Regeneration EQ2 - Need for regeneration

Question 1

What is perception?

Answer 1

How people view/regard a place, a vital part of lived experience impacting how people engage with their place

Question 2

How can ‘successful’ regions be perceived as self sustaining?

Answer 2

More people and investment are drawn to the opportunities created, both from inside the country and from other places

Question 3

What are the qualities of successful regions?

Answer 3

Positives:
- high employment rates
- inward migration
- low levels of multiple deprivation
- investment attracted
Negatives:
- high/overheated property prices
- skills shortages
- congestion of roads and public transport

Question 4

How is San Francisco a successful place, and what are the drawbacks?

Answer 4

1990s - became focus of California’s new ‘gold rush’, home to global internet businesses such as Dropbox and Twitter. Phenomenal job growth seen in STEM biotech, life sciences and digital media companies - multiplier effect (highly skilled workforce).
DRAWBACKS: ‘Google effect’ of gentrification causes discontent from some established but less affluent displaced locals

Question 5

What is the intergenerational cycle?

Answer 5

Educational underachievement and poor health is passed from parents to their children.

Question 6

What are the social consequences of inequality?

Answer 6

• segregation of different socio-economic groups, property damage and violent crime
• health issues
• higher infant mortality and lowered life expectancy
• status competition, driving less-affluent people into debt in an attempt to keep up with a peer group practising a higher level of consumerism

Question 7

What are the qualities of unsuccessful regions due to economic restructuring?

Answer 7

Spiral of decline:
- increasing levels of social deprivation: health, education, crime, access to services and living environment

Question 8

What is the Rust Belt?

Answer 8

The geographic region from New York through the Midwest that was once dominated by manufacturing, now characterised by declining industry and falling population

Question 9

What are the impacts of the spiral of decline from the Rust Belt in Detroit?

Answer 9

• population dropped by 50%
• 100,000 abandoned homes and buildings
• 2014 = 2nd highest murder rate of any US city

Question 10

What are reinventor cities?

Answer 10

Cities that have changed their economic base successfully by encouraging IT and digital media, have higher wages, graduate workers, new businesses and productivity.

Question 11

What are replicator cities?

Answer 11

Those that have replaced cotton mills with call centres and dock yards with distribution centres - therefore are less sustainable. They tend to have a higher share of workers with low qualifications and a working age population claiming benefits. Remain tied into their once powerful manufacturing industries

Question 12

What are the 4 areas which demonstrate significant variations in social and economic inequalities, generating priority for regeneration?

Answer 12

Sink estates vs gated communities
Declining rural settlements vs commuter towns
Areas needing regeneration can be often found spatially very close to those which have no need for it at all. This is especially true in urban areas!!

Question 13

What is a sink estate?

Answer 13

A housing estate characterised by high levels of economic and social deprivation and crime, especially domestic violence, drugs and gangs.
E.g. the Barracks in Glasgow

Question 14

What are gated communities?

Answer 14

Wealthy residential areas that are fenced off. They are landscapes of surveillance (CCTV and 24/7 security guards) found in urban and rural settlements as either individual buildings or groups of houses. Designed to deter access by unknown people and reduce crime

Question 15

What are commuter villages?

Answer 15

Settlements that have a proportion of their population living in them but who commute out daily or weekly, usually to larger settlements either nearby or further afield

Question 16

What are declining rural settlements?

Answer 16

Rural areas that have experienced out migration (to urban areas) and therefore a decline of services etc - rural spiral of decline

Question 17

What is one of the key issues of commuter villages?

Answer 17

May need fewer services since commuters may not demand local shops/schools. This makes locals dependent on low-paid agriculture vulnerable.

Question 18

How can levels of engagement be measured?

Answer 18

1. by local and national election turnout
2. development and support for local community groups

Question 19

Why does support for local community groups vary across the country?

Answer 19

Depends on local willingness to participate and the main aim of the group

Question 20

What 2 key factors affect a person’s sense of place, lived experience and level of engagement?

Answer 20

• membership: a feeling of belonging, familiarity and being accepted
• influence: a sense of playing a part in a place, and hence caring about it

Question 21

What is lived experience?

Answer 21

The actual experience of living in a particular place or environment. This can have a major influence on people’s perceptions and values, as well as general development and outlook on the world.

Question 22

What factors affect levels of engagement?

Answer 22

• age (e.g. 80% of people aged over 65 voted, compared to only 40% of people aged 18-24 in 2015 UK general election)
• ethnicity (only 55% of ethnic minority groups chose to vote)
• gender
• length of residence
• levels of deprivation

Question 23

What factors explain variation in political engagement?

Answer 23

• language barriers
• lack of trust in politicians
• feeling of little influence
• lacking of belonging (isolated feeling)

Question 24

Why might people and groups be socially marginalised or push out to the edges by dominant core culture?

Answer 24

Due to language, religion, customs or especially by wealth

Question 25

How are rural and urban places interdependent?

Answer 25

Rural areas depend on towns and cities for many key services: healthcare, education, leisure - sometimes also employment
Urban areas: rely on countryside for food and non food products, and value landscape/environment for leisure and recreation

Question 26

What are some of the main causes of conflicts between contrasting groups in communities (with different views about priorities and strategies for regeneration)?

Answer 26

• lack of political engagement and representation
• ethnic tensions
• inequality
• a lack of economic opportunity

Question 27

What is studentification?

Answer 27

The process by which specific neighbourhoods become dominated by student residential occupation, describing the growth of high concentration of students within the localities of Higher Education Institutions

Question 28

What are the positives and negatives of studentification?

Answer 28

Positives: increase levels of spending in the local economy, improve opportunities for companies etc
Negatives: low level anti social behaviour, vandalism, students unbothered by upkeep of property - upsetting locals, lack of community spirit forces families away, transient occupation, can cause local conflict

Question 29

What are the economic criteria that evaluate the need for regeneration?

Answer 29

Types of employment, unemployment, business rates, property value

Question 30

What are the social criteria that evaluate the need for regeneration?

Answer 30

Ethnicity, access to healthcare and education, educational achievement, community facilities

Question 31

What are the environmental criteria that evaluate the need for regeneration?

Answer 31

Derelict land, closed shops, boarded-up buildings, graffiti, lack of green space, transport provision, pollution

Question 32

What statistical evidence can be used to determine the need for regeneration?

Answer 32

ONS census
Neighbourhood statistics websites
GIS systems

Question 33

How can different media provide contrasting evidence to question the need for regeneration?

Answer 33

Data may be manipulated to give different ‘spins’ on any evidence.

Question 34

How do different representations of a place influence the perceived need for regeneration?

Answer 34

Different sources influence people’s perception about places and whether they need regeneration: e.g. newspapers, documentaries, YouTube clips, local blogs, estate agents, local authorities