Selling Cities

A version of Miffa's article first appeared in Planning, the magazine of the Royal Town Planning Institute on 18 July 2003, and is kindly reproduced here.

These are busy times for selling cities. But, while the hard fought land and property deals continue to make headlines in the Trades, it is the clink of glasses and the click of heels - not to mention those home-counties accents - which tell us that there is a new show in town.

Take Liverpool, our City of Culture, as a classic example. If the latest range of freebie postcards are to be believed, you would be hard pressed to find a dilapidated building in amongst the cappuccino bars and designer shops. Liverpool, it would appear is a veritable jewel in the urban crown, and not some regeneration black hole which we have been pumping money into for all these years.

And, if you still doubt the power of PR, check out the Olympics Bid poised to promote the joys of some of the worst parts of East London, not to mention the various proposals for the Thames Gateway, which seek to do the same thing for a stretch of land from the London Docks to the edge of the Thames Estuary.

It is therefore no great surprise that the British Urban Regeneration Association (BURA) Conference on 14 July 2002 focused on the "communication industries" and their role in the development of our towns and cities. The conference title Shout it from the Rooftops had an optimistic ring to it. This suggested that there is both something to shout about - which in fairness there is - and that someone is willing to listen - which is probably a bit more debatable.

Of course, it is great to have a vision, but the big question is whose?

At the end of the day all the research on public preferences suggests that far from signing up to some policy pundit's urban renaissance, Joe and Jane Public would still tend to opt for some sci-fi utopia more akin to Postman Patsville. And, this is where the "shouting" and the "rooftops" become a little bit more problematic.

Because if we are really going to deliver on public aspiration, we are going have to reconcile blue sky visions with the reality of some pretty unpleasant trade-offs. Talking to people about the future of their homes and neighbourhoods is emotional territory. To do it right will require more than slick brochures, postal surveys and the occasional focus group. It is time to show the average citizen a little more respect, and that means providing resources for a far more informed debate.

So full credit to that brave New Deal Partnership, which last week held the first Citizens' Jury to evaluate options for funding future regeneration on one of the largest estates in the country. It may not be easy, but sometimes you've just got to sit on that rooftop and let people shout at you. Miffa Salter 15 September 2003

BURA members in a war of more than loud words

Following Miffa's article we provide a link to the BURA website, which for members has more information about the 2002 summer conference, Shout it from the rooftops.

The British Urban Regeneration Association was '... formed in 1990 to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas, experience and information for the emerging regeneration sector.' Representing an army of urban regeneration agencies and officers today, BURA has become the leading organisation in the field. They are seen by the private and public sector, the not-for-profit sector, and government departments alike as a key organisation in the battle for sustainable urban regeneration.

The BURA summer conference on 14 July 2002, Shout it from the Rooftops, focused on the importance in urban regeneration of getting a message across. The venue - the Cabinet War Rooms in London - was appropriate. BURA obviously recognise their activities as a battle for hearts and minds - and in great part a propaganda war.

To that end BURA is something of an intelligence service. BuraNet is a 'web-based knowledge management system', as the operational jargon has it, provided for the exclusive benefit of BURA members. BuraNet is aimed at regeneration professionals and practitioners '... requiring a regular flow of relevant information', to be delivered with near military efficiency to their officers in the field.

At the head of BURA's command structure is the Steering and Development Forum, launched in March 2001. The SDF has twin objectives. The first is to undertake research on specific issues of regeneration. The second, to provide a platform from which representatives from the private, public and voluntary sectors could meet with (and influence) a government desperate for policy guidance. Since its launch the BURA SDF has been heavily involved in the consultation process behind the revision of planning legislation, initiated by Lord Falconer of Thoroton for the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.

Lessons from a war zone

In that regard BURA represent Prescott's personal army of urban regeneration planners and project managers. BURA has been recruited to inform and apply central government planning policy, and is instrumental in the reforms intended to deal with the 'irregulars' of local planners who answer to elected planning committee members. People who have the wonderfully annoying habit of refusing to follow every detail - or even the spirit - of central government planning guidance.

It is clear that BURA want to win over the public to Prescott's urban agenda. But they are also engaged in something of a professional civil war over the administration of the state's monopoly on development rights. With government backing they have no patience with the little democracy that exists in the planning system based on elected local and regional planning authorities. A flawed planning system, it is true, predicated on the denial of development rights to freeholders, but with more democratic accountability than BURA will ever be able to claim.

So BURA's war-cry is not for freedom from the state, but against the electorate's limited influence over local councillors charged with planning.

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