UK Government Urban Policy Agenda - Essay Example

UK Government Urban Policy Agenda UK Government Urban Policy Agenda Currently, the level of population in United Kingdom is increasing tremendously. The current resources are strained so much because of the increasing demand for better infrastructure especially in the urban areas. The number of people living in the rural areas has decreased as they are moving to urban areas in order to get better access to various amenities. In addition, the immigrants are putting pressure on the government to improve the current urban environment in the cities in order to support the surging number of people. Many of the cities in UK such as London, Manchester, Newcastle, etc. are recording an increased number of foreigners (Tallon 2010). A high number of the rich people are being attracted to these areas due to their modern culture. Many of the people argued that the publication in 1995 of household growth forecast for the UK which suggested that there will be a need to accommodate 4.4 million additional households in the period 1991-2016 was myopic and not based on facts (Davies 2008). However, the number is even higher than anticipated by this publication. Therefore, this paper will critically evaluate the UK government urban policy agenda in relation within the practice of planning in relation to its implication for delivering sustainability, effective public health, and healthy cities. The implication of various reports that have been projecting the growth of population in UK is increased house-building especially on undeveloped green fields. Every incoming government has been targeting to increase the number of houses in the cities in order to solve the housing problem. However, according to the Urban Task Force, these interventions are insufficient. This is because an appropriate strategy must address the increasing level of dissatisfaction among the city residents. Many of these people feel that little attention is being directed towards making city life better (Heurkens & Technische Universiteit Delft 2014). Therefore, there is an argument that the policies should not only focus on accommodating people in urban areas, but also make the cities attractive for the people living in them. The last government’s urban policy agenda failed to achieve the set objectives. For instance, in 1999, the Regional Development Agencies was launched. The main aim was to transform the UK’s regions through sustainable economic development. This is through creating the right conditions for growth and bringing expertise to the task of economic regeneration and development. This is through improving the physical infrastructure and providing the necessary support to the people. In 2002-2007, the agency received a large amount of money from the government. However, the money was not split appropriately across various strategic priorities. Instead, the major focus was on improving the physical infrastructure. In contrast, only 8% of the total amount was spent on people and environment. After an evaluation was done, it was clear that the activities of the agency created a disparity between the regions. Some regions grew faster than the others (Tulchinsky & Varavikova 2000). The economic disparity resulted from improving infrastructure for areas that are inhabited with people of certain social classes. Therefore, the rich were able to take advantage of the infrastructure but the same had no meaning to the people in lower classes. This indicates that the planning of this intervention was lacking. This is because it failed to take into consideration various variables that affect the success of the cities and economic prosperity. The success of a city lies squarely on the lives of the resident (Pierson & Smith 2001). Any policy that does not improve the lives of the local population cannot achieve any success. As a result, this policy was not sustainable because it had little effect on public health and healthy cities. The sustainability of a policy depends on its formulation. Many of the policies being drafted by the government aim at solving the current problem. However, for United Kingdom to have healthy cities that are able to cater for the interests of its residents, the policy must focus on the environment and design of the infrastructure. At the central government level, this should be expressed clearly through the introduction of Public Service Agreements. At the local authority levels, there should be changes in the operations of the local councils. Special emphasis should be put on development of Community Planning, Best Value, and Local Public Service Agreements. At the local level, the policies should focus on neighbourhood management (Jones & Evans 2008). Management of neighbourhood would be essential in controlling and coordinating services at both the community and neighbourhood level. The current policy agenda by the UK government does not have a range of possibilities within this broad spectrum. For instance, the community is not well involved in decision making process. As a result, the residents of these cities are not given an opportunity to air their grievances which should be incorporated in the policy. As a result, it becomes very hard for the policies to win the hearts of the members of the public. Instead, the policies try to focus on economic prosperity of the country (McQueen, Kickbusch, & Potvin 2007). In addition, they try to address the political interests of some few leaders who like to use regeneration projects as their political agendas in order to secure public votes. The government launched the New Deal for Community Programme with the aim of emphasizing crime, community, housing and physical environment. Furthermore it aimed at improving the lives of the people. The thinking behind the programme was that a holistic regeneration would improve the environment in the neighbourhood. In the meantime, the debate surrounds the epistemological and ontological status of the environment. This is about how to understand the protection of environment in an age of global capitalism. In addition, it focuses on how to understand the ethical-political commitment that everyone has towards ensuring that cities have healthy environment for its people. The UK urban geography is currently focused towards ensuring there is descent housing. This is putting the environmental concerns in a dark grave because the developers are putting little emphasis on the interests of the people (Jones & Evans 2008). Instead, they are investing towards achieving the government focus on increasing the number of houses in the country. The UK government urban policy agenda lacks the political support. Each leader who is involved in planning and designing of healthy cities ends up falling short of the noble idea. Financing, monitoring, and evaluating the projects that aims at achieving the required healthy cities requires political goodwill. In addition, it is a long-term process that has to be accepted different governments that come to power. Moreover, complacency among the top leadership has made various projects that aimed at improving the environment in the city fall short of target. This is through giving room to economism, individualism, and professionalism, an aspect that makes it hard for the local community to be involved in the whole processes (Baum 1993). Social sustainability has gained ground in the planning and designing of the cities. In Liverpool various regeneration projects have focused more on changing the designing of the building and streets. The city is the third largest in UK. This number of people residing in it increased due to its role as one of the UK’s major ports. However, the decline of the shipping industry has led to considerable urban decline in the city. This has resulted to various regeneration attempts, some of which were successful while others were not. Area such as Rope Walks has had a major uplift which has played a significant role in improving people’s lives in the city. Initially, the city was characterized by old warehouses and merchant’s houses. This forced many people to move out to the neighbouring cities. However, since 1990s, there have been various regeneration projects which have changed the face of the city. This has been through privatizing public places in order to improve the element of management. For instance, Waterfront areas and other redeveloped areas have seen an increase in the use of CCTV in order to reduce the crime levels (Punter 2010). This has increased the quality of lives since the regeneration programs commenced. The policy agenda should be constructed around addressing economic decline through strengthening the local economy, creating wealth, and tackling joblessness through promoting job creation. Secondly, the agenda should address the social decline through improving conditions for the communities and neighbourhoods through creation of safer environments and also improving the level of coordination in the public services such as transport. Third area of concern to the policy making should be to address the physical decline. This is through improving the existing physical fabrics and buildings. This is with the aim if creating an attractive, safe, and sustainable places for people to live, work, and also visit. Through observing these aspects, it would be easy to achieve healthy cities in United Kingdom. However, some regeneration projects such as the one in Cardiff has failed to satisfy the interests of the local population. It is one of the worst examples if a waterside regeneration. The regeneration project has just made the city to be brightened by crassness and banality. When compared to Swansea city which has been able to create coherent and attractive dockland regeneration with a less budget, Cardiff has fallen short of the expectations of the local communities and neighbourhoods. The poor planning and implementation of the regeneration project in this area cannot be blamed on the local authority. On the contrary, the blame should lie squarely on the UK’s regeneration standards. When compared to other cities in Europe such as Barcelona and Amsterdam, many of the projects lack some innovative aspects that make the city a better place for the local population and the visitors. Mainly, this arises from lack of any coherent urban structure especially on the real streets and worthwhile public spaces. Instead of the city focusing on building strong pre-existing urban fabrics, it has ignored the existing infrastructures and brought new ones. Therefore, the new ex-urban infrastructures have been superimposed by the authority and the countries planning departments (Tallon 2010). For instance, in the city centre, the extension of St Mary Street could have been a successful design but it did not observe the lively element of the street life. Moreover, the expansion of St David’s Complex has done very little to improve the urban life (Strong & Hemphill 2006). These are indications that the government has failed to live towards its promise on focusing on improving the living conditions of people living in urban areas through ensuring that the environment is improved. In order to achieve this goal, the policy makers need to focus on less braggadocio and more fitness, control, and calm. This would make it possible to improve the face of the cities while still observing the social-economic aspects associated with the local population (Tallon 2010). Rapid urbanization continues to be the most complex and important social-economic phenomenon. It also brings irreversible changes in both production and consumption and also the way people interact with nature. It is acknowledged that the impact of urbanization will continue to bring global and local changes (Pierson & Smith 2001). By the next decade, more people will be living in urban areas. Therefore, the notion of urbanization need to be absorbed and replaced with sustainable cities. Majority of the cities in UK are not sustainable. The projects being initiated cannot pass the test for the future. In addition, the budgets being used to maintain them are not sustainable. Moreover, the designs have not been tested effectively because they are rushed to satisfy the interests of the minority few. The answer to these problems requires a more compassion vision which is lacking in the current agenda by the government. Such a vision should adequately define the goals and means of the processes. Nevertheless, in the increasing urbanized country, the environment needs to be recognized as the central component to the liveability of the cities (Geyer 2007). However, the search for more sustainable cities depends largely on the political and institutional decisions which promote cooperation and competition. To assess whether the UK policy is moving to or against urban sustainability, it is significant to consider the relationship among the following dimensions. Economic sustainability-This is the capacity and ability of the intervention to put the local or regional resources into productive use with the aim of achieving the long-term benefit of the community (Jones & Evans 2008). This is done with caution in order not to deplete the natural resource base which forms the city’s ecological footprint. This aspect means that the policy and members involved should take into consideration the impact of the production cycle. For instance, the opening of the new link road, Sunny Lowry Road is a major milestone towards ensuring that the local people are involved in such mega projects. Beswick community hub in East Manchester forms a model that can be used by the UK government and other authorities that are looking forward towards starting regeneration projects (Jones & Evans 2008). Social sustainability-This entails ensuring that there is fairness, inclusiveness, and cultural adequacy in all steps of the regeneration projects (Cullingworth & Nadin 2002). This is significant in promoting equal rights and taking into consideration both the physical and economic capital that supports the livelihoods and maintains the local community. This form of sustainability agitates for special emphasis on the poor and traditionally marginalized groups. On the other hand, cultural adequacy means respecting the cultural heritage and diversity of the local societies residing in the area. However, the current policies are doing little to cover these major aspects (Cullingworth & Nadin 2002). Major regeneration projects are aiming at solving the modern problems such as congestion and pollution. This is through expanding the roads and designing the building in a manner that will decrease the housing demand. As a result, the government agenda has lost touch with the local man. Many of the projects have ended up destroying cultural heritage sites which have been preserved by the local community for decades or even centuries. Therefore, there is a need to relook at the wording and focus of the current policies in order to ensure that they are in line with the current vision of sustainable and healthy cities. Ecological sustainability- This takes into consideration the urban production and consumption especially on the integrity and health of the city and its carrying capacity (Braun 2005). This is to ensure that the current resources are not overwhelmed by the increasing number of people who are residing in the region. As a result, this aspect demands for long-term consideration especially in relation to the interests of the city and the dynamism of the environmental resources (Braun 2005). In addition, the demand exerted on them should be evaluated in order not to destroy its unique features as the government tries to accommodate more people. Sustainability of the built environment-Even as the government puts more effort to improve the lives of the city dwellers through initiating the regeneration projects, sustaining these cities is one of the hardest hurdles that are facing the government. With the planning and implementation of the projects being pushed by the new demands by the city dwellers, some of the projects are becoming money baskets. This is forcing the government to use a lot of its resources in trying to maintain the cities. Healthy cities need to be self sustainable. They need to generate their own resources which will be significant in supporting the improvement processes. In addition, they should not be so technical or short-term because the future generations will still depend on them. There are increasing concerns among the dwellers that the capacity of an intervention to enhance the liveability of the building and other major infrastructures are disrupting the urban region environment (Yigitcanlar, Velibeyoglu, & Baum 2008). Moreover, many are stating that the new interventions are affecting the efficiency of normal activities, thereby, making it hard for the residents to support the local economy. Political sustainability-This is concerned with the quality of the governance system that is applied in order to ensure that the projects that have been initiated have positive impacts on the lives of the targeted population making (Boddy & Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) 2003). Many of the projects have stalled due to frequent political interference. However, in order for such incidents to be avoided, the policy needs to emphasize on democratization and participation of the local civil societies in all areas of decision making (Boddy & Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) 2003). These are societies that have the interests of the people at heart. As a result, they cannot be manipulated by the political leaders or any other interested party. Moreover, the urban sustainability calls for re-enforcing our understanding of the cities and the multiple impacts that they have on the society and the environment at large. This is because these cities cannot be expected to be treated as islands of reform. Therefore, the political class has a role of enlightening the members of the public on the need to intervene and make changes. This is significant in reducing the level of resistance. Many of the policies that are being used by the government are not based on the current situations. In 1990s the government embarked on intensive researches in order to identify various interventions that need to be implemented in order for the country to achieve sustainable development. Many of the reports, e.g. valuing the Benefits of Regeneration pinpointed the need for increased housing, expansion of the streets in order to reduce the traffic, and building of the parks. The government invested a lot of money on these sector but the planning remained poor. Each government has been manipulating these reports with the aim of making some improvements. However, the planning needs to take a complete dimension if the country is to achieve sustainable growth. Healthy city need to become the cornerstone of all urban agendas. All stakeholders need to change their mindsets and be focused towards the future of our cities. In conclusion, many of the regeneration projects have changed the face of different cities across United Kingdom. Cities such as Swansea, Liverpool, and Manchester have recorded some improvements emanating from the urban policy. Although the sustainability of the projects is yet to be measured, people are acknowledging that the changes are of major benefits to their lives. However, in order to achieve the goal of healthy cities, the political, social, and economic aspects of the local communities should be incorporated while drafting the policies. Furthermore, the policy should focus on ensuring that future generations enjoy the benefits that will be accrued from the efforts of the current generation. Failure to do that, all the current efforts will only have short benefits and a cycle of investments will be experienced after a short time. References Baum, F. E. 1993. Healthy Cities and change: social movement or bureaucratic tool? Health Promotion International, 8(1), 31-40. Boddy, M., & Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain). 2003. 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