IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v48y2011i2p273-296.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Conceptualising Sustainability in UK Urban Regeneration: a Discursive Formation

Author

Listed:
  • D. Rachel Lombardi

    (D. Rachel Lombardi is in the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK, rachel.lombardi@aya.yale.edu)

  • Libby Porter

    (Libby Porter is in the Department of Urban Studies, University of Glasgow, 25 Bute Gardens, Glasgow, G12 8RS, UK, l.porter@lbss.gla.ac.uk)

  • Austin Barber

    (Austin Barber is in the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK, A.R.G.Barber@bham.ac.uk)

  • Chris D.F. Rogers

    (Chris D.F. Rogers is in the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK, c.d.f.rogers@bham.ac.uk)

Abstract

Despite the wide usage and popular appeal of the concept of sustainability in UK policy, it does not appear to have challenged the status quo in urban regeneration because policy is not leading in its conceptualisation and therefore implementation. This paper investigates how sustainability has been conceptualised in a case-based research study of the regeneration of Eastside in Birmingham, UK, through policy and other documents, and finds that conceptualisations of sustainability are fundamentally limited. The conceptualisation of sustainability operating within urban regeneration schemes should powerfully shape how they make manifest (or do not) the principles of sustainable development. Documents guide, but people implement regeneration— and the disparate conceptualisations of stakeholders demonstrate even less coherence than policy. The actions towards achieving sustainability have become a policy ‘fix’ in Eastside: a necessary feature of urban policy discourse that is limited to solutions within market-based constraints.

Suggested Citation

  • D. Rachel Lombardi & Libby Porter & Austin Barber & Chris D.F. Rogers, 2011. "Conceptualising Sustainability in UK Urban Regeneration: a Discursive Formation," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(2), pages 273-296, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:48:y:2011:i:2:p:273-296
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098009360690
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098009360690
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098009360690?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    2. Yvonne Rydin & Nancy Holman & Vicky Hands & Florian Sommer, 2003. "Incorporating sustainable development concerns into an urban regeneration project: how politics can defeat procedures," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(4), pages 545-561.
    3. Rowland Atkinson, 2004. "The evidence on the impact of gentrification: new lessons for the urban renaissance?," European Journal of Housing Policy, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 107-131.
    4. Xuemei Bai, 2007. "Integrating Global Environmental Concerns into Urban Management: The Scale and Readiness Arguments," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 11(2), pages 15-29, April.
    5. Bill Hopwood & Mary Mellor & Geoff O'Brien, 2005. "Sustainable development: mapping different approaches," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(1), pages 38-52.
    6. Patsy Healey, 1998. "Regulating property development and the capacity of the development industry," Journal of Property Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(3), pages 211-227, January.
    7. David Counsell, 1998. "Sustainable Development and Structure Plans in England and Wales: A Review of Current Practice," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(2), pages 177-194.
    8. Delyse Springett, 2003. "Business conceptions of sustainable development: a perspective from critical theory," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(2), pages 71-86, March.
    9. Rowland Atkinson, 2004. "The evidence on the impact of gentrification: new lessons for the urban renaissance?," International Journal of Housing Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 107-131.
    10. Marcus Lane & Geoff McDonald, 2005. "Community-based Environmental Planning: Operational Dilemmas, Planning Principles and Possible Remedies," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(5), pages 709-731.
    11. Tim Dixon, 2006. "Integrating Sustainability into Brownfield Regeneration: Rhetoric or Reality? -- An Analysis of the UK Development Industry," Journal of Property Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(3), pages 237-267, September.
    12. Jane S. Pollard, 2004. "From Industrial District to 'Urban Village'? Manufacturing, Money and Consumption in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 41(1), pages 173-193, January.
    13. Judith E. M. Klostermann & Jacqueline Cramer, 2006. "The contextual meaning of sustainable development: the case of the Dutch drinking water sector," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(4), pages 268-276.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tukker, Arnold & Ekins, Paul, 2019. "Concepts Fostering Resource Efficiency: A Trade-off Between Ambitions and Viability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 36-45.
    2. Nappi-Choulet, Ingrid & Décamps, Aurélien, 2011. "Is Sustainability Attractive for Corporate Real Estate Decisions ?," ESSEC Working Papers WP1106, ESSEC Research Center, ESSEC Business School.
    3. Fan Wu & Ling-Hin Li & Sue Yurim Han, 2018. "Social Sustainability and Redevelopment of Urban Villages in China: A Case Study of Guangzhou," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-18, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Higgins, Colin & Walker, Robyn, 2012. "Ethos, logos, pathos: Strategies of persuasion in social/environmental reports," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 194-208.
    2. Markus J. Milne & Helen Tregidga & Sara Walton, 2009. "Words not actions! The ideological role of sustainable development reporting," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 22(8), pages 1211-1257, October.
    3. Øyvind Ihlen, 2009. "The oxymoron of ‘sustainable oil production’: the case of the Norwegian oil industry," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 53-63, January.
    4. Alexandre Lapeyre & Annie Bonnefont, 2012. "Quelles sont les évocations du développement durable ?," Post-Print hal-03829652, HAL.
    5. Dawid Szostek, 2019. "The Impact of the Quality of Interpersonal Relationships between Employees on Counterproductive Work Behavior: A Study of Employees in Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-33, October.
    6. Ivan Turok, 2009. "The Distinctive City: Pitfalls in the Pursuit of Differential Advantage," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(1), pages 13-30, January.
    7. Sara Sousa, 2021. "Environmental Taxation in Portugal: A Contribution to Sustainability," Eurasian Studies in Business and Economics, in: Mehmet Huseyin Bilgin & Hakan Danis & Ender Demir & Sofia Vale (ed.), Eurasian Economic Perspectives, pages 369-382, Springer.
    8. Jari Lyytimäki & Ulla Rosenström, 2008. "Skeletons out of the closet: effectiveness of conceptual frameworks for communicating sustainable development indicators," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(5), pages 301-313.
    9. Bahadur Ali Soomro & Ikhtiar Ali Ghumro & Naimatullah Shah, 2020. "Green entrepreneurship inclination among the younger generation: An avenue towards a green economy," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(4), pages 585-594, July.
    10. Ozgur Isil & Michael T. Hernke, 2017. "The Triple Bottom Line: A Critical Review from a Transdisciplinary Perspective," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(8), pages 1235-1251, December.
    11. Philip Lawton & Michael Punch, 2014. "Urban Governance and the ‘European City’: Ideals and Realities in Dublin, Ireland," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 864-885, May.
    12. Lance Freeman, 2009. "Neighbourhood Diversity, Metropolitan Segregation and Gentrification: What Are the Links in the US?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 46(10), pages 2079-2101, September.
    13. Sophie Yarker, 2018. "Tangential attachments: Towards a more nuanced understanding of the impacts of cultural urban regeneration on local identities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(15), pages 3421-3436, November.
    14. Renia Ehrenfeucht & Marla Nelson, 2013. "Young Professionals as Ambivalent Change Agents in New Orleans after the 2005 Hurricanes," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(4), pages 825-841, March.
    15. Krystyna Kurowska & Renata Marks-Bielska & Stanisław Bielski & Audrius Aleknavičius & Cezary Kowalczyk, 2020. "Geographic Information Systems and the Sustainable Development of Rural Areas," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-18, December.
    16. Thorning, Daniel & Balch, Christopher & Essex, Stephen, 2019. "The delivery of mixed communities in the regeneration of urban waterfronts: An investigation of the comparative experience of Plymouth and Bristol," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 238-251.
    17. Xu, Jiuping & Li, Zongmin, 2012. "A review on Ecological Engineering based Engineering Management," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 368-378.
    18. Hans Lind & Anders Hellström, 2006. "Market Rents and Economic Segregation: Evidence From a Natural Experiment," European Journal of Housing Policy, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 6(2), pages 167-189, August.
    19. Lia Karsten, 2014. "From Yuppies to Yupps: Family Gentrifiers Consuming Spaces and Re-inventing Cities," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 105(2), pages 175-188, April.
    20. John Holmberg & Johan Larsson, 2018. "A Sustainability Lighthouse—Supporting Transition Leadership and Conversations on Desirable Futures," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-25, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:48:y:2011:i:2:p:273-296. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.