Good Local Economics
As England’s regional development agencies close their doors for the last time, is it time to shift our focus away from regional inequalities and the north/south divide and towards an equitable vision for all places in the UK? Clare Goff reports
When the regional development agencies opened their doors in 1998, England was a polarised country. GDP levels in London and in the southeast were the highest in the country – at £16,200 per head and £14,500 per head – while in the north-east of England GDP stood at £9,800 per head (ONS). The gap between unemployment rates in the north and south in 1999 was over 3.5%.
Community ownership models are beginning to find their feet and offer a way forward from out-dated regeneration schemes, as Tom Archer and Rob Rowlands explain
In October 2011 we wrote an article, The Urban Collective, in which we suggested that community ownership might offer some hope in the aftermath of government-led regeneration programmes. However, we stressed that, despite the common usage of the term, ‘community’ is never a homogenous entity where there is unanimity of perspectives, values and objectives. Our suggestion was that community ownership models will ‘emerge from shared problems and small bases’ that over time will draw in ‘new members and different resources’. This was an argument for the piecemeal and anarchic in the absence of co-ordinated state action and funding.
