennial dissimilarities in economic, social structure, and urban culture, in spite of the fact that both cities were prominently connected to the first railway system in the world for passengers: Manchester was a logistical hub for cotton and textile businesses whereas Liverpools economic and urban development was largely spawned by the influence of its harbours and worldwide business connections. The characteristic difference between Liverpool and Manchester is manifested in a manner wherein talks about decay and regeneration have been handled. Desertion as an Opening A large number of neighbourhoods in urbanized areas in the United Kingdom are hard to live in and challenging to salvage. The overpowering preponderance of the hardest neighbourhoods are situated in towns and cities that is why social marginalization that is based on neighbourhood, which is observed as the focus of numerous concerns and problems in predominantly deprived and underprivileged areas, is mainly a urban occurrence (Mumford and Power, 2003). A large proportion of the most relentlessly problematic receptacles are in huge council holdings and domains that are likewise excessively concentrated in cities. However, even the most affluent, booming and successful locations are suffering from minor problematic neighbourhoods. Individuals who have gained high education, options, money, occupation, and abilities tend to move away from such challenging locations. People intending to depart from such difficult neighbourhoods do not only exist in Liverpool and Manchester; even in London, a global city with the a very high standard of living, many people who belong to the low-income category wanted to go to another location for a better life (Mumford and Power, 2003). While there are various long run initiators and propellers of this broader and eclectic downfall in classified information. Some important historic causes that cause desertion would be the outward stretch and deindustrialization. Concerns on Neighbourhood Abandonment Great Britain is the first country in the world to have become tremendously urban, as shown by the merely 2% of employment coming from the agricultural industry. And this has taken place as early as the 1900s. Because of this, British cities have to pay a considerably weighty price for the enormous fortune and worldwide reputation that Great Britain has gained. The political agreement was to direct citizens out of them. Important steps to discuss and address problems on housing and slum settings were pushed over the subsequent century by the notion that swarming, congested and impoverished people should be relocated to another location where there are better living conditions; hence, plans arose that masses should be transferred to a suburban housing, which could either be owned by the council or privately kept. The famed WWI saying “Homes Fit for Heroes” brought about a straight and massive slum rid program, which aimed at clearing all slum neighbourhoods all over Great Britain in an effort to build an area that offers better living conditions by putting up better housing programs inside and even outside the city frontiers. There were very few who contended against the initiative of carrying out a wide-ranging demolition and evacuation until the 1970s, in which the destruction of many landscapes and architectural forms in the cities and towns and nearby communities they accommodated was colossal (Young and Wilmott, 1957). Being the first to become an industrially-driven economic superpower in the world, our reliance over old-fashion, substantial manufacturing was supreme. With the increasing weakening and deterioration in an economy based on factories from the advent of the 20th century and the near breakdown of the backbone important trades between the 1970s and 1980s, earlier urbanized locations were suffering the dearth of available jobs, increasingly stripped of the more skilled and more striving who took hold of abundant opportunities to continue moving away Turok and Edge, 1999). The program that pointed towards clearing the slum neighbourhood has caused the economic transformation of the country, particularly in parts of Liverpool and Manchester, particularly more difficult and punitive. The wide-ranging disfigurement and abolition of archaic internal areas has caused big urbanized locations such as Liverpool and Glasgow grappling to get better a long time after the population and number of available jobs were drained and exhausted. The situation today is never different from the situation in the past. The process of clearing slum neighbourhoods and carry out a wide-ranging neighbourhood management and renewal in the cities of Liverpool and Manchester still carry on until today. And this idea is especially directed to the most impoverished communities with the most number of disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The amount of outward relocation has decelerated; however, is still important (Holmans and Simpson, 1999). Industrial transformation obtained speedy thrust and momentum due to the influence of the economic recession that took place during the 1970s, the Thatcher era and the international markets influences. Revolution on housing and employment gained much solider in the main industrial hubs, particularly in the Northern and Central regions in that urban state of affairs are controlled by black trades and the elevated population density of people working in industries. Slum clearance and the plan to put up better housing, on a large proportion in these locations, has caused the population some neighbourhoods to cut down by a third of its initial population (Power, 1987). Liverpool and Manchester among others, and some large, highly-urbanized cities have gained shades and hints of their previous affluence, population density, and influence. The topographical proliferation of the cities and metropolises was now extensive and widespread, less-congested, and portioned out by main roads. There is obviously a dire necessity for change in direction. As internal communities have become too exhausted and worn out, with not many jobs available, extreme poverty, and sooner or later, in short number of people, social conditions have collapsed and fallen apart. Many social institutions close down such as schools, hospitals, and important business establishments; all forms of public transports operate occasionally, financial institutions close and vanish and black commercialization will thrive in the emptiness of departed spaces. Nevertheless, if there is a lone thing that will never fall off, that would surely be the traffic. Individuals who have already deserted the city still utilize the hub for its facilities, services, and work. As public travellers, they would now just use their cars in locations they would perhaps have resided in, in previous periods. Overcrowding and the amount of time needed to commute are costly to pay for permitting urban communities to break down into such deterioration. Housing put up on the frontiers of the cities, typically on rural locations, affords a common substitute to urbanized living for families who have the capacity to possess; however, in itself, obliterate the outskirts and the inner cities altogether. At the farthest and most intense, unsophisticated and unrefined building beyond the city limits stimulates falling demands for cheaper inner communities within. This is exactly the bad case that permits the over-building of housing outside the inner neighbourhoods, in which an excessive number of homes are being built while there are less prospective families that are expected to purchase, buy or rent them. This disproportionality in the supply of homes is a sure cause of urban decay and desertion (Mumford and Power, 2003). A Glance at the Urban Centres and Thriving Inner Neighbourhoods What makes a successful and thriving urban, inner neighbourhood? Crucial to the revitalization, restoration, renewal and regeneration of a city is the liveliness and energy of the urban centres. Far more than the advocates of the Information Revolution trusted, we depend on urban centres as the drivers of the modern economy. Closeness, immediacy, direct encounters, easy access to important services and a focus and gathering of associated and allied businesses, all make fresh need for space in urban locations. The importance of financial institutions and their services and the supplies for high-grade facilities in a new economy, the need for nearby private support from taking care of the child, salon services, household helper to interior decorating, fast-food deliveries and services and all other forms of accessible backups, aid in shaping the regeneration and renewal of urban centres (Rogers and Power, 2000). The central and local administrations of Great Britain employed a revolutionary collaboration method to altering and revolutionizing urban centres from industrial remainders and vestiges to modern, sophisticated international connectors. Archaic historical structures were willingly transformed into new businesses and housing projects. Abandoned, deserted or unoccupied structures or landmarks like museums, libraries, canals, and obsolete transportation buildings have turned out to be exhilarating and attractive features of both the ancient and modern periods. Considering that more people are being captivated by such regenerative approach and structural arrangement, new standards and prices have gone along. Marketing urban hub has collected its own haze. Behind this revival, travellers and shoppers from nearly locations prefer to do a city scape shopping at Manchester in huge shopping malls wherein the brands, fashion culture, and ambiance is expectable considering that people are likewise searching for an urban experience, for surprising nooks and crannies to explore, and for newly refurbished streets and pubs in which the urban atmosphere is something of utmost value. The contact between modern urban travellers and holidaymakers, together with the new city residents is repairing, much less, rebuilding the hubs of every major urbanized location in Great Britain. Seen this way, is there a possibility that inner communities would be able to come up with such regenerative come back? The modern, thrilling urban passageway joining the centre of Manchester City and the hub of the Eastern Manchester, which is one and a half miles away from each other, strengthens the connection between them. The reality is that less-degenerated and more appealing neighbourhoods are now progressing. Neighbourhoods that are inspired by Victorian and Georgian art have habitually improved from the deterioration of industrial revolution in which the most impoverished neighbourhoods, holding a large number of ordinary workers, while being renovated and modernized time and again, have mostly remained underprivileged and showed more difficult to restore. Lupton (2001) contends that reputations are extremely long-term. Conurbations were segmented into inferior (poor) and superior (rich) zones. And while people were actually nearer to each other, considering that urbanized locations before were jam-packed and less expansive, the gap that separates the most impoverished areas and the remainders of the city was huge. London poverty charts and maps show how dense destitution was and how sturdily associated with particular areas. These arrangements have endured nearly complete until today. It has been simpler to generate a new economy and a novel wealth in the West End as it is simpler for the Southern Manchester to expand and progress economically than its Northern counterpart, wherein the values of enterprises and properties are declining? So what seems to be the factor? What could aid the inner neighbourhoods to regenerate once more? Neighbourhood management and renewal takes a huge part in this case. First of all is the inherent lures of their housing design. As mentioned earlier, regeneration does not only refer to putting up new buildings at a rapid rate, but it is building new buildings that conform to the American standards. Also, it does not necessarily mean that American standards are better than the rest but it characterizes modernity that adapts to any modern development in urban design and planning. Going back, Southern Manchester and West End normally possess solid, quasi-separated or adjoining houses with sufficient space to adjust to the modern standards. Also, gardens and other forms of relaxing installations are included in the design of these buildings. Regeneration, in essence, should not only focus on housing alone. Since it necessitates social cohesion, design standards should encourage gathering of people in a certain location, such that housing must include amenities or features that trigger socialization among the members of the inner neighbourhoods. Such good examples are gardens. Also, these gardens, unlike yards, afford members of the inner communities a chance to relish the beauty of large trees, trees, and it shades during the broad daylight. Infill spots, brought about by the depletion of work establishments or other transformations of utilization, bring new prospects for elegant and stylish, first rate housing and new applications make this regenerating communities more diverse and fascinating. Another thing is that an influx of new city dwellers fascinated by such regenerating inner communities usually has public acquaintances and networks, accountabilities and everyday jobs and can open improved amenities. Situations get better, bars and inns persist, and thrive. The significant and community-shaping function of these communities persists all over the conventional street configurations whereas the relatively high density triggers mobility and action within and on the streets. The success of an inner neighbourhood relies, in part, on the arrangement of the community itself, particularly in the threshold of the ideal number of houses that are accommodated within. In Manchester, it holds between fifty to a hundred houses for every hectare of land, which is, in any case, and is no less than, the population density of majority of contemporary areas. This affords Manchester significant number of people that reinforces services, rendering them to become greatly pursued in almost every urbanized location in the country. Inner neighbourhoods that are reviving and regenerating quickly are inherently appealing to urbanized locations in that, usually in close proximity to parks, large schools, transport centres, made before the birth of cars. These features make inner communities of archaic but sturdy structure highly-appealing these days. They afford every individual with the benefits of urban living and while they share a large proportion of concerns of other inner city communities, especially all forms of crime and deprived educational institutions, they possess an edgy attraction. They possess the main advantage of an increasing social diversity, which majority of the population tends to favour to more unproductive, sole-class conurbations. The success of regenerating inner neighbourhoods is contingent to housing that is theoretically appealing to some, not essentially to the wealthiest segments of the community; that is well situated; and also that tenders transport connections. Majority of the archaic, obsolete housings has the possibility to be renovated and streamlined, and nearly every urbanized location can be transformed into something greener, environmentally-friendly and more fascinating provided there is enough demand and certainty. Regeneration in Manchester At the moment, a plain two decades following the city’s most sequential moment of deterioration, Manchester’s leading image and reputation is that of the flourishing hub of the Northern England. In a remarkable course of regenerative development and classing that started in the late 1980s (Misselwitz, 2004), Manchester has greatly and incrementally productively eradicated the semblance of decay. The ultimate decade has witnessed the unemployment rate cutting down to 9.5% in 2001, and notwithstanding the contentious census statistics, demographic progress has nearly set up (Misselwitz, 2004). Among the manifold features that helped the Manchester’s revival and recuperation, the concurrence of the following drifts was predominantly significant: 1. Masses Resourcefulness, Culture of the Youth, and Reawakening of the Repository From the 1970s to the late 1980s, urban decay has was greatly experienced in the interior of Manchester. The population has severely affected, which in those times, had a total population of less than a thousand people. However, this handiness of inexpensive areas started to lure a modern cohort who took hold of the opportunity to fulfil set-ups. Abandoned or unused old warehouses were a significant factor in the growth of the local music industry. During the 1990s, Manchester has become a music centre with many recording companies and recording studios establishing their enterprises in the city. Likewise, the proliferation of various accessible inns and pubs, such as gay bars, cafes and clubs attracted students from neighbouring locations. The business spirit of the builders and developers of the modern Manchester brought about restoration and regeneration of large portions of the interiors of the city. 2. Socialism to Business mindedness While socialism is a factor in attracting people from other locations, it is entrepreneurism that triggers economic activity and overall progress. The modern approach that concentrates on entrepreneurism or business mindedness opened means for generating funds for the central government. The swing of importance that steers away from the conventional plans for social housing and assistance made a succession of across-the-board development proposals that commenced to completely transform the appearance of the city (Misselwitz, 2004). The Transforming Urban Image of Liverpool Immersed in the historic shadows of industrialization, Liverpool has gone through manifold transformations and is most lately recalled for what could be portrayed as a “diminutive revival” concluding in the winning proposal on European culture (Ferrari and Roberts, 2004). However, fatefully, while culture stays an important plus of Liverpool’s rehabilitated vitality, recollections and illustrations of economic and social conflict are not distant from sight. Shrinking Population of Liverpool The census data on the population of Liverpool reveals that the city’s population has contracted by 6.4% from 1991 to 2001 (Ferrari and Roberts, 2004). This substantial reduction on the city’s population has been accounted to extreme deindustrialization and sub-urbanization all over UK. These progressions have carried on and the city has been necessitated to reinvent itself (Ferrari and Roberts, 2004). Population statistics shows that the region of Liverpool’s population dropped at a very rapid rate as compared to the urbanized locations. One reason for this population shrinkage is migration, according to Ferrari and Roberts (2004). Neighbourhood Management and Revival: A Critical Aspect of Population Shrinkage A vital part of the shrinkage theory is the dynamic of the urbanized setting. The number of available and unoccupied residences and the quantity of dilapidated and abandoned pieces of land are critical when taking this setting into consideration in the urbanized or city area. Vacancy levels are especially high in private sector housing, which is 11,979 of 18,666 in the Liverpool area (Ferrari and Roberts, 2004). The total number of unoccupied houses in Liverpool is measured to be at 25,584, of which, 4,623 are “local authority”, while 16,869 are privately owned (Ferrari and Roberts, 2004). The statistics for abandoned pieces of land, which is described as an unused area that has been cultivated before or perhaps open for revitalization and regeneration, reveals a remarkable image of the city. Sefton accounts to a huge percentage (49%) of an urbanized derelict land before (Ferrari and Roberts, 2004). This likewise signifies that there is a great proportion of unused land and structures that are still to be regenerated. Lastly, it is imperative to transportation into account in evaluating the cause of the population shrinkage. The state of transportation facilities is influential in the rate or increase or decrease of population in particular location, especially in an urbanized area. In the case of Liverpool, its international air travel is served by John Lennon Airport (Ferrari and Roberts, 2004), which is regarded to be one of the busiest and largest airports in the United Kingdom. The urban condition of Liverpool is sometimes described as the “city of permanent underclass” (Hall, 2002). The condition of neighbourhood management is rather scrambling in the city in that there is a clear segmentation of the poor class and rich class. Hence, an aggregate of either negative or positive urban conditions is experienced by either the poor class or the rich class. Wealthy people are located in the South while the disadvantaged families are situated in the north. This kind of social and urban arrangement has led to various adverse upshots for the poor class: overcrowded and contaminated basements are rampant in locations where poor class are located. Inner neighbourhood management and revival is direly needed in order to ensure that social exclusion and polarization, which is obviously manifested in the housing conditions of the impoverished families, be ridded. Suggested Measures Neighbourhood management and revival in both cities should include the following measures in order to ensure that better living conditions can be achieved: security, control of trouble and overall supervision; environmental preservation and reparation of damaged public locations; cleaning of the streets and mainstream core funding among others. Bibliographic Entry Ferrari, E. and Roberts, J., 2004. Regrowth of a Shrinking City [PDF] Available at: [Accessed 19 August 2013]. Hall, P., 2002. Cities of tomorrow: An intellectual history of urban planning and design in the twentieth century. Hoboken: Wiley. Holmans, A. and Simpson, M., 1999. Low demand: Separating fact for fiction. Coventry: Chartered Institute of Housing. Lupton, R., 2001. Places apart: The initial report of CASEs areas study. London: London School of Economics. Misselwitz, P., 2004. Manchester City Profile [PDF] Available at: [Accessed 19 August 2013]. Mumford, K. and Power, A., 2003. East Enders: Family and community in East London. Bristol: Policy Press. Power, A. 1987. Property before people: The management of Twentieth-century council housing. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin. Rogers, R.G. and Power, A., 2000. Cities for small country. London: Faber and Faber, Limited. Turok, I. and Edge, N., 1999. The jobs gap in British cities. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Young, M. and Wilmott, P., 1957. Family and kinship in East London. New York: Free Press. Read More