Connecting community to a post-regeneration era

Abstract

This chapter aims to bridge the discussion of the history of community in urban regeneration with the rest of the book. It does this by advancing a central argument- that urban policy has entered a post-regeneration era- along with a specific discussion of the Connected Communities programme. The chapter begins by outlining how and why the era of urban regeneration came to an end, building on the discussion in chapter two, with a specific focus on the combination of broader socio-economic structures and ideological decisions that have shaped urban policy since 2010. The ideas of localism, city mayors, big society and de-centralisation are all considered, along with practical developments such as the National Planning Policy Framework. These agendas and events are then used to understand the Connected Communities programme and the way that its focus, specifically on co-production and co-development with communities, has come to represent the leading edge of academic research in this area.