What is the role of the state in regeneration?

The debate about the role of central government in reviving deprived places is stuck. The real issue isn’t more or less government, but where and what type, argues John P. Houghton.

The recent exchange between the regeneration select committee and the DCLG was a very depressing affair.

The select committee rightly criticised the government for having no meaningful strategy or consideration for reviving the poorest places. Its Regeneration to enable growth toolkit is a pretty feeble set of lists and platitudes that doesn’t engage with serious questions about the likelihood and type of growth we might see in different places.

What about neighbourhoods where growth is going to be very hard to achieve? What about the places where growth won’t benefit the neediest neighbourhoods? And that’s before we get on to deeper issues about the potential for post-growth or steady state strategies in other places.

I suspect many of you will share the committee’s conclusion that the government ‘lacks strategic direction and is unclear about the nature of the problem it is trying to solve’.

However, the committee’s proposals are equally problematic and ultimately rely on top-down government intervention. They call for several new government strategies, with additional guidance and outcomes, and a government assessment of regeneration schemes across the country.

The most dispiriting conclusion is their call for a series of government-designated regeneration ‘pathfinders’. After 40 years of short-term pilot programmes, the committee settled on the bright idea of launching another set of short-term pilot programmes.

And all this despite a richness of evidence from witnesses who critiqued previous interventions and put forward a wide range of ideas for more searching, long-term solutions.

The committee are right to criticise for government for doing nothing, but wrong to think that central government has the answers.

The DCLG’s response didn’t meaningfully engage with any of the criticisms in the report and dismissed most of the recommendations. The government mantra is simple: growth and localism are the answers. Central government should get out of the way. As Julian Dobson put it, ministers haven’t so much delegated responsibility as abnegated it altogether.

I have some sympathy with the current government’s diagnosis of the problem, but disagree with their prognosis. The government is rightly critical of the top-down nature of previous programmes which proliferated under the last government in particular.

The sheer number of disconnected strategies and agenda became a serious problem, as community groups and local services had to spend more and time trying to fit together different initiatives. There was far too much emphasis on public sector programmes at the expense of business investment and civil society activity.

Ministers are right to be sceptical about government programmes, with their attendant targets and bureaucratic requirements. But wrong to think that government has no role in either defining the problem or finding solutions.
There’s a fertile middle ground between polar opposites of ‘we need more central strategies and guidance’ versus ‘we need government to get out of the way’. The way forward for the poorest places is to build neighbourhood resilience while driving urban reconnection.

To promote neighbourhood resilience, we need to invest in community development, encourage community-owned assets and services and devolve powers to local people. Central government is too heavy-handed to do this careful work. As ministers envisage, it should delegate, encourage, incentivise and simplify.

But to encourage urban reconnection the state has to play a more assertive role in linking deprived neighbourhoods to opportunities in the wider economy. Only government can do the heavy lifting that is required to put in place enlightened economic development strategies and planning frameworks for sustainable growth.

Without these kinds of interventions, deprived neighbourhoods will be left to swim against and eventually drown under the tides of inequality and social polarisation.

The current debate is stuck, sterile and simplistic. Do you want top-down regeneration or bottom-up regeneration?

I don’t want either. I want the state to get out of the way most of the time, but flex its muscles when it needs to. I want long-term investment, not short-term pathfinders. And I want the right kind of government interventions in the right places.

Is that too much to ask? I’d welcome your thoughts.